English 190

Book List

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi: Americanah; Chandra, Vikram: Love and Longing in Bombay; Cole, Teju: Open City; Mpe, Phaswane: Welcome to our Hillbrow; Smith, Zadie: NW;

Recommended: O'Neill, Joseph: Netherland; Vladislavic, Ivan: Portrait with Keys

Other Readings and Media

Selections from: Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Harlem is Nowhere; Colin Channer (ed.) Kingston Noir.

Course Reader with essays by Baudelaire, Benjamin, Fanon, Baldwin, Michel de Certeau, Stuart Hall, Jose Munoz, Chris Abani, amongst others.

Film and Television: Raoul Peck, dir., Lumumba, la mort d'un prophète; Mira Nair, dir., Salaam Bombay; David Simon, exec. prod., The Wire and Treme [selected episodes]; Bregtje van de Haak, dir., Lagos/Koolhaas.

Description

In this seminar we will explore recent issues in postcolonial studies by focusing on cities. Moving through a diverse set of texts and very different cities—London and Lagos, Kingston and Mumbai, New York and Johannesburg, New Orleans among them—we will wonder: What makes a city postcolonial? For that matter, what makes a text postcolonial? Are there postcolonial ways to experience a city? What subjective experiences, and what narrative or aesthetic modes to describe them, emerge out of the urban postcolonial? In what sense might the United States be considered postcolonial?

You'll write weekly response papers and work up to a final research project on a Bay Area city and text of your choice.

Plese read the paragraph about English 190 on page 2 of the instructions area of this Announcement of Classes for more details about enrolling in or wait-listing for this course.