#a course

The A course comprises 8 1.5 hour seminars and is intended to provide a range of perspectives on some of the core debates, themes and issues shaping the study of world and postcolonial literatures in English. In each case the seminar will be led by a member of the Faculty of English with relevant expertise, in dialogue with one or more short presentations from students on aspects of the week’s topic. There is no assessed A course work, but students are asked to give at least one presentation on the course, and to attend all the seminars. You should read as much in the bibliography over the summer – certainly the primary literary texts listed in the seminar reading for each week. The allocation of presenters will be made at the meeting in week 0.

Week 1

Theories of World Literature I: What Is World Literature?...What Isn’t World Literature? (Graham Riach)

This seminar will consider what we mean when we say ‘world literature’, looking at models proposed by critics as Emily Apter, David Damrosch, the WReC collective, and others. The category of ‘world literature’ has been in constant evolution since Johan Wolfgang von Goethe popularised the term in the early 19th Century, and in this session we will explore some of the key debates in the field.

Primary:

+ David Damrosch, What is World Literature? 2003

+ ------ What Isn't World Literature, lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfOuOJ6b-qY

+ WReC (Warwick Research Collective), Combined and Uneven Development: Towards a New Theory of World Literature

+ Extracts from Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, Karl Marx and Friechrich Engels, Franco Moretti, Pascale Cassanova, Emily Apter and others.

Secondary:

+ David Damrosch, World Literature in a Postcanonical, Hypercanonical Age in Haun Saussay ed, Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization 2006 pp.43-53

+ Franco Moretti, Conjectures on World Literature, New Left Review 1 2000 54-68

+ Mariano Siskind, ‘The Globalization of the Novel and The Novelization of the Global: A Critique of World Literature’, Comparative Literature 62 (2010) 4: 336-60

Week 2

English in the world/Language beyond relativity (Peter McDonald)

Primary:

+ The Oxford English Dictionary (especially 1989 print edition and online, 2000-)

+ You should also read Sarah Ogilvie, Words of the World: A Global History of the Oxford English Dictionary (2012)

+ Florian Coulmas, Guardians of the Language (2016)

+ Perry Link’s short essay ‘The Mind: Less Puzzling in Chinese? (New York Review of Books, 30 June 2016), which is available via: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/06/30/the-mind-less-puzzling-in-chinese/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%20Krugman%20on%20King%20Als%20on%20Martin%20Cole%20on%20police&utm_content=NYR%20Krugman%20on%20King%20Als%20on%20Martin%20Cole%20on%20police+CID_9def725d3263b14fe6dce4894ed64907&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=The%20Mind%20in%20Chinese

Secondary:

+ Jacques Derrida, Monolingualism of the Other, or The Prosthesis of Origin, trans. Patrick Mensah, 1998 (French edition, 1996)

+ Charles Taylor, The Language Animal (2016)

Preparation

A (2 students: position papers, maximum 1000 words, on ONE of the following. Please ensure both topics are covered. Also bring along a handout with your key quotations—copies for the entire group) 1. Explain the significance of the epigraphs from Glissant and Khatibi for Derrida’s argument and analysis in Monolingualism. 2. Explain Taylor’s distinction between ‘designative-instrumental’ and ‘expressive-constitutive’ theories of language.

B (all remaining students: single-sided A4 handout—copies for the entire group) Browse the OED, especially using the online feature that allows you to group words by origin and/or region, and select ONE loanword from a non-European language. On one side of an A-4 sheet give an account of the word, explaining why you think it has particular significance in the long history of lexical borrowing that constitutes the English language and the shorter history of the linguistic relativity thesis

Week 3

The (Un)translatability of World Literature (Adriana X. Jacobs)

This seminar will examine the role of translation in the development of the category of world literature with a particular focus on the term “translatability.” We will consider how translation into “global” English has shaped contemporary understandings of translatability and how to reconcile these with the more recent turn to “untranslatability” in literary scholarship. To what extent are the parameters of world literature contingent on a translation economy that privileges certain languages, authors and texts over authors? What room is there in current configurations of world literature for works that “do not measure up to certain metrics of translational circulation” (Zaritt)?

Primary:

+ Emily Apter, Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatability (New York: Verso, 2013)

+ “To Translate,” in Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon, Barbara Cassin, ed., ed. and trans. Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, and Michael Wood (Princeton: Princeton UP, 2014): 1139- 1155. (read introduction online: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10097.html)

Secondary:

+ Antoine Berman, “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign,” trans. Lawrence Venuti, in The Translation Studies Reader, 3rd edition (New York/Abingdon: Routledge, 2012): 240-253.

+ Johannes Göransson, “‘Transgressive Circulation’: Translation and the Threat of Foreign Influence,” Cordite Poetry Review (November 1, 2016): www.cordite.org.au/essays/transgressive-circulation.

+ Ignacio Infante, “On The (Un)Translatability of Literary Form: Framing Contemporary Translational Literature,” Translation Review 95.1 (2016): 1-7

+ Lydia Liu, “The Problem of Language in Cross-Cultural Studies,” in Translingual Practice:Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900-1937 (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1995): 1-42

+ Ronit Ricci, “On the untranslatability of ‘translation’: Considerations from Java, Indonesia,” Translation Studies 3.3 (2010): 287-301.

+ Saul Zaritt, “‘The World Awaits Your Yiddish Word’: Jacob Glatstein and the Problem of World Literature,” Studies in American Jewish Literature (1981-) 34.2 (2015): 175-203.

Week 4

Literature and Performance of the Black Americas (Annie Castro)

In this seminar, we will engage with a variety of writings by Black authors across the Americas that emphasize issues of race, nationality, cultural heritage, and performance. This course will serve as an introduction into critical debates regarding the complex interchange of Afro-diasporic persons, ideas, and discourse across the Western Hemisphere. Please come prepared to share a short (approximately 200 words), informal written review of the assigned readings. This review, which is intended to aid group discussion, should place the assigned texts in conversation with one another, particularly in regards to their conceptualizations of race and culture in artistic expression.

Primary:

+ Erna Brodber, Louisiana (1997)

Secondary:

+ DeFrantz, Thomas and Anita Gonzalez, “Introduction.” In Black Performance Theory (2014)

+ Edwards, Brent Hayes. “Prologue,” “Variations on a Preface.” In The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (2003)

+ Harris, Wilson. “History, Fable, and Myth in the Caribbean and Guianas” (1970). In Caribbean Quarterly: The 60th Anniversary Edition (2008)

Week 5

Theories of World Literature II: Is World Literature Beautiful? (Graham Riach)

Traditional definitions of world literature are heavily based on the idea of universal cultural value. This seminar will consider some of the main issues in universalist conceptions of world literary value, particularly in relation to aesthetics, and the role of interpretive communities in dealing with distances in time, culture and language.

Primary:

+ Simon Gikandi, Slavery and the Culture of Taste (Princeton University Press, 2014)

+ Sianne Ngai, Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012)

Secondary:

+ Isobel Armstrong, The Radical Aesthetic (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000)

+ Bill Ashcroft, ‘Towards a Postcolonial Aesthetics’, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 51, 4 (2015), pp. 410-421

+ Elleke Boehmer, ‘A Postcolonial Aesthetic: Repeating Upon the Present’, in Janet Cristina Şandru Wilson and Sarah Lawson Welsh eds., Rerouting the Postcolonial: New Directions for the New Millennium (2010), pp. 170-181

+ Peter de Bolla, Art Matters (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)

+ Simon Gikandi, ‘Race and the Idea of the Aesthetic’, Michigan Quarterly Review, 40,2 (2001), pp.318–50.

+ Peter J. Kalliney, Commonwealth of Letters: British Literary Culture and the Emergence of Postcolonial Aesthetics (Oxford: OUP, 2013)

+ Catherine Noske, ‘A Postcolonial Aesthetic? An Interview with Robert Young’, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 50, 5, 609-621 (2014)

+ Rethinking Beauty, special issue of diacritics (32.1, Spring 2002)

Week 6

Cultural Memory and Reconciliation (Catherine Gilbert)

In this seminar, we will explore representations of conflict and its enduring impact in narratives from South Africa and Rwanda. In particular, we will consider questions surrounding the relationship between testimony and literature, how writers work to convey the complex nuances of trauma and memory, and the role of literature in remembrance and reconciliation.

Primary:

+ Achmat Dangor, Bitter Fruit (London: Atlantic Books, 2004 [2001]).

+ Jean Hatzfeld (ed), Into the Quick of Life. The Rwandan Genocide: The Survivors Speak (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2008).

+ Please also listen to: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, ‘The Danger of the Single Story’ (TED talk, 2009): https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en

Secondary:

+ Jean Hatzfeld (ed), Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak, translated by Linda Coverdale (New York: Picador, 2005). Esp. the chapters ‘In the shade of an acacia’, ‘Remorse and regrets’, ‘Bargaining for forgiveness’, and ‘Pardons’.

+ Madelaine Hron, ‘Gukora and Itsembatsemba: The "Ordinary Killers" in Jean Hatzfeld's Machete Season’, Research in African Literatures, 42.2 (2011), pp. 125-146.

+ Antjie Krog, Country of My Skull (London: Vintage, 1999 [1998]). Esp. Chapter 3, ‘Bereaved and Dumb, the High Southern Air Succumbs’, pp. 38-74.

+ Achille Mbembe, ‘African Modes of Self-Writing’, Public Culture, 14.1 (2002), pp. 239-273.

+ Ana Miller, ‘The Past in the Present: Personal and Collective Trauma in Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit’, Studies in the Novel, 40.1-2 (2008), pp. 146-160.

+ Zoe Norridge, Perceiving Pain in African Literature (London: Palgrave, 2012)

+ Richard Crownshaw, Jane Kilby and Antony Rowland (eds), The Future of Memory (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010). Esp. the introductions to each of the three sections on memory, testimony and trauma.

Week 7

Comics and Conflict: Witness, Testimony and World Literature? (Dominic Davies)

In this seminar we will explore the seemingly prevalent tendency of the use of comics –that is, sequential art that combines juxtaposed drawn and other images with the (hand)written word – to depict conflict zones in geo-historical areas as diverse as Palestine, Bosnia and Afghanistan. Why have comics, a highly mediated form that draws attention to the contingency of its own perspective, been used to document witness testimonies from war zones across the world? How do comics, constructed from a sophisticated architecture of borders and gutters, communicate these testimonies across national borders, perhaps even forging alternative kinds of ‘world literature’?

Primary:

+ Joe Sacco, Safe Area Goražde (2000), Palestine (2001)

+ Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, and Frederic Lemercier, The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders (2009)

Secondary:

+ Ayaka, Carolene, and Hague, Ian eds., Representing Multiculturalism in Comics and Graphic Novels (2015)

+ Chute, Hillary, ‘Comics as Literature? Reading Graphic Narrative’, PMLA 123.2, 45-65 (2008)

+ ——, Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form (2016)

+ Denson, Shane, Meyer, Christina, and Stein, Daniel eds., Transnational Perspectives on Graphic Narratives: Comics at the Crossroads (2014)

+ Hatfield, Charles, Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature (2005)

+ Mehta, Benita, and Mukherjee, Pia eds. Postcolonial Comics: Texts, Events, Identities (2015)

+ Mickwitz, Nina, Documentary Comics: Graphic Truth-telling in a Skeptical Age (2015)

+ Worden, Daniel ed. The Comics of Joe Sacco: Journalism in a Visual World (2015)

Week 8

World Poetry: A Case Study from India (Rosinka Chaudhuri)

Here, we will look episodically at the development of modern poetry in India in relation to the world; that is, we shall see how the world entered Indian poetry at the same time as it transformed poetry in the ‘West’. The very word for poet - ‘kavi’ - began to be redefined as the Sanskrit word came in contact with modernity in the nineteenth century, at the end of which we have the phenomenal figure of Tagore, who was perhaps the first ‘World Poet’ recognised as such from East to West. The decades of the 1960s-’80s - when Pablo Neruda was common currency and Arun Kolatkar sat at the Wayside Inn in Bombay - to present-day studies of multilinguality and the role of translation shall be explored to devise a notion of poetry in the world over time as it happened in India.

Primary:

+ Buddhadeva Bose, ‘Comparative Literature in India’, in Jadavpur Journal of Comparative Literature, Vol. 45; see http://jjcl.jdvu.ac.in/jjcl/upload/JJCL 45.pdf

+ Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, ‘The Emperor Has No Clothes,’ in Partial Reccall: Essays on Literature and Literary History (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2012)

+ Amit Chaudhuri, ‘Arun Kolatkar and the Tradition of Loitering,’ in Clearing A Space: Reflections on India, Literature and Culture (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2008).

Secondary:

+ Roland Barthes, ‘Is There Any Poetic Writing?’ in Annette Lavers and Colin Smith translated Writing Degree Zero (1953; New York: Hill and Wang, 1967).

+ Rosinka Chaudhuri, The Literary Thing: History, Poetry, and The Making of a Modern Cultural Sphere (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014).

+ Bhavya Tiwari, ‘Rabindranath Tagore’s Comparative World Literature,’ in Theo D’haen, David Damrosch and Djelal Kadir ed. The Routledge Companion to World Literature (London: Routledge, 2012).

+ Deborah Baker, A Blue Hand: The Beats in India (New York and Delhi: Penguin, 2008).

+ Laetitia Zechhini, Arun Kolatkar and Literary Modernism in India: Moving Lines (London: Bloomsbury, 2016)

Values, beliefs, traditions, thoughts and words are energies which are flexible but people use them rigidly as if they are made of steel, which is rigid.

Words in religious scriptures are written in context and are meant to be flexibly applied such that they lead to long-term increase in happiness.

In the process of being happy, you always have to be aware that the words which spread negativity in the mind, are not the words of God. You do not have to obey rules blindly if they are outdated or out of context, given your soul perspective of incarnation .

Insistence on ritual and tradition while praying are but wrong interpretations of scriptures done by people who do not understand complexity of religion and instead of evolving the writing in scriptures to create happiness in the present context , they choose to feel negative about their own life.

As a rule of thumb to remember, all rules given in scriptures of God hold true only when inner positive vibrations match with the words spoken irrespective of time, place or rituals.

Time and method do not matter while praying as much as positive feelings & peacefulness do ; as only feelings or energy movement connects the spirit to celestial realms.

 https://www.amazon.com/Course-Emotional-Management-Integrating-Happiness/dp/1977034454/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1520087136&sr=1-3&keywords=shiva+swati

Traditionally, rigidity was encouraged to prevent destruction of good values.  However, old walls solidified  more negative energy than goodness overtime as good values  were compromised for good reputation to be maintained on the exterior, which led to hypocrisy and deceit ruling the heart of the soul.