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AustLit

Post-Colonial Literature (ENGL2018)
Semester 1 / 2011

Texts

y separately published work icon Remembering Babylon David Malouf , London Milsons Point : Chatto and Windus Random House , 1993 Z452447 1993 single work novel historical fiction (taught in 48 units)

'In the mid-1840s, a thirteen-year-old boy, Gemmy Fairley, is cast ashore in the far north of Australia and taken in by Aborigines. Sixteen years later, when settlers reach the area, he moves back into the world of Europeans, men and women who are staking out their small patch of home in an alien place, hopeful and yet terrified of what it might do to them.

Given shelter by the McIvors, the family of the children who originally made contact with him, Gemmy seems at first to be guaranteed a secure role in the settlement, but there are currents of fear and mistrust in the air. To everyone he meets - from George Abbot, the romantically aspiring young teacher, to Mr Frazer, the minister, whose days are spent with Gemmy recording the local flora; from Janet McIvor, just coming to adulthood and discovering new versions of the world, to the eccentric Governor of Queensland himself - Gemmy stands as a different kind of challenge, as a force which both fascinates and repels. And Gemmy himself finds his own whiteness as unsettling in this new world as the knowledge he brings with him of the savage, the Aboriginal.' - Publisher's blurb (Chatto & Windus, 1993).

The Moor's Last Sigh!$!Salman Rushdie!$! !$!Vintage!$!
Distant Shore!$!Phillips!$! !$!Random House!$!
Disgrace!$!J.M Coetzee!$! !$!Vintage!$!2000
Nervous Conditions!$!Dangarembga!$! !$!Lynne Rienner!$!2008

Description

An introduction to creative writing and performance in English from countries formerly colonised by Britain. The course explores recent cultural productions including literature, film and popular culture, within the context of local histories, politics and cultural patterns, and their relations and reactions to colonial and neo-colonial forces. Students will also be introduced to recent theoretical approaches to understanding postcoloniality, and will gain a better insight into how these issues relate to Australia's own history of colonialism. The countries or regions to be examined in some depth may vary from year to year; the conception of the unit will not, however, be affected by such variations.

Assessment

One 1,500 word essay and either a final two-hour examination or a 2,000-word essay.

Supplementary Texts

Childs and Williams, An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory

Other Details

Levels: Undergraduate
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