English 391 - Modern South Asian Writers in English

Ambreen Hai

Th 3-4:50

Mehndi, saris, chicken tikka masala, arranged marriages, Bend It Like Bekham , Monsoon Wedding , Jhumpa Lahiri, Salman Rushdie, sitar music, indochic: these words evoke some of the popular images of—and excitement about--South Asian culture and cultural production that have recently become prevalent in the U.S. Perhaps because of the growing numbers of South Asian Americans--and recent immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka—American publishers and readers have also become interested in (and helped foster) the surge of South Asian literature and film in the last ten years, that include not only those named above, but also numerous others, including popular teen-age novels with titles like Born Confused . Even Rushdie, the doyen of Indian literature in English, has now moved to New York, and begun to write novels about Indians in America. But not all are aware that there is a considerable tradition of Indian literature in English, born out of India’s history of British colonialism, that underlies and charges these recent writings, films and movements.

This seminar will study some of the key issues, trends, and texts in South Asian postcolonial literature in English from its early beginnings to the present. Proceeding chronologically, we will begin with a brief selection of three very different early writers: Sarojini Naidu, the "Nightingale of India", whose poetry was at once considered imitative and pioneeringly nationalist; G.V. Desani, whose raucously hybrid discourse paved the way for Rushdie; and Nirad Chaudhuri, whose decorous autobiography fashioned a new but arguably limited colonial self. We'll move on to post-independence writers--middle class men and women--whose writing may not have been formally innovative but who sought urgently to voice the concerns of the bourgeois intellectual in an environment of poverty and prejudice (Mulk Raj Anand, Kamala Markandaya) or who sought to craft Indianness through English (R. K. Narayan).

We'll spend more time on that key next generation, Anita Desai, V. S. Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie, himself a turning point in this literary history, whose innovative work transformed the worldwide reception and production of South Asian and postcolonial literature. And finally, we'll consider what has been the legacy of Rushdie, and what new directions this literature is taking with writers and film-makers like Vikram Chandra, Pankaj Mishra, and Deepa Mehta who increasingly live between India and America. What unites “South Asian English” literature as increasingly diasporic South Asian writers negotiate the thorny dilemmas of cultural identity in contexts and societies that range from Fiji, South Africa and Britain to Canada or the U.S.?

Topics will include: the nationalist and (post)colonial fashioning of individual and collective identities; the crafting of a new idiom in English in response to both political and literary histories; the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class and nation; the roles and interventions of women in nationalist discourse; the significance of choices of genre and form (fiction, poetry, memoir, film); the problems of memory, historiography, trauma; diaspora and the making of "home".  

Readings: Writers will include: Anand, Narayan, Naipaul, Desai, Rushdie, Suleri, Selvadurai, Kureishi, Lahiri. There will also be some supplementary essays, and if time permits, some films.

Pre-requisites : Permission of the instructor. This seminar is open to majors and non-majors who have taken at least one 200-level prior course in modern, colonial or postcolonial literature (e.g. African or Caribbean). It is not a good idea for anyone who has never taken a literature course but has “been to India;” but on the other hand, as any other upper level course, it is appropriate for those who have acquired some basic skills in literary reading and analysis.

Course requirements: six biweekly response papers (1-2 pages), one midterm paper (5-7 pages), one final research paper (12-15 pages), regular attendance and active class participation. Students will also be expected to give two short oral presentations. In one presentation they will introduce one of the writers, relevant historical/social contexts, key issues, and continuities with other texts we have read. In the final presentation they will discuss their research and ideas for their final papers, which will require some reading and assessment of other critics.

PLEASE NOTE: PERMISSION OF THE INSTRUCTOR IS REQUIRED BEFORE YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR THIS COURSE. IN ORDER TO BE ADMITTED, YOU MUST FILL OUT THE APPLICATION FORM FOR THIS SEMINAR, AVAILABLE IN THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OFFICE IN PIERCE HALL.