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2022/2023

Transnational Literatures and Cultures

Code: 44712 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
4313157 Advanced English Studies OT 0 1

Contact

Name:
Felicity Hand Cranhan
Email:
felicity.hand@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
english (eng)

Prerequisites

There are no prior course requirements but it is advisable for students who wish to take this course to have some basic knowledge of postcolonial theory.

Objectives and Contextualisation

Objectives and Contextualisation


The aims of the course are to provide students with the necessary skills

  • to understand and analyze postcolonial and transnational  literatures in English
  • to debate the main theories in the field
  • to relate postcolonial studies with other disciplines in English studies
  • to produce critical papers on postcolonial texts

Competences

  • Analyse and synthesise information at an advanced level.
  • Analyse the relationship between factors, processes or phenomena in the acquisition of English as a second language, its learning and teaching methods, and its literature, history and culture.
  • Apply methodological knowledge of statistical analysis and data generation, treatment and codification of multilingual databases, analysis of literary texts, etc. to research.
  • Communicate the knowledge acquired and the contributions of one's research correctly, accurately and clearly both orally and in writing.
  • Critically argue, issue judgements and present ideas on the basis of the analysis of information originating from scientific production in these areas.
  • Develop autonomous learning skills applicable to the research process.
  • Distinguish and contrast between the different methodological and theoretical models applied to the academic study of the acquisition, teaching and use of English as a second language in multilingual and multicultural contexts, literary studies and cultural studies.
  • Show respect towards the opinions, values, behaviours and/or practices of others.
  • Use the English language for academic and professional purposes related to research into the acquisition, teaching and use of English as a second language in multilingual and multicultural contexts, literary studies and cultural studies.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analyse and interpret at an advanced level literary postcolonial and transnational texts learning to distinguish their specificities.
  2. Analyse and interpret at an advanced level scientifically produced texts on postcolonial and transnational literature, extracting relevant citations and making content summaries.
  3. Analyse and synthesise information at an advanced level.
  4. Communicate the knowledge acquired and the contributions of one's research correctly, accurately and clearly both orally and in writing.
  5. Develop autonomous learning skills applicable to the research process.
  6. Distinguish and contrast the different theoretical and methodological models applied to the academic study of postcolonial and transnational literature.
  7. Make oral presentations in English about subjects and texts related to advanced research into postcolonial and transnational literature.
  8. Read and analyse post-colonialand transnational texts in the English language.
  9. Show respect towards the opinions, values, behaviours and/or practices of others.
  10. Write texts defending an idea in relation to a literary text from postcolonial and transnational literature applying secondary sources to the critical argumentation.

Content

The following texts will be discussed in detail from various perspectives including gender, ethnicity, class, ageing and the environment. Other disciplines such as history, politics, anthropology and diaspora studies will also be drawn on.


Abdulrazak Gurnah, Gravel Heart, Bloomsbury, 2017 - Zanzibar-UK

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland, Bloomsbury, 2013 - India-USA

Nnedi Okorafor, Lagoon,  Hodder, 2014 - Nigeria

Mike van Graan, Green Man Flashing, Junkets Publisher, [2006] 2010 - South Africa 

The short stories, poems, van Graan's play and some critical articles that will be discussed will be posted on moodle

Methodology

Close readings of the novels, play, poems, short stories and class discussions centred on particular theoretical issues or cultural aspects.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Theory classes 50 2 2, 1, 3, 9, 6, 8
Type: Supervised      
Paper 15 0.6 2, 1, 4, 6, 10
Type: Autonomous      
Private study 40 1.6 3, 5, 6, 8

Assessment

Students are required to participate in class discussions on a regular basis.  Students will be asked to keep a "Reflective Journal" throughout the course which will
have to be submitted to the teacher halfway through the semester (9th November) and at the end alongside the Final Paper (deadline 9th Janaury 2023). The "Reflective Journal" grants students a space whereby they can reflect upon issues raised by the texts under discussion in a subjective manner.


The final paper consists of a 2,500 word paper (approximately 10 pages) with at least 5 valid, academic secondary sources. Students are required to submit a proposal first.
This proposal must include the following: provisional title, 150-word abstract, bibliography with five items). The proposal should be submitted by 30th November. Students are encouraged to write their final paper on their class presentation.


In order to pass the subject, students must hand in all the written exercises (including the Reflective Journal), do the classroom presentation and participate in class discussions.

The assessment is based on the following:

  • Short essay 20%
  • Class discussions and presentation 20%
  • Reflective journal 20%
  • Final paper 40%


On carrying out each assessment activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.


Students will obtain a Not assessed/Not submitted course grade unless they have submitted more than 25% of the assessment items.


Re-assessment for this subject will be undertaken on an item-by-item basis, for which the following conditions are applicable:

 

  • The student must previously have submitted a minimum of two-thirds of the course-assessment items, i.e. the essay and the final paper.
  • The short esssay and the final paper may be re-assessed provided that 70% of the assessment items have been successfully completed.
  • The class discussions, the presentation and the reflective journal are not eligible for re-assessment.
  • The maximum grade for re-assessed items is 5.
  • The definitive grade awarded for a re-assessed item will be that obtained at re-assessment, even if this is lower than the original grade obtained.
    If the student fails the re-assessed item or items in question, the subject may still be passed provided that their average overall grade is equal to or higher than 5.


VERY IMPORTANT
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Class discussions and presentation of a topic 20% 20 0.8 3, 4, 9, 7
Final paper 40% 15 0.6 2, 1, 3, 9, 5, 6, 10
Reflective Journal 20% 5 0.2 9, 5, 8
Short essay 20% 5 0.2 1, 3, 6, 8

Bibliography

Printed Sources

 

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies.
London and New York: Routledge, 1998.

Bhabha, Homi K.. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.

Boehmer, Elleke. Colonial & Postcolonial Literature. Oxford University Press, 1995.

Chapman, Michael & Margaret Lenta (eds). SA Lit. Beyond 2000. Durban: University of
KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2011.

DeLoughrey, Elizabeth & George B. Handley. Postcolonial Ecologies.Literatures of the
Environment. Oxford University Press, 2011.

Dyer, Richard, White. London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skins, White Masks. 1952. Trans. Contance Farrington. New York:
Grove Press 1998.

Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth. 1961. Trans. Charles Larn Markmann.
London: Penguin Books, 1990.

Gilroy, Paul. After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture, London: Routledge, 2004.

Hand, Felicity, “Becoming Foreign: Tropes of Migrant Identity in Three Novels by Abdulrazak Gurnah”,  Metaphor and Diaspora in Contemporary Writing, Ed. Jonathan P. Sell.  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp 39-58.

Hand, Felicity, “Searching For New Scripts: Gender Roles in Memory of Departure”, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, Vol 56, Nº 2, 2015, pp 223-240. https://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2014.884991

Huggan, Graham & Helen Tiffin, Postcolonial Ecocriticism. Literature, Animals,
Environment, London: Routledge, 2010.

Jue, Melody, "Intimate Objectivity: On Nnedi Okorafor's Oceanic Afrofuturism", Women's Studies Quarterly , Spring/Summer 2017, Vol. 45, No. 1/2, pp. 171-188. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44474120

Malak, Amin. Muslim Narratives and the Discourse of English. Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2005.

Mbembe, Achille. On the Postcolony. Berkeley and London: University of California
Press, 2001.

Mishra, Vijay, The Literature of the Indian Diaspora. Theorizing the Diasporic Imaginary,
Routledge, 2007.

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres, eds. Third World Women
and the Politics of Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Nadiminti, Kalyan, "'A Betrayal of Everything': The Law of the Family in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland", Journal of Asian American Studies, Volume 21, Number 2, June 2018, pp.
239-262, https://doi.org/10.1353/jaas.2018.0014

Nash, Geoffrey. Writing Muslim Identity. London: Continuum, 2012.

Ngugi, Mukoma wa, The Rise of the African Novel. Politics of Language, Identity, and Ownership, UP Michigan, 2018.

Nixon, Rob, Slow Violence. The Environmentalism of the Poor, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2013.

Oliva, Juan Ignacio & Esther Pujolràs-Noguer (eds),  Revista canaria de estudios ingleses. Special Issue on Indian Ocean Imaginaries, Vol. 82, 2021. https://riull.ull.es/xmlui/handle/915/22454

Ramsey-Kurz, Helga & Geeta Ganapathy-Doré (eds). Projections of Paradise. Ideal
Elsewheres in Postcolonial Migrant Literature. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011.

Rushdie, Salman. Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. Granta,
1991.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. 1978.  Penguin Books, 1998 [1978].


Said, Edward, Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Said, Edward, Reflections on Exile and Other Literary and Culturals Essays. New Dehli:
Penguin Books, 2001.

Schwarz, Bill. The White Man's World, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.

Spivak, Gayatri. The Post-Colonial Critic, ed. Sarah Harasym. London: Routledge, 1990.

Thiongo, Ngugi wa', Decolonizing the Mind. The Politics of Language in African
Literature. London: Heinemann, 1986.

Williams, Patrick & Laura Chrisman (eds). Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory,
Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993.

Womack, Ytasha L. Afrofuturism. The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture, Lawrence Hill Books, 2013.

Young, Robert. Colonial Desire. Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race, Routledge, 1995.

 

Websites

Jhumpa Lahiri  https://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/jhumpalahiri/

Nnedi Okorafor  https://nnedi.com/

Ratnakara. Indian Ocean Literatures and Cultures   https://ratnakara.org/

South African History Online  https://www.sahistory.org.za/

Mike van Graan  https://mikevangraan.co.za/

 

Software

No specific programme will be used in this subject