Course Overview

This course introduces students to fictional and other cultural perspectives from the postcolonial world. This semester, we will focus on selected texts from postcolonial Asia. Our course will be structured around the concept of the nation--what Benedict Anderson has famously called "an imagined community." We will explore this concept by reading and discussing texts representing the complexities of imagined communities in locations such as Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam, the Philippines, and Tibet. We will ask: why should these ideas and texts matter to us now? Students are expected to attend regularly, to read with care and curiosity, and to bring an open mind to course assignments and class discussion. We will reflect on our previously held commonsense ideas and test them against our course readings. Please note that while this course extends some of the ideas that were developed in our section of Fiction I in Fall 2011, it is also designed to be coherent as a stand-alone course. No prior knowledge of postcolonial studies is required. Please note that the above details may be slightly adjusted as the instructor fine-tunes the syllabus.

Learning Achievement

Competence

Course prerequisites

Assignments: Attendance and participation 10% Group presentation 20% In-class writing exercise 20% Mid-term exam 25% Final exam 25% Total 100% The specific nature of these assignments will be discussed in the first week of classes. Please note again that these assignments may change as the instructor fine-tunes the syllabus.

Grading Philosophy

Course schedule

Course type

Online Course Requirement

Instructor

Guy Beauregard

Other information

*Majors-only (including minor and double major students).

(College of Liberal Arts) Department of Foreign Languages and Literature

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