Third-Worldist Literature and Thought

Catalog description

This discussion-based course offers an introduction to Third-Worldist literature and thought, focusing on the shifting relationship between national liberation movements and leftist internationalist currents during the second half of the twentieth century. How did literature contribute to the formation of the Third World as a political project, and how did the political project of the Third World inform the writing of literature? We will approach these questions by examining how anticolonial revolutions prompted new understandings of the theory and practice of Marxism, and the relationship between aesthetics and politics. At the same time, we will pay attention to the role of conferences, print periodicals, and supranational organizations like the Afro-Asian Writers Association, as well as to the literary forms that mediated a powerful sense of solidarity between far-flung anticolonial actors. No particular knowledge of any language is required.