The South Asian Novel in English

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the South Asian novel in English as it evolved over the course of the last hundred years. What was once termed the "Indo-Anglian" novel rapidly developed following the Subcontinent's independence from Britain in 1947 and now constitutes an important and widely-read body of work, both in South Asia and globally. In this class we will read a series of well-known novels by South Asian authors at the center of most accounts of an Indo-Anglian canon. As we explore the development of this tradition, we will also pay close attention to the important social and cultural movements, events, and people in India during the century and to the diversity of contemporary Indian writing, including in the South Asian diaspora. Alternating offerings of the course attend to the anglophone novel in the Subcontinent proper (and Sri Lanka) and to diasporic writing, so the course may be repeated for up to 6 credit hours. Offered as ENGL 339 and WLIT 339 . Counts as a Understanding Global Perspectives course.