Ancients and Moderns: Africa and South Asia in World Literature

Catalog description

How might we make sense of culturally significant texts and text equivalents? We'll compare different answers to abiding human questions, such as: Where do we come from? Why do origins matter? What role do different media (written, spoken, otherwise performed, or visual) play in conveying a sense of the past from one generation to another? In what ways is our access to such cultural productions framed by colonial histories, with their discrepant experiences and perspectives? Readings include the Ramayana; the Bhagavad-Gita; Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart; and Chimamanda Adichie, `The headstrong historian'. This course is part of the Humanities Core sequence.