Subalternity and RepresentationModule Details

Rationale

This course is essential to the programme as it enhances students’ knowledge and understanding of literature by exploring some vibrant examples of anglophone fiction from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which emerged from the sphere of influence of the former British Empire in India, Nigeria, Zimbabwe. Subalternity and Representation introduces and investigates postcolonial literary theory through close examination of the main critical debates that are at the core of Postcolonial studies. 
The supremacy of the British Empire in India and selected states of West and Southern Africa such as Nigeria and Zimbabwe respectively present a peculiar case of Anglophone fiction spanning from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The course is a knowledge base of historical underpinnings on the influence of the empire on the literature of Africa and representation.    
The aim of the course is to equip students with comprehensive knowledge and understanding of literature by analysing Anglophone writing in the twentieth century. The course will also introduce students to postcolonial theories through a wide range of texts.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course students will be expected to:
(i)    Analyse the relationship between subalternity and representation and the ways in which this relationship has been played out mainly in the domain of Africa and South Asia.
(ii)   Identify the historical and cultural contexts in which postcolonial texts are created.
(iii)  Examine the concept of power and its intimacy with questions of representation.
(iv)  Engage in a diversity of critical debates, which are pertinent to the study of postcolonial texts.
(v)   Demonstrate the relationship between critical theory and postcolonial fiction.