Postcolonial Literature Texts, Fall 2013

This fall I've been inspired by university instructors who have shared their course reading lists in order to exchange information and receive feedback. Following suit, the following is the course reading and film list for my fall (2013) upper-division postcolonial literature course which I am teaching for the third time -- if you have any suggestions, recommendations, or note any glaring or significant omissions, please let me know (there are so many additional texts I would love to add!).

The theoretical framework of postcolonialism continues to inform my approach to transnational studies. During the semester students analyze texts that describe the effects of the colonial experience in terms of geography, history, and culture and engage in conversations with cultural theorists, theologians, philosophers, and historians who are who are interested in a variety of questions regarding gender, ethnicity, class, postmodernism, and theories of transnationalism.

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 Films

• Buddha Bless America (dir. Wu, 1996)
• Black Girl (dir. Sembene, 1966)
• When the Mountains Tremble (dir. Sigel, Yates, 1983) 

Books

• Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness (Norton Critical Editions). New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005.
• Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. New York: Routledge, 2005.
• Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York.: Random House, 2008.
• Wu, Zhuoliu. Orphan of Asia. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. 
• Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 2008.
• Kincaid, Jamaica. The Autobiography of My Mother. New York: Plume, 1997.
• Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala. New York: Verso, 1984.  
• Satratapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.
• Kanafani, Ghassan. Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 1999.

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