World Literatures in English

The course deals with World Literatures in English from the 1960´s to the present. It comprises the critical study of a selection of representative literary works from countries and geographical entities that have been profoundly influenced by the complex processes of Colonialism and Post-Colonialism, such as Australia, India, the Caribbean, New Zeeland, Canada etc. These texts are analysed in the light of contemporary literary and cultural theories, particularly those that specifically elucidate experiences relating to hybridity, liminality, transculturality and paradigms of personal, political and cultural identities. In the course, the Colonial experience as a social, historical and global phenomenon serves as a central concept and starting point from which to explore the literature produced in such regions and how it engages with notions such as violence, freedom, collective and individual trauma, nostalgia, and definitions of national identities. The students familiarize themselves with some of the ways in which such literature has interrogated the complexity of the colonial experience and reflects contemporary questions relating to the weakening of national boundaries in an increasingly globalised age. They also become aware of ways in which such literary texts have been debated in scholarly criticism over the last few decades.