Introduction to Indian and World Literatures

Course Coordinator and Team: Dr. Bhoomika Meiling (Coordinator) and Dr. Amit Singh

Email of course coordinator: bhoomika[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites: None

Aim: A literature course for undergraduate students should add to their understanding of the day-to-day realities they inhabit. The present course is geared towards this purpose. It includes writings from Caribbean, African, American, Australian, Polish, Japanese, French, South Asian, and other artistic, literary, and cultural traditions. The reading list spans different genres like poetry, prose, drama, songs, cinema, graphic novel, etc. in order to provide a holistic picture of world literature to the students. It is a representative list of modern writings (mostly post-World War II) that reflect on the complexities of life, powerfully as well as with an immense sense of humour. By the end of the course the students will have gained direct acquaintance with some representative 20th and 21st century authors/ poets/ artists. The course will also equip the students with techniques of textual analysis, and the strategies required in using literary texts to comprehend broader cultural, social, and political issues.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

• Introduction to World Literatures: Origin and Development of the Concept
• Introduction to Indian Literature: Evaluation and Critique of the Term
• Reading Contemporary World Poetry
• Reading Short Stories in the Framework of World Literature
• Reading Novel, Graphic Novel, Memoir and Drama with Discussions on Form in World Literature
• Literatures and Other Arts: Examining the Visual, the Lyrical and the Cinematic

Assessment Details

Reading List:

Poetry:

• Jayanta Mahapatra: “Hunger”
• Kamala Das: “Nani”
• Maya Angelou: “Still I Rise”
• Diane Burns: “Sure you can ask me a personal question”
• Langston Hughes: “I, Too, Sing America”
• Wole Soyinka: “Telephone Conversation”
• Wislawa Szymborska: “Monologue of a Dog”
• Nirendranath Chakrabarti: “Amalkanti”

Short Stories:

• Sandra Cisernos: “Barbie Q”
• Alka Saraogi: “Letter to Mrs D’Souza”
• Tillie Olsen: “I Stand Here Ironing”
• Shyam Selvadurai: “Pigs Can’t Fly”
• Anita Desai: “Games at Twilight”
• Gita Hariharan: “The Remains of the Feast”
• Ismat Chugtai: “The Homemaker”
• Kirat Babani: “My Amma”
• Nadine Gordimer: “Country Lovers”
• Munshi Premchand: “The Spell”

Memoir:

• Emmanuelle Laborit: Selections from The Cry of the Gull

Novel:

• Mulk Raj Anand: Untouchable

Play:

• Mahesh Dattani: Dance like a Man

Songs:

• Bob Marley: “Buffalo Soldier”
• Harry Belafonte: “Banana Boat Song”
• Brother Marvin: “Jahaji Bhai”

Film:

• Majid Majidi: The Color of Pardise
• Graphic Novel:
• Art Spiegelman: Maus I

ADDITIONAL REFERENCE:

• Damrosch, David. How to Read World Literature. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
• ---. Meetings of the Mind. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000.
• Ferguson, Margaret, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. Ed. The Norton Anthology of Poetry- V Edition. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.
• Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna. History of Indian Literature in English. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.
• Prendergast, Christopher. Ed. Debating World Literature. New York: Verso, 2004.