English 155C - Spring, 2013

20th Century British Novel

Class Information

Instructor: McMann, Mindi
CRN: 62583
Time: TR 9:00-10:20
Location: 217 Olson

Description

What is “British” after Empire?

Since 1900, the collapse of the British Empire has added a new twist to the ongoing puzzle of how to define the peoples of Great Britain. In empire's aftermath, some have embraced the idea of national identity (an unchanging “spirit” of the British “race”), while others think of identity as historical (forged out of the contact between the British and their colonial “Others”). Both views confront changing demographics as immigrants from former colonies arrive in the British Isles. In this course, we will explore how the end of empire revises the British “race,” and how the concept of race itself is historically and culturally situated. Further, we will also see how imperial history itself gets revised with decolonization. The notion of conquering the world changed over the course of the century, and this altered how Britons thought of themselves. Literature helps us to understand this process by providing multiple perspectives on Britain, highlighting key themes, and redefining ‘British’ again and again as conditions change. To capture this redefinition, throughout the semester we will be looking at pairs of texts from the first and second halves of the century.

Grading

3 VSP (Very Short Papers) 10% each
Long Paper 25%
Midterm 15%
Final 20%
Participation 10%

Texts

The Butcher Boy, Pat McCabe
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
The Intended, David Dabydeen
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
The Lonely Londoners, Sam Selvon
Passage to India, E.M. Forster
The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi
The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene