ENGL 389 - Made in Britain: Black British Literature
The course focuses on texts by black British writers and examines the contested notions of Literature and Britishness in their works. "Black" is used in its most restricted sense to refer to people of color who have maintained a continuous presence on the British Isles as a consequence of colonization. To weave through history, is therefore, central to understanding Black British writing. The course also encourages students to study how the Black British experience is complicated by, among other things, the Diaspora, displacement, race, gender and sexuality, and uncertain positions of nationhood. In addition, the texts will reveal the evolution of British Literature which is no longer confined within a narrow white space.
Required Texts
Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children. 1981.
Sam Selvon, The Lonely Londoners. 1979.
Zadie Smith, White Teeth. 2000.
Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia. 1993.
Caryl Philips. A Distant Shore. 2003.
Films
Dirty Pretty Things. 2002. (97 minutes). Written by Steven Knight. Directed by Stephen Frears.
Bhaji on the Beach. 1993. (101 minutes). Written by Meera Syal & Gurinder Chadha. Directed by Gurinder Chadha.
East is East. 1999. (96 minutes). Written by Ayub Khan-Din. Directed by Damien O'Donnell.
Online Articles
Black British Literature since Windrush by Onyekachi Wambu
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/societyculture/multicultural/literature01.shtml
The new empire within Britain by Salman Rushdie http://www.english.ccsu.edu/hegglund/206/rushdie_empire.htm