COMP 350
Separation: An Introduction to Postcolonial Literature Spring 2023
Division I Difference, Power, and Equity
Cross-listed ENGL 352
This is not the current course catalog

Few themes in the history of human societies have produced as much writing as that of separation–from a lover, from one’s homeland, from God(s). In the past two centuries, this theme has been essential to representing experiences of exile and migration in the wake of the colonially mediated transition to world capitalism. In this course, we will take up the theme of separation as a privileged point of entry into postcolonial literature and towards understanding the multiple meanings of “postcoloniality.” We will encounter examples in which this theme shapes critical thought and helps imagine new modes of existence, as well as those in which the grief of separation shades into such overpowering melancholy that writing becomes impossible. We will also look at what the preoccupation with separation can tell us about the ways human beings relate to human and non-human objects, and how they make and experience history. To think through these issues, we will read nineteenth- and twentieth-century works dealing with experiences of love, ecstasy, migrancy, exile, and slavery, composed in diverse geographical, socio-political, and linguistic contexts. We will read works (novels, poems, memoirs, essays) from South Asia, the Middle East, the American continents, and Europe, many composed in English, and others translated into English (from Hindi, Urdu, Persian, French, Arabic, and German).