Fall 2012

After <em>Midnight&rsquo;s Children</em>: Gender, Genre and the Contemporary South Asian Novel

Faculty

Krupa Shandilya (Section 01)

Description

The publication of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children in 1981 produced a radical change in the way that gender and genre were tackled in the South Asian novel. Writers in the post-Rushdie era experimented with genres such as magical realism, the postcolonial science fiction thriller and the postmodern spy novel to re-imagine the nation’s construction of gendered subjects. This course looks at the intersection of gender and genre in the work of Rushdie himself, namely his Midnight’s Children and The Moor’s Last Sigh among others, as well as Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines and Calcutta Chromosome, and Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games, Red Earth and Pouring Rain. Through a close reading of the fiction of these writers, literary theory on genre and gender, as well as feminist theory we will examine a range of topics such as the mapping of woman onto nation, the transgendered cyborg body as citizen of the nation and the production of masculinity through state-sponsored violence among others. 

Limited to 15 students. Fall semester. Professor Shandilya.

WAGS 367 - L/D

Section 01
W 02:00 PM - 04:30 PM CLAR 100

Offerings

2024-25: Not offered
Other years: Offered in Fall 2012