106-122 Colonial Fiction and Travel Writing

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Subject Description

This subject asks students to tackle critical questions through the reading of representative texts produced in the colonial period and the work of postcolonial critics engaged in the study of colonialism. These questions include: what was literature's relationship to Empire? Did fiction provide writers with a space for critical reflection besides serving to reinforce colonialist ideologies? What were these ideologies? What sorts of political, social and aesthetic concepts did travel writers use to portray their encounters with foreign landscapes and peoples and to what extent were their writings compatible with the notion of Empire? On completion of the subject students should be able to read and write critically about the representational structures used by colonial fiction and travel writers and be able to apply aspects of postcolonial criticism to the reading of colonial texts.

Assessment

Written work of 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

A subject reader will be available containing samples of travel writings and essays by postcolonial critics.

• E Bohmer, Empire Writings: An Anthology of Colonial Literature 1870-1918. Oxford.
• J Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Norton.
• E M Forster, The Life to Come and Other Stories. Penguin.
• R Kipling, Plain Tales from the Hills. Oxford.
• S Pritchard, Coonardoo. Harper-Collins.
• H G Wells, The Island of Dr Moreau.