Snehal Shingavi

Instructor:  Shingavi, S            Areas:  V / G

Unique #:  35570            Flags:  Global Cultures

Semester:  Spring 2013            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  AAS 320, ANS 361            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: Two important historical trends have marked the development and recognition of “Indian literature” as a global (rather than a strictly national) phenomenon. First, the patterns of migration of South Asians since the beginning of the Raj moved Indians to various parts of the British Empire and created a network of ambassadors and webs of affiliation throughout the world for South Asian culture; the fact of colonial schools which produced English-speaking Indians is not incidental. Second, the celebrity of Rushdie as the premiere Indian writer helped to produce a niche market within the publishing world for books about and by South Asians (usually represented by the big, national novel). To this must also be added the contemporary rise of India as a leading world economy which has raised the demand for and curiosity about Indian culture within the global marketplace. This course will investigate the production of a “global Indian literature” – paradoxically cosmopolitan and national – as made up of the intersecting experiences of Indians outside of India and the demands of the literary market (international publishing houses and the big literary prizes). All of the writers that we will consider have won major national and international prizes (the Nobel, Man Booker, Commonwealth Writers, Pulitzer, etc.), and this will allow to think about what kinds of issues, what kinds of histories, and what kinds of forms tend to predominate in this body of writing.

Texts: Tagore, Home and the World; Rushdie, Satanic Verses; Roy, The God of Small Things; Mistry, A Fine Balance; Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies; Naipaul, A Bend in the River; Chatterjee, The Mammaries of the Welfare State; Ghosh, Sea of Poppies; Seth, Golden Gate; Desai, In Custody.

Requirements & Grading: Weekly blog posts, 250 words (20%); Midterm (20%); Final (30%); Paper, 6-7 pages (20%); Participation (10%).

Instructor:  Shingavi, S            Areas:  V / G

Unique #:  35550            Flags:  Global cultures

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  AAS 320, ANS 361, ISL 372            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

Description: This class will consider how fiction from the post-9/11 era (widely called the “Global War on Terror”) has produced a particular vision of Islam and Muslims that both reproduces and challenges the ideology of Islamophobia and refines and critiques prior understandings of Muslims. We will be interested in thinking about the deployment of Islam in political rhetoric; depictions of Islam and Muslims in popular culture; debates about Islam that have entered national life in the US; and novelistic representations of Islam over the last decade.  We will be particularly interested in understanding how ideas about religion intersect but do not overlap with ideas about race, and how the question of opportunities for Muslim women has become a contemporary preoccupation.

Texts: Readings will include: Edward Said’s Covering Islam; Junaid Rana’s Terrifying Muslims; Fawzia Afzal-Khan; John Updike; Martin Amis; Mohsin Hamid.

Requirements & Grading: Midterm exam – 25%; Final exam – 30%; Course blog (250 words weekly) – 15%; Short research essays (4, 2 pages each) – 20%; Participation – 10%.

Cross-listed with AAS 320; ANS 361

Course Description: Two important historical trends have marked the development and recognition of “Indian literature” as a global (rather than a strictly national) phenomenon. First, the patterns of migration of South Asians since the beginning of the Raj moved Indians to various parts of the British Empire and created a network of ambassadors and webs of affiliation throughout the world for South Asian culture; the fact of colonial schools which produced English-speaking Indians is not incidental. Second, the celebrity of Rushdie as the premiere Indian writer helped to produce a niche market within the publishing world for books about and by South Asians (usually represented by the big, national novel). To this must also be added the contemporary rise of India as a leading world economy which has raised the demand for and curiosity about Indian culture within the global marketplace. This course will investigate the production of a “global Indian literature” – paradoxically cosmopolitan and national – as made up of the intersecting experiences of Indians outside of India and the demands of the literary market (international publishing houses and the big literary prizes). All of the writers that we will consider have won major national and international prizes (the Nobel, Man Booker, Commonwealth Writers, Pulitzer, etc.), and this will allow to think about what kinds of issues, what kinds of histories, and what kinds of forms tend to predominate in this body of writing.

Texts: Tagore, Home and the World; Rushdie, Satanic Verses; Roy, The God of Small Things; Mistry, A Fine Balance; Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies; Naipaul, A Bend in the River; Chatterjee, The Mammaries of the Welfare State; Ghosh, Sea of Poppies; Seth, Golden Gate; Desai, In Custody.

Grading: Weekly blog posts, 250 words (20%); Midterm (20%); Final (30%); Paper, 6-7 pages (20%); Participation (10%).

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.