Counter-Imperialism and Asian-African Literatures

COMPLIT 171 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The first Asia-Africa conference of newly independent states (held in Indonesia in 1955) was hailed by contemporary observers as an event as significant as the European renaissance in global importance. It inspired a sequence of political and cultural initiatives in pursuit of new forms of cultural exchange unmediated by former colonial centers. This course explores the historic tensions of this transition towards a post-colonial global order across two continents. The course raises the following questions: how did anti-colonial African and Asian authors and political figures consider the fields of culture and literature as an extension of their political engagements? How were literature and culture viewed as advancing forms of revolutionary change, or addressing entrenched social grievances? How did writers reconcile the ambiguities of national independence with the risks of neo-colonial or ethno-nationalist exploitations?  The course will introduce you to a diversity of authors to explore these questions, engaging with counter-imperial and revolutionary writing from African and Caribbean contexts, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.