AFRS 277 - Crossings: Literature without Borders

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2017/18a: Victorian Revenants in Contemporary Caribbean Literature: Cultures in Dialogue. The ongoing multidisciplinary dialogue between Caribbean literature and Victorian culture has been one of the most dynamic catalysts for the development of the novel in the region. The course examines a number of trans-Atlantic/Caribbean interchanges that include the exploration of the ghost story in M. R. James (Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, 1904) and Edgar Mittelholzer (My Bones and My Flute, 1955); the critique of Kew Gardens and its biota exchanges in Jamaica Kincaid (My Garden Book, 1999); the re-writing of British canonical texts in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) and Caryl Phillips’ The Lost Child (2015); Florence Nightingale, the Crimean War and the Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (1857); the Morant Bay rebellion (1865) and the Eyre Affair (1866) seen through H.G.  de Lisser’s Revenge (1918) and V. S. Reid’s New Day (1949); British iconography (postage stamps and the Union Jack) in Derek Walcott’s Omeros (1992) and Austin Clarke’s Growing Up Stupid under the Union Jack (1980); and Michelle Cliff’s  reversing of Marlow’s journey in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) in Into the Interior (2010). Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert.