FPF:FPFVA036 Introduction to African Writin - Course Information

FPFVA036 Introduction to African Writing in English

Extent and Intensity

0/1/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).

Teacher(s)

doc. PhDr. Michaela Weiss, Ph.D. (seminar tutor)

Guaranteed by

doc. PhDr. Michaela Weiss, Ph.D.
Faculty of Philosophy and Science in Opava

Course Enrolment Limitations

The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.

fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with

there are 22 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display

Course objectives

The aim of the course is to close-read and interpret path-breaking texts of those African writers who have helped define the field of African literature in English. The writers whose texts will be analyzed include Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Nadine Gordimer, and others. Each chapter outlines the life and work of a particular writer, focusing on the predominant motives and themes of their oeuvre. All texts will be discussed in the context of the writers' personal histories, always closely entwined with larger social, political and cultural structures of both colonial and post-colonial times. The course introduces writings representing various literary genres, including essays, poems, short stories, novels and plays. This approach will help the students to appreciate the complexity, variety and richness of African writing in English, as well as its evolution towards its now emancipated position within the vast filed of literature written in English.

Syllabus

• 1. Introduction: Conrad and the Colonial Representation of Africa
  2. Aimé Césaire; or Colonialism Exposed
  3. Frantz Fanon; or Blackness as a Curse
  4. Wole Soyinka; or Colonialism as Dramatic Incident
  5. Chinua Achebe; or the Image Inverted
  6. Amos Tutuola; or Interlanguage
  7. Tanure Ojaide; or Political Consciousness
  8. Buchi Emecheta; or African Motherhood
  9. Tsitsi Dangarembga; or Nervous Condition
  10. Ngugi wa Thiong'o; or the Struggle Betrayed
  11. Derek Walcott; or Poisoned Blood
  12. Nadine Gordimer; or Apartheid and its Aftermath

Literature

required literature
• Flannery O'Connor. Everything that Rises Must Converge. info
• Bernard Malamud. Idiots First. info
• Marianne Moore. Poetry. info
• T. S. Eliot. The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock. info
• William Faulkner. The Sound and The Fury. info
• Wallace Stevens. Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Blackbird. info

recommended literature
• Geraghty, Margret. The Five-Minute Writer. Oxford: HowtoBooks, 2009. info
• Creative Writing Studies: Practice, Research and Pedagogy. Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, 2008. info
• Morley, David. The Cambridge Introduction to Creative Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. info
• Bishop, Wendy, David Starkey. Keywords in Creative Writing. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2006. info
• Mills, Paul. The Routledge Creative Writing Coursebook. London: Routledge, 2006. info
• Paul, Dennis E. The Funbook of Creative Writing. Scottsdale: Remedia Publications, 2000. info

Language of instruction

English

Further comments (probably available only in Czech)

The course can also be completed outside the examination period.

Teacher's information

- 70% attendance in classes
- active participation in discussions
- critical essay of 2-3 pages debating a chosen text

• Enrolment Statistics (Summer 2019, recent)
  
• Permalink: https://is.slu.cz/course/fpf/summer2019/FPFVA036