TRANSNATIONAL ENGLISH

Knowledge and Understanding: the course of Transnational English will allow students to gain an adequate knowledge of contemporary Anglo-American literature and its projection to global and cross-border contexts.

Applying Knowledge and Understanding: through lectures and guided readings, students will be able to approach the main texts of Angloamerican literature, from its beginnings up to nowadays, by combining their literary knowledge with historical and cultural notions.

Making Judgement: thanks to class readings and discussion students will be able to independently apply their skills and knowledge to the reading and comprehension of literary texts.

Communication Skills: approaching the texts in their original form, students will be able to convey effectively what they have learned during the course and its side-activities.

Learning Skills: students will develop autonomous learning skills through class and lab work. That will improve their approach to learning, and it will be a useful skill in their future jobs

Analysis and active reading of critical and literary texts of contemporary angloamerican literature and and angloamerican culture, aming at exploring the creative contribution and the intellectual position of anglophone authors of asiatic, caraibic, african descent. The course aims at problematizing and fostering an indepth critique of these texts, along with with the analysis of their modes of production, circulation and reception.

Lectures, Reading and team work. Should teaching be carried out in mixed mode or remotely, it may be necessary to introduce changes with respect to previous statements, in line with the programme planned and outlined in the syllabus.

Learning assessment may also be carried out on line, should the conditions require it.

Reading and analysis of both literary and critical texts pertaining to Angloamerican Culture and literature as seen from a transnational perspective.

Textbooks

Paul Jay - Transnational Literature. The Basics Series. NY: Routledge, 2021. Part I & II (only the pages on Lahiri, Hamid, Adichie, Ghosh, Akhtar).

Further theoretical and critical readings will be provided during the course (also uploaded on Teams) and made availabe on STUDIUM.

Literary texts :

1. Ayad Akhtar, Disgraced, London : Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021 (2018) (drama)

2. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Thing around Your Neck, London : Fourth Estate, 2009 (stories)

3. Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide, Boston, Mass. : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005 (novel)

4. Mohsin Hamid, Exit West. London: Penguin Books, 2018. (novel)

5. Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies. Boston : Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999 (stories)