ENG 228 - British Images

Students will read fiction, poetry, and drama set in Britain written by Black British, Asian, and postcolonial writers, and see the ways in which these writers have re-imagined the spaces of Britain and re-formed the English language to make these spaces of home. This course will counter traditional narratives of postcolonialism that figure the Empire as a force expanding outward from the British Isles and traditional narratives of British nationalism that center whiteness and Englishness. We’ll read writers like Monica Ali, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Bernadine Evaristo, and as well as selections from James Procter’s anthology Writing Black Britain, including theoretical and historical essays on immigration, postcolonialism, race in the UK, British national identity and the place of Black British, Asian British, and postcolonial literature in the canon. Diversity