Unit ENGLISH LITERATURE POSTCOLONIAL
- Course
- Languages, comparative literatures and intercultural translation
- Study-unit Code
- GP005156
- Curriculum
- Lingue e letterature
- Teacher
- Francesca Montesperelli
- Teachers
-
- Francesca Montesperelli
- Hours
- 36 ore - Francesca Montesperelli
- CFU
- 6
- Course Regulation
- Coorte 2020
- Offered
- 2021/22
- Learning activities
- Caratterizzante
- Area
- Lingue e letterature moderne
- Academic discipline
- L-LIN/10
- Type of study-unit
- Opzionale (Optional)
- Type of learning activities
- Attività formativa monodisciplinare
- Language of instruction
- Italian
- Contents
- Creolization and multiculturalism in Zadie Smith’s "White Teeth".
- Reference texts
- Z. Smith, "White Teeth".
- Educational objectives
- This teaching aims to provide a basic knowledge of the English post-colonial literature, and in particular of the Caribbean literary production, through the reading of a narrative text, a canonical text in Caribbean Literature. Upon successful completion of this course, students should be able to do the following:
1. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the primary texts and of their historical framework.
2. Identify aesthetic principles of literature, arts, history and humanities.
3. Select and use the vocabulary of the humanities at an appropriate intellectual level.
4. Demonstrate the skill of reading, translating and commenting on the texts. - Prerequisites
- In order to be able to know how to tackle the course, students
1. must have the basic notions of the history and geography of the Western world;
2. are expected to be able to read primary texts in their original language;
3. must be able to read critically and formulate relevant conclusions (critical thinking);
4. must have acquired proficiency in communication (writing, reading, listening skills).
These are competences that the student should have already acquired in his/her school and university curriculum. These preconditions are valid both for attending and not attending students. - Teaching methods
- Seminars, primary resources, slides, PowerPoint presentations, video clips.
- Other information
- contacts:
francesca.montesperelli@unipg.it - Learning verification modality
- The course will have a combination of lectures, seminars and self-study. While lectures are intended to introduce specific topics, raise related issues, and consider differing theoretical perspectives, seminars perform close textual analysis and consider critically aspects of the primary texts. Self-study is an essential part of the course, since it allows the students to prepare for lectures and seminars, gaining the most benefit from them. Students who have regularly attended lectures and seminars, will be evaluated throughout the course and WILL NOT therefore SUSTAIN ANY FINAL EXAM. Students who will not regularly attend lectures and seminars, will be required to take a FINAL EXAM on the whole syllabus.
The final exam can be written or oral.
The course program is valid only for one academic year. - Extended program
- Creolization and multiculturalism in Zadie Smith’s "White Teeth".
"White Teeth" is the debut novel by the British author Zadie Smith. Published in 2000, when its author was only 24, "White Teeth" received an astonishing chorus of praise, immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards. In 2002, Channel 4 broadcasted a four-part drama TV serial based on Smith’s novel.
The epic serio-comic saga follows the fortunes of two families from Bangladesh and Jamaica, living in London. The plot is centred around Britain’s relationships with people from formerly colonised countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
Profoundly multicultural and representative of Britain as shaped by generations of immigrants, the text focuses on three young protagonists, the generation after immigration in which Caribbean, British, Bengali, and Muslim influences converge.
"Her attitude to the complications and conflicts, loves and hates that inevitably result from living in a cultural melting pot is not only post-imperial but post-racial," wrote Anne Chisholm in the Sunday Telegraph. "One of the endearing qualities of her sharp-eyed but warm-hearted book is that it makes racism appear not only ugly and stupid but ludicrously out of date”.