Module Information
Course Delivery
Delivery Type | Delivery length / details |
---|---|
Seminars / Tutorials | 20 Hours. Seminar. 10 x 2 hrs |
Assessment
Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
---|---|---|
Semester Assessment | 2 essays (2,500 words each) Continuous Assessment: | 100% |
Supplementary Assessment | Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves re-submission of work, a new topic must be selected. |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this module, student should typically be able to:
1. critically review and appraise the main issue in debates about African Literature;
2. relate the principal theories and practices of African postcolonial theory to the set texts;
3. describe and analyse the broad stylistic concerns of African literary forms;
4. demonstrate an understanding of the development of South African literature in its historical and political contexts;
5. exercise critical judgement on the range of literary material chosen for study;
6. engage in coherent oral discussion of the texts and background material;
7. discuss and illustrate the subject in a well-structured and argued manner.
Brief description
This option will introduce students to African literatures written in English, in the context of recent debates in postcolonial theory. It will focus upon writing and national identity, colonialism and memory and the representations of racism in African writing. Section A will concentrate on East and West African writing, and Section B will scrutinise South African writing, and the politics of apartheid and its aftermath.
Content
_Seminar 1: Africa and Colonialism
- Introduction: Africa and its (post)colonial history
- Text: Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Petals of Blood
- Text: Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease
- Text: Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions
_Seminar 6: Sophiatown and "District Six": Township Renaissance and Resistance
- Text: Alex La Guma, The Time of the Butcherbird
- Text: Mbulelo Mzamane (ed.), Hungry Flames and Other Black South African Short Stories
- Text: Adam Schwartzman (ed.), Ten South African Poets
- Text: Nadine Gordimer, Burger's Daughter
- Text: Mandla Langa, The Memory of Stones
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 6