Course Description
This 2-credit seminar is intended to introduce you to the “eminent writer” who will be the featured speaker on the 30th anniversary of Weber State University’s National Undergraduate Literature Conference: Michael Ondaatje. Known mainly for his Booker-prize winning novel, The English Patient (which was adapted into the Oscar-winning film by Anthony Minghella), Ondaatje has had a distinguished career as one of the most recognized and recognizable men of the letters in the global diaspora.
Among the goals of this course are:
- Preparing you for Ondaatje’s visit to WSU (and perhaps interact with him ?)
- Studying the work of one of the most widely known transnational/postcolonial writers
- Interrogating the fluidity of generic categories, as well as the permeability of the boundaries between national, transnational, and postcolonial literatures
- What is the relationship between the written presentation of history and, well, fiction?
- How do contemporary writers relate to literary tradition?
- Looking at the effects of writing in English—“the language of the colonizer”—while giving voice to the (post)colonial, and often silenced, “other.”
Useful Links
- Please check CAL PAL regularly for useful links to contemporary American literature sites, as you prepare for class and research your interests. Many of these sites contain numerous other links. You might also find the (rather skeletal) Theory PAL useful on occasion. — As you find additional sites we should all know about, please let us know!