Reading & Composition

Reading & Composition

Genres of Empire
Course Number: 
R1B.010
Course Catalog Number: 
26941
Course Type or Level: 
Instructor: 
Joel Childers
Days: 
MWF
Time: 
2-3 pm
Semester: 
Location: 
234 Dwinelle

This course explores the historical and theoretical intersections between aesthetic form and the empires of Europe, from the Spanish conquest of the Americas to twentieth-century decolonization. It considers how different genres—history, prose fiction and film—challenge (and sometimes promote) the establishment of empires in Europe, the Americas, and beyond.

The course is divided into three units, each organized around a different genre. In the first unit, students will examine historical writings from the sixteenth-century colonization of the Americas, including writings by Christopher Columbus, Bartolomé de Las Casas, and eyewitness accounts from the indigenous Aztec peoples. In the second unit, students will shift their attention to fiction, considering how novels by Toni Morrison, Mahasaweta Devi, and Wanjiku Wa Ngugi represent life within newly formed or recently dissolved empires, with a special emphasis on the experience of women and mothers. In the last unit of the course, students will turn their attention to twentieth-century films, especially those representing the struggles for political independence in the Soviet Union, South Africa, and Northern Ireland.