LIT-461 English and Its Discontents

We will examine the politics of language, focusing on Anglophone contexts, probing colonial histories that underpin the global hegemony of English. How is the hierarchization of tongues marked in the sounds of language, in the valuation or denigration of accents? What do disciplinary formations of literary studies tell us about ongoing struggles over language? How do fields like translation studies, deaf studies, and sound studies complicate the study of English language and literature? Possible texts: Brian Friel’s Translations, Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies, Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands.

Maximum Enrollment

Seminar (12)

(Social Structural and Institutional Hierarchies, Seminar.)

Credits

1

Prerequisite

Three courses in Literature

Notes

(SSIH or Theory)