ENGL 074A. Global South Literature


Encompassing the regions of the world-Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania-outside of "the West," the Global South is more than just a geographical designation. Associated with "underdevelopment," it is the term that has come to take the place of the "Third World" to shift emphasis from cultural difference to geopolitical relations. This course surveys literature from the bottom half of the world to chart these relations as narrated and resisted by the world system's downtrodden. First, we will examine the Western colonization of the world, thereby the ways that the globe can be thought of as a world due to the South. Secondly, we will follow the circuits of capital that outlasted the colonial world through the migrations of labor that are capital's precondition. These political and economic structurations are reinforced in culture-most notably, through race-which works as a trace of historical structures. This persistence of oppressive history, including within the West, is what we will turn to finally by tracing the long history of slavery, indigenous dispossession after/amid genocide, and racial conflict in the diaspora. In the process, we will explore literature as a cultural form that reworks the processes of which it is a trace, not least by giving rise to a world literature from the South. Readings may include accounts of the Conquest of the Americas, Noli me TangereDeath and the King's HorsemanWaiting for the BarbariansOne Hundred Years of SolitudeOmerosCoolie WomanHomegoingBaby No-Eyes, and "Zaabalawi."
20th/21st c.
GATEWAY English Literature
Humanities.
1 credit.
Eligible for ASAM, GLBL-core, PEAC, CPLT.
Fall 2022. Ku.
Spring 2023. Ku.
Catalog chapter: English Literature  
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/english-literature


Access the class schedule to search for sections.




Print-Friendly Page (opens a new window)