Studies in Contemporary Literature (461-0-21)

Topic

Possibility Within Form: The Grotesque Body and th

Instructors

Chris Abani

Meeting Info

University Hall 418: Mon 2:00PM - 4:50PM

Overview of class

The novel has often been seen as a vehicle for nation and tradition building. But the form also contains the ability to subvert these categories. Subversion in this case is a decrowning of power, the process of constructing an alternate history, state, or community of ideas. Carnival and the grotesque, as theorized by Bakhtin, will guide our reading, as we explore the body as a site of narrative and a powerful tool of subversion. We will read five novels - from Finland, the UK, China/Tibet, Japan and Nigeria - as vehicles of the transnational and necessarily transitional sites of narrative. I will provide some foundational secondary reading, but a big part of this course is the student doing research for readings to support their theories. Our focus is on a guided close reading. We will question what these novels and the bodies created by them can reveal about the form of narrative, subversion and its dialogue between traditions.