TRANSNATIONAL ENGLISH

Knowledge and Understanding: The course of Transnational English will allow students to gain an adequate knowledge of contemporary Anglo-American literary and cultural texts addressing global and cross-border contexts.

Applying Knowledge and Understanding: through lectures and guided readings, students will be able to approach the texts by combining their literary and linguistic knowledge with histrical anc cultural contexts.

Making Judgement: thanks to class readings and discussion students will be able to independently apply their skills and critical knowledge to a variety of textual genres, from critical and theoretical essays to interviews and articles, from novels to short stories and drama scripts .

Communication Skills: approaching the texts in their original form, students will be able to convey effectively what they have learned during the course and its side-activities.

Learning Skills: students will develop autonomous learning skills through class and autonomous reading and writing work. Being able to write short articles/essays/critical reviews students will improve their approach to processing reading and study material, and this will be a useful skill in their future jobs.

Frontal lessons will be integrated with individual and group close reading sessions; linguistic and content analysis; comprehension and critical discussion; translation practice.

Middle-term tests will be administered in form of short essays, writing exercises, guided Q&As, translation tests in order for the students to actively engage with the topics and the themes discussed in the classroom, and further consolidate them through their study material.    

Analysis and active reading of critical and literary texts of contemporary Anglo-American literature and culture, aiming at exploring the creative contribution and the intellectual position of anglophone authors of Asiatic, Hispanic, Caraibic, African descent and/or authors whose works engage with cross-cultural, cross-linguistic issues and themes. The course aims at problematizing and fostering an indepth critique of these texts, simultaneously engaging an analysis of their modes of production, circulation and reception.

Frontal lessons will be integrated with active reading, language analysis, active translation practice. Team work will be strongly encouraged.

Crystal, David. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003, II ed. Ch. I, pp. 1-28; Ch. II pp. 29-71.

Paul Jay.Transnational Literature. The Basics Series. NY: Routledge, 2021. Part I & II (only the pages on J. Lahiri, M. Hamid, C. 'N. Adichie, A. Ghosh, A. Akhtar).

Ayad Akhtar, Disgraced. London : Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021 [drama, 2018].

Chimamanda 'Ngozi Adichie, The Thing around Your Neck, London: Fourth Estate, 2009. [short stories].

Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2005 [novel]

Mohsin Hamid, Exit West. London: Penguin Books, 2018. [nove]

Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies. Boston: Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1999 [short stories]; The Namesake [novel]

Further theoretical and critical readings will be provided during the course (also uploaded on Teams) and made availabe on STUDIUM.

A written test with open-ended questions and translation exercises. It will be followed by a short oral interview to confirm or consolidate the final grade.

Content  and critical proficiency; linguistic accuracy; lexical skills; argumentative skills will be taken into account for the final assessment, along with the capabilty to actively read, synthesize and engage with the originl texts.   

Through the chapters of “Borderlands/La Frontera”, the writer's voice oscillates between several languages (English, Spanish, Chicano, Nahuatl). Why has Gloria Anzaldùa creatively resorted to this polylingualism? And what issues and themes are intertwined with it?

Focus on the character of Piyali Roy in “The Hungry Tide”, and through its analysis identify and discuss about the existential and historical coordinates of the Indian American diaspora. How and through which narrative and linguistic strategies does Piya come to terms with her cultural heritage(s) in the novel, and her relationship to language?

Please translate the following extract (250/300 words) from «Reflections on Exile» by E. Said. After the translation, write a short critical commentary (10-15 lines).