Lahore University of Management Sciences ENGL 3912 - Magical Realism Fall 2017 Instructor Rabia Nafees Shah Room No. 125 SS Wing- English (Ground Floor) Office Hours Email rabia.nafees@lums.edu.pk Telephone 2128 Secretary/TA TA Office Hours Course URL (if any) COURSE BASICS Credit Hours 4 Lecture(s) 2 lectures per Duration 1hr 50mins Week COURSE DESCRIPTION This course will introduce students to the vexed, highly debated mode of expression called Magical Realism through both theoretical and literary texts. What are the distinguishing elements, themes and narrative strategies that help define a text as magical realist? How do differences of location and gender impact the creative output of the writers in this course? Why and how do writers use a magical style to comment on weighty social and political issues and what are the implications of this choice? And how are the playful and humorous elements of such commentary balanced with the poignant and the tragic? Important critical concepts such as mimesis, the uncanny, the carnivalesque and the grotesque, the fantastic and the abject figure heavily in discussions of magical s and students will learn to both understand and apply these terms over the course of the semester. The debate over whether Magical Realism constitutes an independent genre of writing or a sub-stream within Postmodernism will also be addressed. This dispute is closely linked to the subversive power of Magical Realism as a postcolonial discourse and thus the political and ideological configurations of the novels and short stories in the course will be perused alongside a textual and thematic analysis. COURSE PRE-REQUISITES Introduction to Literature in English or the instructor s permission.
COURSE OBJECTIVES - To develop an understanding of the term magical realism - to chart a commonality of concerns across the varied literary texts under discussion as well as illuminate key differences. - To foreground the politics of debates in critical theory such as the question of ownership of Magical Realism (in terms of trying to fix its origins, demarcate its definitions, subsume it within Postmodernism etc). - To highlight how the multiplicity of authorial locations in Magical Realist texts brings to light a variety of cultural concerns and different constructions of history. - To encourage students to engage the texts critically and display their writing and analytical skills through response papers, presentations and a final research essay. GRADING s 1. Presentation 10% 2. Midterm 25% 3. Class Participation 15% 4. Response Papers 15% 5. Annotated Bibliography 10% 6. Research Essay (10-12 pages) 25% Lahore University of Management Sciences TEXTBOOKS Reading packages have been put together for the course LECTURES, TUTORIALS AND ATTENDANCE POLICY 1. There will be two 110-minute seminars per week. (A total of 28 sessions) 2. There will be a 9-12 minutes presentation. 3. Attendance is Mandatory. COURSE SCHEDULE S SESSIONS TOPIC PRIMARY READINGS SECONDARY READINGS 1 Introduction to the course 1 What is magical realism? Maggie Ann Bowers, Origins of Magic(al) Realism, Delimiting the Terms, Locations of Salman Rushdie on Magical Realism
2 Magic(al)Realism (1-47) 3 What is magical realism? Mimesis The of Latin America Jean-Pierre Durix, Reality, Realism and Mimesis (45-77) Angel Flores Magical Realism in Spanish American Literature (119-124) 4 Origins and Antecedents Big Mama s Funeral 5 Origins and Antecedents Juan Rulfo Pedro Páramo Robin Fiddian, Legend, Fantasy and the Birth of the New in Los funerals de la Mama Grande by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (210-221) Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (254-267) 3 6 Wendy B. Faris, Magical Realism between Modern and Postmodern Fictions (7-42) 7 Steven Boldy, One Hundred Years of by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (95-104) 4 8 5 9 10 Time and Reincarnation Alejo Carpentier, Journey to the Seed Jorge Luis Borges, The Gospel According to Mark David K. Danow, The Carnivalesque Grotesque (33-64) 11 Wendy B. Faris, Women and Women and Women (170-203,
6 12 208-219) 7 13 Stephen M. Hart, Magical Realism in the Americas: Politicized Ghosts in One Hundred Years of, The House of the Spirits and Beloved (83-93) 14 15 Midterm Exam Midterm Exam Midterm Exam 8 9 10 16 17 18 19 20 Salman Rushdie and Salman Rushdie At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers Rushdie A Short Tale about Magic Brenda Cooper, Out of the Centre of My Forehead, an Eye Opened : Ben Okri s The Famished (67-115) Wendy B. Faris, Along the Knife-Edge of Change : Magical Realism and the Postcolonial Dynamic of Alterity (133-169). 21 Africa, the Post-Colonial Experience and Magical Realism Chinua Achebe The Sacrificial Egg Kojo B. Laing Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ Jean-Pierre Durix, An Illustration of the Problem: Achebe s The Sacrificial Egg (83-87)
11 22 Iran and Magical Realism Mohammad Rasoulof The White Meadows 12 23 Magical Realism and Post- Kim Anderson Sasser, Magical Realism from the Metropole and Postmodern Magical Realism (11-15) 24 Magical Realism and Post- Helen Stoddart, Critical Contexts (21-39) and Critical History (46-63) 13 25 26 Magical Realism and Post- Toni Morrison Beloved Julia Kristeva, Approaching ion (1-18) 14 27 Toni Morrison Beloved 28 Toni Morrison Beloved