HYM4140

The Raj imagined

(ART)

Ian Copland

12 points + 2 hours per week + First semester + Clayton

Synopsis: India has always loomed large in British consciousness, just as Britain - bilaiti - figured largely in educated Indians' imaginings of the world during the era of the British Raj. Stories by British authors set in India constitute valuable evidence for the ways English people "constructed" India for imperial purposes, while stories by Indian writers of that imperium provide a window into their ambiguous attitudes to empire. This unit compares several English literary and filmic representations of the Raj with some landmark "political" novels and films by Indian writers and directors, and testing them against the "historical record" as presented in secondary accounts of the period.

Assessment: Class participation: 10% + Research essay (7000 words): 60% + Examination (2 hours): 30%