ENGL1013 Global Literatures in English Sem 2 2023
Take-Home Exercise
Due 30/9, 23:59, on Canvas
1700 words, 35% of total grade
Submit assignment anonymously.
Use MLA style throughout, and provide a Works Cited at the end of the assignment with all
cited works acknowledged (does not count towards word count).
Part A: (800 words; +- 50 words)
Choose ONE of the quotations from the four provided here. Analyse it thoroughly, extracting
several key ideas. Using these key ideas, analyse one literary text from the list below.
Write your response as a full essay, incorporating a) a thesis statement; b) insights from
lecture and class discussions that relate to your chosen quotation and literary text; and c)
close readings of specific examples (quotes) from the text to support your analysis. You
should also give your essay a title. You are encouraged to challenge, expand, or question the
key ideas that you've extracted from the quotation.
1.
“How can narrative embody life in words and at the same time respect what we cannot know?
How does one listen for the groans and cries, the undecipherable songs, the crackle of fire in
the cane fields, the laments for the dead, and the shouts of victory, and then assign words to all
of it? […] Or is narration its own gift and its own end, that is, all that is realizable when
overcoming the past and redeeming the dead are not? And what do stories afford anyway? A
way of living in the world in the aftermath of catastrophe and devastation?” (Hartman 3).
Hartman, Saidiya. "Venus in Two Acts." Small Axe, vol. 12, no. 2, 2008, pp. 1-14.
2.
“Within the effaced itinerary of the subaltern subject, the track of sexual difference is doubly
effaced. The question is not of female participation in insurgency, or the ground rules of the
sexual division of labor, for both of which there is “evidence.” It is, rather, that, both as object
of colonialist historiography and as subject of insurgency, the ideological construction of gender
keeps the male dominant. If, in the contest of colonial production, the subaltern has no history
and cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in shadow” (Spivak 41).
Spivak, Gayatri C.. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the
History of an Idea, edited by Rosalind C. Morris, Columbia University Press, 2010, pp. 21-78.
3.
“The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of
use. The [Anglophone postcolonial]* writer should aim to use English in a way that brings out
his message best without altering the language to the extent that its value as a medium of
international exchange will be lost. He should aim at fashioning an English which is at once
universal and able to carry his peculiar experience. I have in mind here the writer who has
something new, something different to say. The nondescript writer has little to tell us, anyway,
so he might as well tell it in conventional language and get it over with. If I may use an
extravagant simile, he is like a man offering a small, nondescript routine sacrifice for which a
chick, or less, will do. A serious writer must look for an animal whose blood can match the
power of his offering” (Achebe 187).
Achebe, Chinua. “The African Writer and the English Language.” Language and Linguistics in
Context: Readings and Applications for Teachers, Routledge, 2012, pp. 183–89.
*“African writer” in the original, but I have adapted this slightly to be more widely applicable.
This is not good citational practice—never misrepresent your original source—but in this case it
serves a necessary purpose. -NB.
4.
“Colonial alienation takes two interlinked forms: an active (or passive) distancing of oneself
from the reality around; and an active (or passive) identification with that which is most
external to one's environment. It starts with a deliberate disassociation of the language of
conceptualisation, of thinking, of formal education of mental development, from the language
of daily interaction in the home and in the community. It is like separating the mind from the
body so that they are occupying two unrelated linguistic spheres in the same person. On a
larger social scale it is like producing a society of bodiless heads and headless bodies” (Ngũgĩ
28).
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. “The Language of African Literature.” Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of
Language in African Literature, James Currey, 1986, pp. 4–33.
Texts
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave
Nick Joaquin, "May Day Eve"
Wole Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman
Jhumpa Lahiri, “The Interpreter of Maladies”
Sonny Liew, The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye, Chapter 2
[Note: full citation info on respective module pages on Canvas. For Prince and Soyinka, cite the
specific edition you’re using].
Part B: Short Answer Questions: 900 words total (+/- 50 words)
Here are 6 six short-answer questions (each requiring a c. 300-word answer). Out of these,
you should answer three, referring to the texts listed above. You should use your notes and
the texts (no external research necessary). You must use textual evidence in your answer--be
sure to select text(s) that are relevant for each question. Do not write on the same text more
than once in this part. You may write on the same text as you used in Part A though.
These short answers will be marked based on the depth, insight, and originality of your
analysis. This means you can dispense with lengthy introductions and conclusions, and you
also do not need a title for each short essay. Assume your reader knows these texts well. Aim
for clear, concise prose which highlights your argument, incorporating well-chosen and
carefully analysed textual evidence.
1. In your view, which text best exemplifies the concept of global literature? Use your
answer to explain what you understand by the term ‘global literature.’ Justify your
choice by comparing the selected text with at least one other from the list.
2. Examine the role of setting in any one of the texts. How does the chosen text utilize
setting not just as a backdrop, but as an active element contributing to the mood,
character behaviour, and progression of the narrative?
3. Compare the portrayal of conflict in “The Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri and
"May Day Eve" by Nick Joaquin. How do these conflicts serve as proxies for broader
societal and cultural issues in the respective settings of the narratives?
4. Analyse the interplay between form and content in either Death and the King’s
Horseman or The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (focusing on chapter 2.) How does the
author's chosen form or narrative structure enhance or shape the content being
delivered? What insights does this relationship provide about the themes or message of
the text?
5. Reimagine a scene from any of the other texts in the style of The Art of Charlie Chan
Hock Chye. Produce a 1–2-page short graphic narrative depicting your chosen scene.
Please draw it yourself (no online tools): you will not be graded on your artistic skill, but
rather on how well you transform the content of one text into the style of another,
using the knowledge you have gained about graphic narratives/comics. Include a short
explanatory note (c. 50 words), stating what scene you have chosen and explaining key
interpretive choices (especially ones that are less obvious.)
6. Think about your greatest aha! moment (moment of insight, realization, or discovery)
thus far this semester, from lecture, tutorial, or zoom discussion. What prompted it, and
how did it change your understanding of the text under discussion, or another aspect of
the course? Include textual analysis to illustrate your new insight.