FALL 2025 GLOBAL REALISM
This seminar examines the connections between literary realism and key historical questions in the global south, such as colonial dispossession, decolonization, and postcolonial capitalism. By studying realist novels from across the world, including Africa, the Arab world and Israel-Palestine, and South Asia, it traces the development of a vibrant global realism that speaks both to the historic realities of colonialism and to contemporary issues of class inequality, failed emancipation, migration and war. The aim of the seminar is to critically engage questions of literary aesthetics and politics in the context of dynamic global transformation.
Primary texts are listed in seminar readings below.
Books are available in the library and for purchase online and from Swarthmore Bookshop.
Articles are available on Moodle.
Requirements: two essays (2500 words each) due at the end of Weeks 6 & 15.
Grade: Essay 1 (40%); Essay 2 (40%); Participation (20%).
This seminar examines the connections between literary realism and key historical questions in the global south, such as colonial dispossession, decolonization, and postcolonial capitalism. By studying realist novels from across the world, including Africa, the Arab world and Israel-Palestine, and South Asia, it traces the development of a vibrant global realism that speaks both to the historic realities of colonialism and to contemporary issues of class inequality, failed emancipation, migration and war. The aim of the seminar is to critically engage questions of literary aesthetics and politics in the context of dynamic global transformation.
Primary texts are listed in seminar readings below.
Books are available in the library and for purchase online and from Swarthmore Bookshop.
Articles are available on Moodle.
Requirements: two essays (2500 words each) due at the end of Weeks 6 & 15.
Grade: Essay 1 (40%); Essay 2 (40%); Participation (20%).
- Teacher: Bashir Abu-Manneh