20 March 2025 - 27 March 2025 ( 4 hours, 2 weeks )
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Waterloo Centre
This course invites you to enter the vibrant yet complex cultural landscape of colonial India through literature. In her spellbinding novel ‘Black Narcissus’, Rumer Godden draws inspiration from the vivid contrast between Indian culture and the traditional system of British colonialism. The novel imports an extreme form of European asceticism into the fertile vibrancy of the Indian landscape and culture. The inevitable explosion is primed.
The course will cultivate a communicative and engaging learning environment in which students can appreciate and explore Rumer Godden’s ‘Black Narcissus’. Activities include interactive lectures, class and small group discussion. Through close reading and analysis, students will learn how to identify key dramatic events, evaluate effective writing and literary techniques. Discussions will involve collaborative exploration of colonial themes and interpretations of the legacy of colonialism, and the enduring value of the chosen novel in terms of world cultural history and modern attitudes towards colonialism.
This course is open to anyone with an interest in literature and British colonialism in India. No prior knowledge of India or the chosen novel is required. The ability to read and speak English at a good level of fluency will be helpful to participation on this course.
Students are encouraged to read or to begin reading the novel in advance of the course beginning.
Notebook and pen or pencil
