This course introduces students to fictional and other cultural perspectives from the postcolonial world. This semester, we will focus on selected texts from postcolonial Asia. Our course will be structured around the concept of the nation—what Benedict Anderson has famously called “an imagined community.” We will explore this concept by reading and discussing selected texts that represent the complexities of imagined communities in or from Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam, and Tibet. We will ask ourselves: why should these ideas and texts matter to us here and now?

Students are expected to attend regularly, to read with care and curiosity, and to bring an open mind to course assignments and class discussion. We will reflect on our previously held commonsense ideas and test them against our course readings. If circumstances make it possible, we will meet visiting scholar Viet Nguyen to situate our discussion in a broader international frame. Students should note that while this course will extend some of the ideas developed in Fiction I, it is also designed to work as a stand-alone course. No prior knowledge of postcolonial studies is required.