ASCL 53.02 Imagining Freedom: Literature and Cinema of Decolonization in South Asia

The twentieth century witnessed global struggles against Euro-American colonialism across Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean worlds. Decolonization, or the process through which previously colonised nations became free of their imperial rulers, was at once a political, social, cultural, and psychological phenomenon. Not only did anti-colonial struggles challenge colonial domination, they also envisioned heterogenous  imaginaries of “freedom” that would shape their futures for years to come. Freedom was never a static idea.  In international conferences like those of the Afro-Asian Writers Association, previously colonised people vigorously debated the meanings and visions of freedom for postcolonial futures. Women, workers, and indigenous peoples drew attention to the fissures in national independence that prioritised certain hegemonic voices over others. Moreover, debates on what constituted “freedom” under decolonization were also shaped by  the geopolitical and cultural politics of the global Cold War. 

What became of these global imaginaries of hope and dissent, and what lessons do they offer us today? This course will look at how art, cinema, and literary writing shaped conceptions of freedom in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Taking the case of South Asia, the course will introduce students to literature and art from/about India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. We will consider the work of literary and cultural  figures like Ismat Chughtai, Kamila Shamsie, Romesh Gunesekera ,  Meena Kandasamy, and R.K. Narayan, avante-garde artists like M.F. Hussain and Akbar Padamsee, and filmmakers like Mani Ratnam and Syed Akbar Mirza. While learning about transnational literary and artistic movements from South Asia like the Progressive Writers’ Association, the Dalit Panthers, the Bombay Progressive Artists Group, Parallel Cinema and Bollywood, students will take away an expansive and historically informed idea of what was decolonization and how its meanings have evolved in our current historical conjuncture. 

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:LIT; WCult:NW

The Timetable of Class Meetings contains the most up-to-date information about a course. It includes not only the meeting time and instructor, but also its official distributive and/or world culture designation. This information supersedes any information you may see elsewhere, to include what may appear in this ORC/Catalog or on a department/program website. Note that course attributes may change term to term therefore those in effect are those (only) during the term in which you enroll in the course.

Department-Specific Course Categories

Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages