FT 06-O Aftershocks
Thomas Stokes, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
Books for this course:Achebe, C.:Arrow of God; Brink, A.:A Chain of Voices; Gordimer, N.:My Son's Story; Naipaul, V.S.:Bend in the River Films we will see in the course: Cry, the Beloved Country; The Year of Living Dangerously; The Quiet American Once European powers had established colonial power around the world, traditional societies were never the same. This tutorial examines some of the literary and cinematic representations of the aftershocks such conflict of power produced. We will read books by Nigerian, South African, and West Indian writers. Chinua Achebe's Arrrow of God deals with religious and generational conflicts in a Nigerian village. Andre Brink's A Chain of Voices and Nadine Gordimer's My Son's Story focus on the intersection of personal and political experience in South Africa. V.S. Naipaul's A Bend in the River demonstrates the effects of political unrest and of dictatorship in an African country patterened after the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The films we will see center on individuals caught in political and moral dilemas: a South African country pastor (James Earl Jones) in Cry, the Beloved Country, a journalist (Mel Gibson) in the Indonesian conflict in The Year of Living Dangerously, and in The Quiet American, an American and an Englishman (Brendan Fraser and Michael Caine) in 1950s Vietnam.
Credits: 1
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