Monday, July 23, 2007

Reading with Disgrace

I'm in the process of outlining the syllabus for the Commonwealth Lit course (a title I'm finding less and less satisfactory as I prep the course--I wonder how long it's been in the books this way?). Anyway, I'm trying to think of a secondary reading that would pair nicely with Coetzee's Disgrace, something that gets at not just the challenge to, but the displacement of whiteness, or perhaps something that hints at the ideas of "after postcolonialism." I'm drawing a blank.

4 comments:

Sisyphus said...

I don't know about lit off the top of my head but I just was going back through my copy of Richard Dyer's _White_ and remembering again how great it is (but nonfiction alas) ... it has a chapter on the miniseries _The Last of England_?

Anonymous said...

I suppose another Coetze book isn't what you're looking for. Would Zadie Smith's _White Teeth_ work here?
-Christy

Horace said...

Oh...When I say Secondary Reading, I mean criticism or theory--I do already have Zadie Smith on the syllabus--immediately following Coetzee, in fact.

Sisyphus said...

Oops, my bad! Didn't read closely. Then the Dyer might work! I also really loved _Imperial Leather_ --- McClintock? Maybe? I'm across the room from the bookshelf. Imperial Leather won't have much "whiteness" stuff though.

How bout some classics, like _Black Skin White Masks_? Or Kobena Mercer?