Novels of Empire

Literary and visual texts sometimes express the essence of historical experience more powerfully than “factual” narratives or historical debates. This class will focus on four such texts – three novels and one film – which take empire as their central theme. They are taken from different empires, different chronological periods, and different (but sometimes interrelated) phases of imperial conquest, development, and decline. Our task will essentially be a close reading of the texts, and the reconstruction of their historical and geographical context. The empires in question for this semester are the British, Ottoman, Russian, and French.