English M6510 Syllabus

Transnational Whisperings — Selected Writings of Michael Ondaatje

Syllabus

Please understand that this syllabus is provisional and may need to be compressed/shortened for reasons of time (= short, second block).

Week 1	General Introduction: Ondaatje and the Postcolonial Diaspora Deepika Bahri, Postcolonial Studies—Introduction Paul Brians, Postcolonial Literature: Problems with the Term New York Times Featured Author: Michael Ondaatje CLC Web: Comparative Literature & Culture 6.3 (September 2004) Thematic Issue: Comparative Cultural Studies and Michael Ondaatje's Writing. Ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek (useful throughout; please see below)
Week 2	The Cat’s Table—Fictionalizing the Evolution of a Writer Michael Ondaatje, *The Cat’s Table* (2011) The Cat’s Table ______________________________________ (sign-up for student presentation/seminar facilitation, perhaps in teams of two) Robert McCrum, Michael Ondaatje, The Divided Man, Guardian, 27 Aug 11 The Diane Rehm Show, Ondaatje in Conversation, The Cat’s Table, 8 Dec 2011
Week 3	Putting the J into the Postcolonial—Jazz and the Improvisations of Style *Coming Through Slaughter* (1976) Slaughter I _______________________ Slaughter II _______________________ Anatole Broyard, Review of Coming Through Slaughter, NYT, 24 April 1977 Jon Saklofske, The Motif of the Collector and History in Ondaatje’s Work, CLC Web, Comparative Culture & Culture 6.3 (2004)
Week 4–5	Mapping, Homelessness, and the Aftershocks of Empire *The English Patient* (1992) Patient I _______________________ Patient II _______________________ Arists in Conversations: Michael Ondaatje by Willem Dafoe, The Bomb Beverly Curran, The English Patient and Altered States of Narrative Stephanie M. Hilder, Ondaatje's The English Patient and Rewriting History Hsuan Hsu, Post-Nationalism and the Cinematic Apparatus in Minghella's Adaptation of Ondaatje's The English Patient all in CLC Web, Comparative Culture & Culture 6.3 (2004)
Week 6–7	Sri Lanka, the Body of History, and the Divided Self *Anil’s Ghost* (2000) Ghost I _______________________ Ghost II _______________________ Amitava Kumar, Ondaatje’s Table, Guernica interview, 23 March 2012 Richard Eder, A House Divided, NYT, 14 May 2000 Marlene Goldman, Representations of Buddhism in Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost Victoria Cook, Exploring Transnational Identities in Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost, CLC Web, Comparative Culture & Culture 6.3 (2004) => Jacques Audiard, Dheepan (2015) (added 6 May 2016)

Should you have time for additional readings, beyond the limits of our course, let me please suggest the following: (a) In the Skin of a Lion (1987); (b) The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film (2002); (c) selected poetry. I will try to integrate these texts and selections into our discussion, as appropriate.

Below are additional links to useful websites on Michael Ondaatje's work. Please stay tuned! :)

"In The Skin of a Lion: Critical Study of Text (Year 12)" -- useful in itself, plus useful sites at the very end
Wojciek Kallas, "The Cost of Civilization: Constructing the City in Michael Ondaatje's Lion" - a "Polish" perspective on labor, class division, and the ardor and aesthetic and artistry of labor
Gordon Gamlin, "Lion and Oral Narrative" - esp. detailed on the novel's connections to the epic of Gilgamesh
Rochelle Vigurs, "On Rock and Book and Leaf -- On Reading Ondatjee's Handwriting," Handwriting II
Cat's Table: The Fourth Feathers (1939), Jacques Henri Lartigue
Alice van Wart, Spider Blues: Solecki's Ondaatje
Visvis, Vikki. "Traumatic Representation: The Power and Limitations of Storytelling as “Talking Cure” in Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion and The English Patient," Ariel 40.4, 2009: 89-108.
Baker, Abu and M.S. Ahmad. "Maps in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient." NEBULA: A Journal of Multidisciplinary Scholarship. 2008: 98-109.
Warlight (2018) I, Warlight II
By the Book, Michael Ondaatje (June 2018)