Dr. Brian Deyo

This seminar will provide an in-depth, comprehensive examination of the fiction, critical oeuvre, and theoretical contributions of the South African writer, J.M. Coetzee, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature (2003) and the winner of two Booker Prizes (widely considered to be the most prestigious award for international fiction in English). While Coetzee is commonly known as a “postcolonial” writer, one can make the case that his writing transcends categorization. Though we’ll use postcolonial theory to examine how and why Coetzee’s writing is strenuously preoccupied with the history of European colonialism and imperialism and its legacies—with a particular emphasis on critical race theory—we’ll also consider the ways in which his writing is engaged with patriarchy, capitalism, and recent environmental thought. We will read Dusklands, Waiting for the Barbarians, The Life and Times of Michael K, Disgrace, Youth (his memoir on his childhood in South Africa), and Elizabeth Costello. We will also read selected examples of his literary criticism, including White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa, several interviews, and works of literary criticism and scholarship by major Coetzee scholars.