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Deborah Smith's 2015 translation of "The Vegetarian" stirred up the world of literature and propelled Han Kang, a South Korean author, to international fame. This is the story of a housewife who abruptly turns vegetarian after a blood-filled nightmare and falls into a self-destructive cycle. The novel explores underlying tensions of a patriarchal set-up, female resistance, echoes of political history as well as interlinked ideas of food, body and identity. The seminar will focus on close-reading strategies and impart critical approaches such as affect theory, ecofeminism and post-humanism. It will also shed light on the undervalued genre of South East Asian literature in Anglophone contexts. The seminar will culminate in discussions on how to frame topics relevant to the text and how to write a term paper.
Please grab a copy of "The Vegetarian" (translated by Deborah Smith) at the earliest. Handouts for secondary literature will be made available in the seminar. |
