The course will attempt to study some of the tumultuous events of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, such as decolonization, movements for equality, the struggle against dictatorships, and resistance to occupation, through the writings of poets. We will use an interdisciplinary approach to place literary work in their political contexts- thus not limiting ourselves to poetry, but using it as a tool to deepen the understanding of political struggles.nThe course will be an opportunity to reflect critically upon ideas revolving around resistance to hegemony (and its various manifestations) as ways of understanding politics and political struggle across the world. This will help in a more nuanced understanding of how variously situated groups in some of the political movements that we will focus on, subvert and resist these forms of hegemony and more often, the mixed outcomes of these struggles.nWe will begin with poets whose work is centered around the struggle for independence from colonialism, poets writing after the end of colonialism, dealing with questions of identities, home and displacements, and freedom. The texts will reflect the broader political paradigms of their times.nThe idea is not to focus on the semantics of poetry but exploring the political movements and thereby questions of colonialism, imperialism, neoliberalism, dictatorships through them.
