In 1858, following the Indian Rebellion of the previous year, the British Crown took over from the East India Company and assumed direct control of (most of) the subcontinent. The Raj - Britain’s formal rule of India, “the Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire - lasted for 90 years, until the Partition and Independence of India in 1947, and was memorably depicted in British literature. The vision of India constructed by British writers remained dominant in the English-speaking West until the international rise of Indian English fiction in the 1980s. During this course we will read and discuss some of the best-known British novels representing and analysing the Raj, including Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling, A Passage to India (1924) by E. M. Forster, The Jewel in the Crown (1966) by Paul Scott and The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) by J. G. Farrell. This course will trace the history of the Raj and provide the historical knowledge needed to contextualize the novels as well as offer critical tools for analyzing British colonial representations of India in the twentieth century. We will identify some of the central themes of Raj fiction and work towards an understanding of the processes of identity formation and the complexities of colonial representations of India.

Assessment: class participation, a presentation and final essay