WiSe 23/24: The Booker Prize 1969-2023
Sabine Schülting
Comments
The Booker Prize is the most important literary prize awarded in the UK. We will explore the cultural politics of literary prizes in general and the history and more recent development of the Booker Prize in particular. This will include an assessment of the lasting legacy of the British Empire and the changes through both postcolonialism and today’s global book market. Our readings will include the novel that has become the most prominent of all winners: Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981), which won the Booker Prize in 1981, the Booker of Bookers in 1993, and the Best of Booker Prize in 2008. In addition, we will read the novels that won the prize in the last four years. We will discuss the novels in their respective cultural and literary contexts but also consider the media coverage, the judging process as well as the judges’ criteria for awarding the prize. Our seminar will also include a discussion of this year’s Booker Prize winner, who will be announced a few weeks into the semester (26 November).
Texts: Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (1981); Margaret Atwood, The Testaments (2019), Bernadine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other(2019); Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain (2020); Damon Galgut, The Promise (2021); Shehan Karunatilaka, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (2022). Students should read these novels, all of which are available as inexpensive paperbacks.
Assessment will be on the basis of regular attendance, active participation in classroom activities (incl. one in-class presentations or a response paper of c. 500 words on one of the novels) and the submission of an essay of c. 7500 words or, alternatively, a portfolio of 3 essays of c. 2500 words each.
close16 Class schedule
Regular appointments