Special Author: Salman Rushdie
Tutor: Dr Minoli Salgado (B225)
email: K.M.Salgado@sussex.ac.uk
VACATION READING
Welcome to the module. You are embarking on one of the most challenging and (in my admittedly somewhat
biased view) exciting modules on offer – one that demands stamina and extensive reading. It is imperative
therefore that you are fully prepared as this preparation is fundamental to your success. Reading at least the
following three novels by Rushdie this summer is ESSENTIAL if you are to keep up with the demands of
the module next term:
Midnight’s Children
Shame
The Satanic Verses
Other texts we will be studying include The Moor’s Last Sigh and Shalimar the Clown.
You may find the experience of reading the novels in succession quite tiring, so I suggest you break up your
reading by dipping into the essays in the first 4 sections of Salman Rushdie’s Imaginary Homelands and
perhaps some short stories in East, West. The essays are rich, stimulating and provocative, and are central to
the module. They will give you a clear idea of Rushdie’s aims and preoccupations. Rushdie's recent memoir,
Joseph Anton, provides insights above and beyond his critical essays. This is not a compulsory text but it is
recommended if you have the time. It is best to wait till you have read The Satanic Verses and at least one
other Rushdie novel before starting Joseph Anton.
As for critical reading, the Introduction and essays in M.D. Fletcher’s Reading Rushdie and Stephen
Morton's Salman Rushdie: Fictions of Postcoloniality will help you to position Rushdie’s work. And if you
are new to the study of postmodernism and/or postcolonial literature, or feel you need to refresh your
memory on the key concepts in these fields, I strongly recommend:
Tim Woods, Beginning Postmodernism (Chapters 1-3)
John McLeod, Beginning Postcolonialism (especially Introduction, Chapters 2 and 7)
Childs and Williams, Introduction to Postcolonial Theory
Good luck. I hope you have a wonderful time reading, absorbing and taking issue with Rushdie, and am
looking forward to meeting you next term. I've popped an indicative outline below to give you a sense of the
shape of things to come.
INDICATIVE MODULE OUTLINE
Autumn 2015
1. The Magic of Midnight's Children (1981)
Secondary reading
N. Batty, 'The Art of Suspense: Rushdie's 1001 (Mid-)Nights, Ariel, 18:3, 1987 (Also in Reading Rushdie ed
M.D. Fletcher)
Michael Gorra, 'The Novel in an Age of Ideology: On the Form of Midnight's Children' in After Empire:
Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie
Stephen Slemon, 'Magic Realism as Post-Colonial Discourse', Canadian Literaure, 116:21, 1988
J.P.Durix, 'Magic Realism in Midnight's Children', Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 8 ;1, 1985
2. The Politics of Shame (1983)
Secondary reading
Aijaz Ahmad, 'Salman Rushdie's Shame: Postmodern Migrancy and the Representation of Women', In
Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures
I. Grewal, 'Salman Rushdie: Marginality, Women and Shame', Genders, 16:2, 1988
S. Suleri, 'Embodiments of Blasphemy, Censorships of Shame', The Rhetoric of English India
3. Narrating the Nation in Midnight's Children and Shame
In this seminar we will focus on exploring the different ways Rushdie presents narrative voice and national
histories through a consideration of specific themes. In preparation, please select any one of the following
topics for discussion:
magic; gender; violence; family; class; exile; storytelling;the visual arts.
Suggested reading
Salman Rushdie, Essays in Section 1 and 'Outside the Whale' in Imaginary Homelands
T. Brennan, ‘The National Longing for Form’, in Nation and Narration, ed. H. Bhabha
Peter Middleton and Tim Woods, Literatures of Memory: History, time and space in postwar writing (Part 1)
4. Hybridity and Mimicry in East, West (1994)
Focus on 'At the Auction of the Ruby Slippers', 'Chekov and Zulu' and 'The Courter'
Secondary reading
John McLeod, ‘Diaspora Identities’ in Beginning Postcolonialism
Robert Young, Colonial Desire (chapter 1)
R. Radhakrishnan, Diasporic Mediations (chapter 8)
5. The Transgressions of The Satanic Verses (1988)
Secondary reading
Shaila Sharma, ‘Salman Rushdie: The Ambivalence of Migrancy’ in Twentieth Century Literature, 47: 4,
2001, pp.596-618
Philip Engblom, 'A Multitude of Voices: Carnivalization and Dialogicality in the Novels of Salman Rushdie'
in Reading Rushdie ed M.D. Fletcher
David Smale, ed, Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children/ The Satanic Verses, Chapters 4 & 6
6. Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990): Fairy Tale, Allegory and Ambivalence
Secondary reading
Catherine Cundy, 'Through Childhood's Window: Haroun and the Sea of Stories' in Reading Rushdie ed
M.D. Fletcher
J.P. Durix, '"The Gardener of Stories": Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories', Journal of
Commonwealth Literature, 29:1, 1993 (Also in Reading Rushdie ed M.D. Fletcher)
Rosalia Baena, ‘Telling a Bath-Time Story: Haroun and the Sea of Stories as a Modern Literary Fairy-Tale’
Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 36:2, 2001
Madelena Gonzalez, Fiction After the Fatwa: Salman Rushdie and the Charm of Catastrophe (chapters 1 and
2)
Interview: Salman Rushdie talks to the London Consortium about The Satanic Verses, Critical Quarterly,
38:2, 1996
7. The Palimpsest in The Moor's Last Sigh (1995)
Secondary reading
J. Greenberg, ‘The Base Indian or the The Base Judean’: Othello and the Metaphor of the Palimpsest in
Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh, Modern Language Studies 29:2 (Fall 1992), 93-107
Stephen Baker, ‘You must remember this: Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh’, Journal of
Commonwealth Literature, 35:1, 2000, pp.43-54
Paul Cantor, ‘Tales of the Alhambra: Rushdie’s Use of Spanish History in The Moor’s Last Sigh’, Studies in
the Novel, 29:3, (Fall 1997) pp.323-341 9 (available in Electronic Library)
Jill Didur, ‘Secularism beyond the East/West divide: literary reading, ethics, and The Moor’s Last Sigh’,
Textual Practice, 18(4), 2004, 541-562 (on R’s political stance)
8. Terror and the Transnational Subject in Shalimar the Crown (2005)
Secondary reading
Sabina Sawhney and Simona Sawhney, ‘Introduction: Reading Rushdie after September 11, 2001’, Twentieth
Century Literature, 47:4 (2001) 431-443
Stephen Morton, ‘”There were collisions and explosions. The world was no longer calm”: Terror and
precarious life in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown’, Textual Practice, 22:2 (2008) 337-355
F. Stadtler, ‘Terror, Globalization and the Individual in Salman Rushdie’s Shalimar the Clown’, Journal of
Postcolonial Writing, 45:2 (2009)
Elizabeth S. Anker, 'Narrating Human Rights and the Limits of Magic Realism' in Theoretical Perspectives
on Human Rights and Literature eds. Elizabeth Swanson Golberg and Alexandra Schultheis Moore, 149-164
9. READING WEEK
10. Rushdie’s Essays: Imaginary Homelands and Step Across This Line
Select two essays to explore in depth.
11. Rushdie's Legacy: Debate
Optional reading: Salman Rushdie, Joseph Anton: A Memoir (2012)
Recommended reading
Sara Suleri, 'Contraband Histories: Salman Rushdie and the Embodiment of Blasphemy' in Reading Rushdie
ed. M.D. Fletcher
Samuel P. Huntingdon, ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’, Foreign Affairs, 72:3, Summer 1993, 22-49
T. Modood, ‘British Asian Muslims and the Rushdie Affair’ in Race, Culture and Difference eds. J. Donald
and A. Rattansi
Michael Gorra, "Burn the Books and Trust the Book" in After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie
12. Final Essay Plan