26900/46900 Coetzee
This course is not simply about contemporary South Africa, and the novels of Coetzee but also about the manner in which the public confession of past sins was and continues to be a critical point of reference for the ways in which political transition and justice are imagined. We read Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians , Foe , The Life and Times of Michael K , and Disgrace , and the volume of essays, Giving Offence . We also read Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground , Yvette Christiaanse's novel, Unconfessed , and Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem . We consider the playtext Malora by Yael Farber. The two films we study are Alain Resnais's groundbreaking Hiroshima Mon Amour and Christopher Nolan's recent psychological thriller, Memento . Theoretical readings include works from Freud, Derrida, and Foucault.