India | thelanguagepub

Understanding India

you will explore the history, diverse culture, and dynamic present of one of the world's most fascinating countries through webquests and literature.

Understanding India - A webquest

We'll focus on basic facts on India, it's colonial past and present-day India.

1: Webquest instructions

Literature focusing on colonial themes

We'll read a couple of classics that focus on the complex relationship between

7: Karma

7A: Karma Tasks

8: Lispeth + white man

8A: Lispeth Tasks

Literature focusing on postcolonial/present-day themes

Apartheid reflected in fiction and bibliographies

Novels and short stories are called fiction because... well... they are fictional. They cannot be used as factual sources to understand the world, but most fiction will be a product of its time.

We'll read short stories where the horrors of Apartheid permeate from the very beginning till the very end. We'll try to find meaning in the texts themselves and also in their historical context.

5: Gordimer: Country Lovers

6: Mattera: Die Bushie is dood

7: Jacobs: The Guilt

If we want to say something about the world, we need another kind of materials. We'll read and analyze an excerpt from Peter Abraham's autobiography: "Tell Freedom", and we'll focus on a Mandela speech and finally a mix of fact and fiction in the Movie: Goodbye Bafana - a genre called autofiction

8: Abrahams: "Tell Freedom"

9: Mandela addresses truth report

10: Goodbye Bafana

Are South Africans better off today than under Apartheid?

11: Better off?

12: South Africa's imperfect progress

Bibliography - South Africa

NON-FICTION:

Glossary: https://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/terms.php (excerpt)

South Africa Tourism Video - "Leave Ordinary Behind", 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhtnMzCzrXk&ab_channel=worldtourism

Wendover Productions: "South Africa's Slow, Inevitable March Towards Collapse", 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iiny1GrfhYM&ab_channel=WendoverProductions

Mary Kay Magistad: “South Africa's imperfect progress, 20 years after the Truth & Reconciliation Commission”, Theworld.com, 2017, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j9dCefIGyxiw7Ir1hYVopupUwFC6rk0hoHIA3NBvEKc/edit?usp=sharing

Gideon Rachman: Whatever happened to Mandela’s dream for South Africa?, AUGUST 11 2022

Jansen: Are you better off now than under apartheid? (2023)

eNCA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xvrYkTm1_I&ab_channel=eNCA

FICTION:

Rayda Jacobs: “The Guilt”, 2001, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1r9KBmquhcE7pYTJN_Y-lIuy07aFh1Q6o/view?usp=drive_link

Don Mattera: “Die Bushie is dood”, 1991, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Haf2pBA9nQeB85I0gVZ-9uJLFlUGSDI2/view?usp=sharing

Nadime Gordimer: “Country Lovers”, 1980, https://xpressenglish.com/our-stories/town-and-country-lovers/

Clint Eastwood: Invictus, 2009