Midterm Questions

Here are the midterm questions in advance. I suggest getting together in groups or partners in order to find the best possible answers. This is really a test against time contraints (20 minutes or 2 minutes per question) so I suggest that you practice jotting your answers under similar time retraints.

1. What are the characteristics of postcolonial literature?

2. Why isn't the literature of The United States considered post-colonial?

3. What are the two stages of development in postcolonial literature?

4. Use an example from any of the stories we covered in class that supports postcolonial theorist Elleke Boehmer's idea that "text, a vehicle of imperial authority...performed the act of taking possession" (14).

5. How is the theme of colonial encounter and its consequences played out in any one of the stories?

6. How is indigenous (mis)perceptions a theme in any of the stories we've read in class?

7. According to the documentary film Guns, Germs, and Steel, how is inequality accounted for in its various way among nations?

8. Why is social-realist sensibility a strong feature in 20th century Australian writing?

9. How is Red Ochre in "Clothes Make the Man" representative of the environmental harshness to the Australian settler?

10. What thematic conflicts arise between the Aboriginal world and white society in The Last Wave?