Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies 39A, Section 1
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh: The Greatest Novel EVER (1 unit, LG)
Professor Abigail De Kosnik
Tuesday 12:00-2:00 , 340 Moffitt, CCN: 88062

Seminar will begin January 19, 2010 through March 9, 2010.

Sea of Poppies (2008), by renowned Indian author Amitav Ghosh and the first of a projected trilogy of novels, has garnered international praise (it is the winner of the top two literary prizes in India, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Man Booker Prize in the U.K.). I argue that it is the greatest novel ever written. Sea of Poppies is about the opium trade in nineteenth-century India (and China), and its heroes and villains are a motley crew of Indians of all castes, eccentric Britons, a multilingual/multicultural Frenchwoman, an opium-addicted Chinese man, and one free black American sailor who passes for white. All of these amazing characters come together under the most fantastic circumstances on a Baltimore schooner called the Ibis. In this seminar, we will read Sea of Poppies and discuss its relationship to Moby Dick, Jane Eyre, and other classic nineteenth-century novels; British colonialism, U.S. slavery, and the slave and coolie trades; the role that opium played in the growth of China and Britain's economies; and the present-day Iraq war, Afghanistan war, and U.S. financial crisis. Students do not have to read the novel in advance of the seminar, but students who do read it ahead of time should not spoil it for others.

Abigail De Kosnik is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies and the Berkeley Center for New Media. She teaches courses on Performance & Technology, Performance & Television, and Asian/American Performance Across Media. She usually teaches in the field of media studies, but is making an exception for this seminar because this book is the most exciting thing she's read in years.