A Shaping of Connections is a collection of essays in honour of A.N. Jeffares. It traces the history and development of Commonwealth literature studies.

The first section describes how Commonwealth literature became established first of all as a subject under English Studies in universities round the world, both in countries which were eager to study their own literature and culture, such as Canada, Australia, India, Africa and the Caribbean, and also in America and Europe. These essays are written by the pioneers in the field.

The second section is concerned with the development of a post-colonial method of literary criticism which has emerged as a result of the earlier developments. It challenges the usefulness of European critical theories in dealing with the literature of the post-colonial world and attempts to suggest alternative readings.

Contributors include Diana Brydon, John Figueroa, K.L. Goodwin, Wilson Harris, G.D. Killam, Bruce King, Bernth Lindfors, Satendra Nanda, G.D. Narasimhaiah, W.H. New, Alastair Niven, Edwin Thumboo and Helen Tiffin.

Table of contents

Introduction

History and Memoirs

The hussites: A pre-history of ACLALS 1945-64
Robert T. Robertson

Commonwealth studies in the United States
A.L. McLeod

Something a colonial can manage
G.D. Killam

How with the help of Derry Jeffares I (an American) became a Commonwealth literature specialist
Bruce King

Commonwealth literature: The state of affairs in Germany
Gerhard Stilz

Why Aarhus?
Anna Rutherford

The trodden path & the way ahead
Doireann Macdermott

Nothing by chance: A personal tribute
Alastair Niven

New literatures on the curriculum
Louis James

Commonwealth literature at Hull
Arthus Pollard

The Commonwealth Centre at Mysore University
H.H. Anniah Gowda

The Commonwealth literature period: A note towards the history of Indian English literature
G.N. Devi

Commonwealth/New literatures in a small corner of Asia
Edwin Thumboo

Beyond the coups: The writer and Fiji
Satendra Nandan

Doing good by stealth
Ken Goodwin

Growing up in Jamaica
John J. Figueroa

Nostalgia

[photographs]

Criticism

New approaches to the new literatures in English: Are we in danger of incorporating disparity?
Diana Brydon

Reading for resistance in the post-colonial literatures
Stephen Slemon

'Lie back and think of England': Post-colonial literature and the academy
Helen Tiffin

Comedy and modern allegory: A personal view
Wilson Harris

Early black writing in Britain
Paul Edwards

Footprints on the soul
Colin Nicholson

A shaping of connections
W.H. New

Okot's last blast: An attempt at curricular reform in Uganda after Idi Amin
Bernth Lindfors

Cultural kinetics in an ironic mode: Achebe's A Man of the People
Russell McDougall

Political commitment and poetic utterance: Post-independence poetry from Singapore and Malaysia
Kirpal Singh

Commonwealth literature: Problems of response
C.D. Narasimhaiah

Truth and the semblance of truth in Sara Banderji's The Wedding of Jayanthi Mandel
Irène Simon

Memory as survival in the global village: Janet Frame's Carpathians
Jeanne Delbaere

'It was so, it was not so'
Jean-Pierre Durix

The muse's progress: 'Infinite rehearsal' in J.M. Coetzee's Foe
Hena Maes-Jelinek

An elaborate dead end? A feminist reading of Coetzee's Foe
Kirsten Holst Petersen

To set the record right

[Information about ACLALS]

Notes on contributors