What do we think of when we think of islands? Do we think of the places themselves or do we think of our ideas of the places? If the former, do we think of them as material places we’ve experienced first-hand, and if so in what roles - as residents, holiday visitors, contract workers, summer-home renters, military personnel? If the latter, where do our ideas come from - novels, television and movies, news reports, history books, travel brochures and magazines?

This course will focus on the ways islands are constructed - talked about and represented - in a range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction and in the visual arts as well as in economic and social science discourses. We will pay special attention to the way in which the natural environment figures in these various modes of dealing with the unique features of particular islands and the various ways in which they are caught up in global economic and political networks.

Krista Thompson, An Eye for the Tropics
Mimi Sheller, Consuming the Caribbean
Jamaica Kincaid, Annie John
V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas
J.G. Ballard, Concrete Island
John Urry, Global Complexity
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Friction