Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place

Arnab Dutta Roy is an assistant professor of English at Florida Gulf Coast University. Paul Ugor is a professor of English at the University of Waterloo. He is the author of Nollywood: Popular Culture and Narratives of Youth Struggles in Nigeria. Simone Maria Puleo is an assistant professor of Italian at Central Connecticut State University.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of PlaceSimone Maria Puleo, Paul Ugor, and Arnab Dutta RoyPart 1. Ecology and the Postcolonial Bildungsroman1. From the novela de formaciÓn to the Eco-Bildungsroman: Nature, Colonialism, and Extractive Capitalism in the Colombian NovelFrancesco Di Bernardo2. The Environmental Bildungsroman: Metabolic Rift and Underdevelopment in Jan Carew’s Black MidasGayathri Goel3. The House That Disfigured the Land: Ecological Decline and the Postcolonial Bildungsroman in Mexican GothicColleen TrippPart 2. Cultural Geography of the Postcolonial Bildungsroman4. Speaking from the Ecotone: Approaching Decolonial Masculinities in Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire SÁenzJoshua D. Martin5. Recontouring the Motherland through Female Sexualities: The Bildungsroman and Postcolonial Selfhoods in IndiaOindri Roy6. Queer Immigrant Bildungsroman: Trung Le Nguyen’s The Magic FishLan Dong and Tena L. Helton7. From India’s Northeast: Conflict, Crisis, and the Elusive Self in Malsawmi Jacob’s Zorami: A Redemption SongDharmendra K. Baruah8. Reconstructing Women’s Identity in Pakistan: Transgenerational Testimony and the Introspective SelfAna AshrafPart 3. Mediascape and the Postcolonial Bildungsroman9. Luminous Possibilities: Bildung, Bonheur, and Sissako’s HeremakonoJeffrey R. Di Leo10. Entangled Subjectivities: Activist Sovereignty Claims, Critical Media Literacies, and Legacies of the Postcolonial BildungsromanMarie Lovrod11. The Personal Aesthetic and the Communitarian Ethic: Satyajit Ray’s Apur Sansar and the Postcolonial BildungsromanThomas Layman12. A Fan of Doom Metal, a Descendant of French Kings: Postcoloniality in Doom 94 by Jānis JoņevsKārlis VērdiņŠ13. Coming of Age in a Hustler Economy: E-fraud Narratives and the Postcolonial African BildungsromanDaniel ChukwuemekaContributorsIndex

"The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place is a vital addition to the field, proving that the genre has evolved far beyond the linear trajectory of European modernity."—Sevket Sarper Dörter, Global South Literary Studies“This collection masterfully redefines the postcolonial bildungsroman, intertwining the personal and collective struggles of individuals in spaces fraught with ecological degradation, social stagnation, and cultural upheaval. With great nuance, the contributors probe how youth identity, spatial politics, and ecological crises shape coming-of-age narratives, offering new perspectives on postcolonial studies. Essential reading for anyone interested in the intersections of space, culture, and power, this volume reimagines the possibilities of the bildungsroman in contemporary global contexts.”—Imre Szeman, director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation, and Sustainability at the University of Toronto Scarborough and coeditor of Power Shift: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy “Global in the scope of its content and the institutional locations of its contributors, this timely volume spotlights provocative and teachable chapters on the eco-bildung, spatial relations in coming-of-age narratives, and emergent postcolonial subjectivities. It effectively exploits the malleability of the genre to bring to light new screen media and literary texts and presents fresh analyses of well-known bildungsroman, such as Sara Sureli’s Meatless Days and the Apu trilogy of Satyajit Ray. Scholars and students will find The Postcolonial Bildungsroman and the Character of Place useful.”—Carmela Garritano, associate professor of international studies and Africana studies at Texas A&M University and author of African Energy Worlds in Film and Media