Assess students' ability to apply postcolonial theory to close readings of contemporary South Asian diasporic novels (c.1990–present). Tasks: identify and explicate specific narrative strategies—narrative voice and focalization, temporality and fragmentation, multilingualism/translation, intertextuality, and memory/trauma—and analyze how these techniques produce effects of identity, resistance, mimicry, or complicity within postcolonial frameworks (e.g., Said, Bhabha, Spivak, Fanon and recent scholarship). Require short comparative analyses of two texts with focused textual evidence, theoretical application, and evaluation of ethical/representational implications. Scope: graduate-level, medium difficulty; assesses selection of relevant passages, appropriate theoretical deployment, synthesis of text and theory, and clarity of argumentation.