By the end of the nineteenth century, the British Empire covered an enormous part of the globe; at its peak, the British Empire governed a quarter of the world’s population. This course introduces students to some of the literatures that emerged from colonial encounters between the British and the peoples they colonized. Colonialism was a crucible for ideas about race and gender, and the turn of the twentieth century witnessed dramatic transformations in these ideas. Students will analyze how gender and race are represented in the following readings: Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines, Steel’s On the Face of the Waters, Kipling’s Kim, Orwell’s Burmese Days, Tagore’s The Home and the World, and Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream. Additional readings (for context) may include selected poems, bits from travel writing and memoirs, official imperial memos, and anti-colonial speeches.