What are people thinking about this? It seems like it's getting a little repetitive

Edit: We have officially kicked things off in the forum for the first read Birds without a nest - here so feel free to read along and join the convo, would love to hear everyone's thoughts! Tagging is not yet available but if we are following each other we should see each others updates in the forum. No pressure to read along or follow a schedule, you are welcome to join however or whenever you are able without commitment! I am just updating here for personal accountability! :)

Also, the accessibility and length of Toji isn't ideal - so I am updating the August/September reading to Who Ate Up All the Shing by Park Wan-suh as suggested by smellthemosses as it fits the curriculum the best!

Original Post: Hi all! After buying several books that seem to share themes I thought, why not jump on the bandwagon and create a personal curriculum for 2026? Then I thought, maybe someone else out there also has similar tastes/interests and would like to read along?

If anyone is interested maybe we create a "book club" post in the forum for each book to discuss or any other way to discuss each book with each other. Not sure the best way to go about it - but if there is interest we could figure something out. I'll leave the curriculum below and if you interested at all lets chat :)

I'd also just appreciate any thoughts of feedback! Thanks!

GLOBAL EMPIRE & THE COLONIZED WORLD, THROUGH LITERATURE 1880–1930

This year-long seminar examines lived experiences of empire during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through literature written by authors from colonized or marginalized communities. Rather than relying solely on state archives, military records, or histories written from imperial perspectives, we turn to fiction and memoir as primary sources of truth, memory, and resistance.

Literature allows us to access emotional, cultural, and political worlds that colonizing powers attempted to suppress. Through narrative voice, symbolism, and storytelling traditions, these texts become sites of historical memory—preserving ways of life, forms of knowledge, and critiques of empire that official documents intentionally erased.

We move in a global arc: the Americas → Africa → the Pacific → Asia → Eurasia → South Asia. This structure highlights how empire operated differently across regions while revealing shared patterns of domination, resilience, and cultural survival.

Texts:

1. January–February — Birds Without a Nest - Clorinda Matto de Turner • Colonial hierarchies after Spanish rule • Race, gender, “internal empire”

March — Noli Me Tángere - Jose Rizal • Spanish colonial bureaucracy & clerical domination • Reform movements vs. revolutionary impulses

April — Cogewea, The Half-Blood - Mourning Dove • Reservation identity under settler colonialism • Mixed-race politics and land dispossession

May — Hawaii’s Story - Queen Lili'uokalani • Annexation, monarchy, sovereignty • Indigenous diplomacy vs. imperial power

June–July — Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe • Missionary incursion, cultural fracture • Masculine authority and communal structures

August–September — Who Ate Up All the Shinga • Everyday life under Japanese colonial rule • Colonial education, hunger, and assimilation • Gendered survival, domestic labor, and memory

October — Ali and Nino - Kurban Said • Multiethnic coexistence in imperial borderlands • Nationalism & empire’s collapse

November–December — Coolie - Mulk Raj Anand • Economic imperialism & labor exploitation • Comparative indenture systems

By the end of 2026, I want to be able to:

• Trace how empire reshaped land, labor, gender, and culture in Peru, the Philippines, the U.S., Hawai‘i, Nigeria, Korea, the Caucasus, and India. • Compare settler colonialism, economic imperialism, and military annexation. • Identify shared global patterns of domination, assimilation, and cultural suppression. • Recognize Indigenous and colonized writers’ strategies for resistance, survival, and political critique. • Analyze literature as historical memory that preserves voices empire attempted to erase