The spread of globalization, or the acceleration of transportation and information technologies, alters our notions of time and space. Described variously as colonial, postcolonial, and global, recent film and literature from South Asia suggest models for understanding the following processes: imperialism, nationalism, displacement, hybridity, migrancy, and travel. The resulting increase in the traffic in texts re-defines genres, canons, high/low cultures, as well as popular and mass culture. The new representations and circulations of fictions, films, and adaptations produce novel ways of thinking about community, borders, and belonging. While the class will focus on South Asian texts, we will draw on film, literature, and theoretical frameworks from other contexts to consider the licenses and limits of comparison for this study.