Modulzugehörigkeit

• BA English and American Studies: Zwischenmodul II

• BA American Studies Variante: Zwischenmodul II

• Lehramt Englisch an Gymnasien: Zwischenmodul L-GYM Literature

• Lehramt Englisch an Grund-, Haupt- und Realschulen: Seminarmodul L-UF Literature

In this course, we will establish a firm and critical understanding of what postcolonial studies is, and what its critiques consist of, based largely on a body of canonized works. We start from texts by prominent anti-colonial writers on which postcolonial scholars would later rely. These authors include F. Fanon, S. Césaire, and A. Cabral. We examine what their topics and aims were, and we identify possible pitfalls that have become evident in hindsight. We proceed to a canon of postcolonial scholars and their most important or well-known works, including G. Spivak, H. Bhabha, and E. Said. We shall scrutinize their main ideas and will debate how their work is similar to and different from that of the anti-colonial authors, and for what reasons. Consequently, we proceed to the critical reception of postcolonial theory. We discuss the main criticisms of the discipline and we will highlight the aspects that have been predominantly been considered useful, even by critics. Central will be the work of B. Parry and N. Lazarus. Finally, we look at recent ways in which postcolonial studies has been used, reinvented, or recalibrated by shifting concern to topics such as migration, terrorism, or globalization. To do so, we rely on the works of E. Boehmer and D. Kadir. Throughout the course, we shall discuss how to best understand terms related to our topic, including ‘imperialism,’ ‘colonialism,’ ‘modernity,’ and so on.

This course has an emphasis on theoretical works. Nevertheless, we discuss several short stories that have been, or could be, considered ‘postcolonial.’