HiStories from a Post-Colonial World

Course Description

Alongside its many political and socio-economic consequences, Britain's colonial past has led to the introduction of the English language into many regions of the world. Despite the ideological burden which the language carried for the colonized, English rather than any indigenous language became the medium of communication in most of these countries, and it was usually through English that the struggle for independence was fought. Even in the post-colonial era, English remains the official language of many of the former colonies, and in many cases it is also the chief medium of literary expression and hence of the histories and stories which come to us from those places.

In this course, we will study short stories from such diverse places as India, Nigeria, the Caribbean, Australia, and New Zealand. Some writers who have their roots in one of the former colonies but who have been born or raised in Britain (e.g. David Dabydeen, Hanif Kureshi) will also be included. We will be concerned with the short story as a literary text type and with the many creative variations it offers, as evidenced in the texts we shall read.

Pre-requisites: Earning course credit in this Proseminar presupposes that students have already taken the lecture course 'Introduction to the Study of Literature' and that they attend the seminar on a regular basis.

Required reading:

Korte, Barbara/Claudia Sternberg, eds. (1997). Many Voices - Many Cultures. Multicultural British Short Stories. Stuttgart: Reclam.

Further texts will be announced in the course of the seminar.