123422 SE Literary & Cultural Studies Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2023W)

In June 1948, the ship Empire Windrush landed at Tilbury Docks in Essex, carrying 492 British subjects from the Caribbean to London. They had followed the UK government's implicit invitation, which was looking to enhance its work force. British Nationality Act, passed the same year, established one nationality for all the members of the Empire, namely that of "Citizens of the United Kingdom and its Colonies". It also guaranteed right of abode in the UK. People of Caribbean origin, who booked passage to the motherland between 1948 and the early 1960s, when a lot of the so-called 'West Indies' became independent, are referred to as 'the Windrush-generation'. In 2018, the so-called Windrush-scandal broke, when Amelia Gentleman and other journalists revealed how appallingly the Cameron-government was treating the Windrush-generation: denying their citizenship status, disregarding the official invitation issued 70 years before, and deporting commonwealth subjects as illegal immigrants. Keeping in mind the relevant intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality and age, we are going to discuss texts published by Black British writers of fiction between 1956 and 2023, which shed light on the Windrush generation's life in London, its contributions to UK culture, the colonial legacies of their history and the political implications in post-Brexit Britain.

Specialist model:
There will be no monological student presentations in this class. Instead, you are expected to act as a specialist for one lesson of the term, either alone or as a member of a team, depending on the number of participants. How exactly this works in terms of timing, what will be expected of you and what a 'prep mail', a 'double-feedback-loop' and a 'gold nugget' is, I shall explain in detail in the first lesson. You'll be expected to provide a powerpoint presentation as an accompaniment to your specialist task.

Quizzes:
There will be a text knowledge quiz for the play by Henry, the TV mini-series Small Island, and the novels by Evaristo and Hare. The quizzes will be due before the lesson in which we first discuss the respective text. You will be able to fill in each quiz at home. Please send each filled-in quiz as a pdf-file or a doc-file attachment via email to sylvia.mieszkowski@univie.ac.at. NB: Any quiz sent in after the relevant class has started, will remain unmarked, which means you won't be able to collect points on it.

NB This course comes with an excursion to London, organized by Prof. Mieszkowski and her team (Dr. Potter and Ms. Doğrul). Twelve places are available to students, but joining in the excursion is not compulsory to pass the course. Students who join the excursion are expected to book their own flights and accommodation for the duration of the trip, and meet the organizing team in London on late afternoon/early evening of 27th Oct in London (exact time and place tba). Attendance of all organised events is compulsory; the schedule will be shared in the first lesson of the course on 5th October. This is also when you need to commit to joining the excursion. If more than 12 students wish to come to London, we'll draw lots. The Black History Walks (Elephant & Castle, Black Theatre History and Notting Hill), the museum visits (presumably to London Museum Docklands, London Transport Museum and Tate Britain) and (possibly) a visit to the theatre will be paid for by Prof. Mieszkowski. The excursion ends on the evening of 30th Oct, and everybody will make their own way back to Vienna according to individual obligations, plans and preferences. Dr. Potter and Ms. Doğrul will write an event report about our excursion. If you attend the excursion, you will be expected to donate ONE photo and ONE quote about any of the activities to this report.