123421 SE Literary & Cultural Studies Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2017W)

Race has probably been one of the most controversial concepts in critical discussions of the last fifty years and scholars have argued about whether to still use (and if yes, how) or discard the term. Concepts that have been proposed as alternatives are the terms ethnicity and racialisation.

The seminar will discuss the concepts of race, ethnicity and racialisation and the problems that these concepts have posed for researchers. Here, we will also address the historical emergence of racial theories and scientific racism from the eighteenth century onwards and the role that racial theories about white and non-white people and their origins have played in this effort to categorise humankind.

In the seminar, we will use these concepts and theoretical approaches to analyse contemporary Anglophone novels that deal with issues of skin colour and power hierarchies, racism and discrimination, identity crises and (post)colonialist identity constructions. Among others, we will address the following questions:

1. What notions of race and ethnicity are relevant in the contemporary Anglophone novel? Are they refuted or reinforced?
2. How do narrative structures and the representation of different protagonists in these novels reflect conflicts like racism, colonialism, transcultural contact and struggles with identity?
3. Are there differences between reflections of race and ethnicity in novels from regions like New Zealand and Nigeria?

The seminar uses a mix of methods, including close reading, work with secondary and theoretical sources, reader response (in written and oral form), peer-to-peer feedback and teacher input.