Postcolonial Cultures and Global Literatures in English, 5 op

The course unit explores literature written in English from a postcolonial and postimperial perspective. It demonstrates how the expansion of the British Empire affected the creation of postcolonial literatures in English in different parts of the world (including North America, Australia, Africa and India) and gave rise to forms of anti-colonial resistance. It investigates the ideologies and legacies of colonialism, the formation of postcolonial identities and the decolonisation of the mind and knowledge. It further focuses on the adoption and subversion of English as a global literary language, and the ways in which postcolonial literatures engage with, question and remodel literary-aesthetic traditions.