Termine im WS 2012/13 - Englisches Seminar - Ruhr-Universität ...

their arrival has been met with mistrust and hostility and the cultural and political
articulations that immigrants have developed as a reaction to that. We will also
examine the change in subject positions that have emerged in the same period. In
what ways is being part of the "Windrush Generation" different from being "British
Asian" or "Black British" today? Finally, we will examine how the lived differences of a
multicultural Britain have been translated into the official discourse of
"multiculturalism" in the 1990s and 2000s and the forms of inclusions and exclusions
which were the result of this shift in policy.
Most course material will be made available in a reader, but please buy a copy of
Sam Selvon's novel The Lonely Londoners (Penguin Classic Edition) if you want to
take this class.
All students need to have passed the “Introduction to Cultural Studies” if they want to
participate in this course.
050 666 Budde
(Post)Colonialism and Nineteenth-Century Ireland, 4 CP
2 st. do 14-16 GABF 04/253 Nord
The question whether or not nineteenth-century Ireland can be properly
characterised as a British colony has been one of the most debated questions in the
field of Irish Studies over the last two decades. While there seems to be a certain
consensus on the nature of Ireland's relationship with the British Empire before the
nineteenth century, the Act of Union practically wiped out any common ground
among historians and cultural theorists. How can an equal partner in the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland be conceived of as a colony? Is there any such
thing as a 'semi-colonial' status which could be applied to post-Union Ireland? Or was
the Union nothing more than an attempt to disguise what was in effect a relationship
of colonial oppression between a world power and its 'primitive' neighbour?
In the first part of this course we will try to find possible answers to these questions
by analysing various views, both historical and contemporary, on Ireland's status
within the British Empire. In the second part we will attempt to determine the effect
different interpretations of this status might have on theoretical conceptions of
various Irish cultural products. The last part of the course will be dedicated to
attempting an application of these new theoretical insights to various popular Irish
texts.
Key texts will be provided via Blackboard.