This digitally supported course explores the (postcolonial) phenomena of (non)-belonging, difference, exclusion, marginality, authority, and humanity, and this from the early modern period to the present. Set against the theoretical approach of postcolonialism and seminal studies such as Edward Said’s Orientalism, the seminar starts with William Shakespeare’s dramas Othello and The Tempest tracing racial, cultural and colonial otherness by addressing fear and fascination, but also violence directed at those deemed different. Proceeding to the 18th century, we will address Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) marking colonial otherness in the making of ‘Friday’, followed by Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre (1847) and its construct of Bertha Mason as colonial and mad “Other”. The 20th century will be represented by Edward Bond’s beloved A Bear Called Paddington (1958) and its polite and kindhearted anthropomorphized bear “from darkest Peru,” who has a seemingly endless capacity for innocently getting into trouble in a world whose social and cultural codes are unfamiliar to him
The course provides data for 10 content units that should be supported by 6 to 12 in-class meetings.
- Teacher: Vincent Hornik