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Erste Sitzung: 21. April 2016
Die Anmeldung findet im Rahmen des allgemeinen Verfahrens der Fachrichtung 4.3 statt. Bitte beachten Sie die Mitteilungen auf der Website der Fachrichtung und die Aushänge.
“A true-born Englishman's a contradiction,
In speech an irony, in fact a fiction.”
This is how Daniel Defoe defended the Dutch-born King of England, William of Orange, against xenophobic slurs in his satirical poem A True-Born Englishman, published in 1701. In its preface, Defoe highlights the fact that Britain's foundations as a nation are built on the migration of Anglo-Saxon tribes from the fifth century onwards: "From hence I only infer, that an Englishman, of all men, ought not to despise foreigners as such, and I think the inference is just, since what they are to-day, we were yesterday, and to-morrow they will be like us."
More than 300 years later, in November 2014 (and hence months before the so-called refugee crisis dominated headlines all over Europe) The Guardian published an opinion poll which stated that Britons thought immigration was the most important issue their country was currently facing. This situation certainly has not changed since the continuing influx of refugees and the reactionary measures taken by several European governments have begun to challenge not only the notion of multiculturalism, but also the four foundational freedoms of the European Union, i.e. the free movement of goods, capital, services, and people.
In this course, we are going to look at a variety of texts and a film (Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things) which represent the migrant experience in Great Britain. Focussing on (but not limiting ourselves to) voices from Europe, we are going to explore issues such as nationalism, identity, Britishness, multiculturalism, racism, memory, refuge, borders, and many more.
You have to have read Marina Lewycka's novel before the start of term. Short stories and poems will be made available to you in a reader on Moodle.
Texts:
Please purchase the following edition:
Lewycka, Marina. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. London: Penguin, 2006. Print.
ISBN-10: 014102576X
ISBN-13: 978-0141025766 |
