This lecture will introduce students to the field of transcultural and postcolonial studies and will lay the basis for classes with topics relating to transcultural and postcolonial phenomena, literatures, films, and media. Through a rather dense reading program and some documentary films and webcasts we will learn about colonial histories, neocolonial relations in the globalized world, and key concepts in Postcolonial Studies, such as alterity, hybridity, transculturality, manicheanism, dichotomy, colonial discourse, colonized mind, creolization, hegemony, exoticism, orientalism, essentialism, and syncretism. We will read the writings of the foremost thinkers of postcolonial and transcultural theories, including Frantz Fanon, Edouard Glissant, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha, Walter Mignolo, Edward Said, Wolfgang Welsh, Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin.
The lecture will be held in English. All texts will be provided electronically or through Stud IP. Requirements are regular attendance, participation in discussions, and in-depth knowledge of reading materials. Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory.