PS Interculturality and Transculturality in Recent & Contemporary Anglo-American Literature and Culture
Kursthemen
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Course aims and objectives:To learn about/familiarize yourself with the history & historical contexts of contemporary British (and, secondarily, US-American) multiculturalism.
To develop a working familiarity with recent and contemporary theories of multiculturalism, interculturality, and transculturality.
To examine and interrogate the ways in which a selection of essays and literary texts reflect, embody, and critique some of these ideas.
To consider the question: what do 'transcultural' literary texts have to tell us about the ways in which all of us negotiate and construct our identities?
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No session
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Administrative Introduction
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Historical & contextual introduction (Part I)
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Historical & contextual introduction (Part II)
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Multiculturalism, Interculturalism, Transculturality
Wolfgang Welsch & Afef Benessaieh
Please read at least Welsch's essay, before preparing notes on the following questions:
Discussion questions:- How does Welsch
define ‘transculturality’? How does he distinguish it from 'multiculturalism'?
- What are the reasons why he sees ‘transculturality’ as a viable alternative model -- to multiculturalism -- for thinking about the ways in which multicultural societies actually work?
- Are we all transcultural – and if so, in what ways? Are there differences between generations? Try to find an example from the essay, and two specific examples from your own life.
- Is there a sense in which Welsch is too optimistic about the possibilities of ‘transculturality’ – especially in the wake of the rise of nativist populism after 2015? Can you identity and exemplify the particular challenges that this idea faces in contemporary politics and society?
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This essay is Chapter II in the collection, Amériques transculturelles - Transcultural Americas, ed. Afef Benessaieh (Ottowa: University of Ottowa Press, 2010), pp. 11-38.
- How does Welsch
define ‘transculturality’? How does he distinguish it from 'multiculturalism'?
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Culture, diaspora, and identity:
Stuart Hall and Salman Rushdie
Before the session, please read the essays 'Imaginary Homelands' (Rushdie, 1982) and 'Cultural Identity and Diaspora' (Hall, 1990).
For further reference and interest, I've also attached two further essays by Hall, which help to contextualize questions of identity and diaspora in relation to the paradoxical processes of globalization.
Questions for reading and discussion:- There are different ways of thinking about ‘identity’, according to Stuart Hall. Please identify and define them.
- What role do ‘difference’, and ‘différance’, play in the construction of both collective and individual identities? See if you can find examples from each of the essays.
- What does Stuart Hall mean when he talks about the different ‘presences’ in Caribbean culture and identity?
- Can we ever rediscover and recover, our lost ‘points’ or ‘places’ of origin’? Or is the very idea of lost points of origin a convenient and comforting iction that we all construct for ourselves?
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Hanif Kureishi:
Pakistani-British Identities
Please read both the autobiographical essay 'The Rainbow Sign' (1986) and the short story 'My Son the Fanatic' (1994) before the session.Discussion questions:- How would you characterize Kureishi’s narrative style and technique in ‘My Son the Fanatic’? How do they shape your sympathies for each of the characters and our sense of their interactions with one another?
- “Parvez had been telling Bettina that he thought people in the West sometimes felt inwardly empty and that people needed a philosophy to live by” (p. 106). Is this true, and is it perhaps one factor behind the radicalization observable within certain ethnic minority (sub-)cultures in recent decades?
- Can this story be said to have a ‘moral’. And if so, then what is it?
- In his 1986 essay, ‘The Rainbow Sign’, what difficulties does Kureishi identify in the ability of a ‘second-generation’ Pakistani Briton to negotiate an identity between British and Pakistani cultures? In what ways can both the story and the essay be read as arguments ‘for’ transculturality?
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Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) (I)
Part I: Humour, Stereotype, and Ethics
Discussion questions:
- How would you best characterize Karim and his relationships with the novel’s other characters? Is he a sympathetic or likeable character? See if you can find 2-3 examples.
- Does the novel downplay the awful reality of racism in late-1960s and 1970s London?
- What do you make of the novel’s highly irreverent (and some might say disrespectful) exploitation of humour and stereotype? does this strategy succeed in critiquing and undermining -- or reinforcing -- stereotypes? Try to find 2-3 examples.
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Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) (II)
Part II: Hybridity and performativity
Discussion questions:
- Most of the novel's characters are looking for an identity, and some kind of stability.
Which of them successfully find their place, and why are
they able to do so when others aren't? Try to find a couple of examples of each.
- What
role do 'performance' and 'performativity' play in Karim's negotiations
of his own identity, whether inter-cultural, or indeed in relation to gender?
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there the suggestion to be found here of a 'new' way of thinking and
constructing identities (of all kinds) in an increasingly diverse
Britain? How does the novel both embody and enact both the principles and dynamics of 'transculturality'?
- Most of the novel's characters are looking for an identity, and some kind of stability.
Which of them successfully find their place, and why are
they able to do so when others aren't? Try to find a couple of examples of each.
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Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake (novel) (2003)
Part I: Narrative form & cultural characterization
1) In what ways is this a story about self-reinvention? Try to think about a time when you tried to ‘adapt’ yourself – or even reinvent yourself – for a new milieu/a new crowd. How successful were you – and why / why not? And is self-reinvention ever really possible anyway?
2) What features particularly strike you about Lahiri's narrative and narrative style? Why do you think she chose to tell this story in the specific way that she did? (Try to think about the ways in which she intertwines present and past.)
3) What are the particular cultural differences that the novel identifies between US-American and Bengali cultures? In what respects does Gogol/Nikhil find himself torn between the two – and how does his relationships with Maxine and his marriage to Moushumi embody the different aspects of this tension?
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No session: Christmas break
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No session: Christmas break
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Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake (novel) (2003) (II)
Part II: Origins & Originality
1) What are the particular cultural differences that the novel identifies between US-American and Bengali cultures? What are the points of hybridity and hybridization? In what respects does Gogol/Nikhil find himself torn between the two – and how does his relationships with Maxine and his marriage to Moushumi embody the tensions and conflicting forces?
Try to identity – and specifically list – some of the differences.
2) The train crash that almost kills Ashoke lies at the origin of his decision to give his son the pet name ‚Gogol‘. But it also a moment of trauma and – given his silence about it throughout much of the narrative – a largely unspoken point of absence. What do you think the significance of this ‚absence‘ is? What does it reveal about the difficulties that migrants of the first and second generations have in negotiating their relationships with their racial, ethnic, and cultural heritages?
3) Are we the authors of our own identities? And what does it mean when we talk about ‘authenticity’ in identity? What does the ongoing tension between the 'pet name' and the 'good name' have to tell us about identity and subjectivity more generally?
4) What does the novel have to show us about the very concept of 'home'?
5) What is the significance of the Gogol story, ‘The Overcoat’? It barely features in the novel – but why do you think Lahiri chose this narrative in particular?
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Term paper writing
Writing workshop
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Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other (2019)
Part I: Deconstructing stereotype & prejudice
For the first seminar session, please read Chapters 1 & 2 of the novel (pp. 1-216). When reading, please consider the following discussion questions:- “Entweder man lebt, oder man ist konsequent” (“You either live your life, or you’re consistent”) – Erich Kästner (1899–1974). What do you think Kästner means by this, and in ways do the intertwining stories of Amma, Yazz, and Dominique reflect this maxim?
- How
do the intertwining stories of Carole, Bummi, and LaTisha illustrate the intersectionality – the
intersecting and mutually reinforcing inequalities and forms of discrimination
– at work within British society? Consider & discuss each character in turn.
- Which of your expectations, presuppositions, stereotypes, and even prejudices did you find challenged in the course of the novel -- and how?
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Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other (2019)
Part II: Identity, Fluidity, and Performativity
Please be sure to read to read the rest of the novel by this week's session, bearing the following discussion questions in mind. Do also take a look at a selection of the secondary literature, including both the Judith Butler extracts and the article by Carolina Sánchez-Palencia.1. How effectively does Evaristo handle the theme of the performativity of gender & sex identity in the case of Megan/Morgan -- and how convincingly does she show the attitudes of different generations? Is ‘performativity’ characteristic of identity constructions throughout the novel? If so, how? And how does the novel’s form and style reflect the provisionality and temporality of identity constructions?2. Were there particular characters you found more sympathetic, relatable, or recognizable? and others less so? Whom, and why? Is Evaristo too ‘understanding’ and ‘sympathetic’ towards problematic individuals and positions?3. “Evaristo’s finest quality as an author is her avoidance of overt moral judgment: her novel shows that we are unable fully to understand anyone unless we have walked around in their shoes – and the paradox is that that is impossible.” Discuss. -
Concluding discussions
1) In what respects does Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other illustrate the principle of transculturality and, by contrast, challenge models of both multiculturalism and interculturality?Try to find and explain 2-3 specific examples from the novel.2) What do you feel you have learned this semester? Were there any particular surprises? How have your perspectives changed and/or some of your presuppositions been challenged?3) What do our texts and authors have to tell us not only about ethnic minority identities, but also about the ways in which human identity is negotiated and constructed more generally? Have you taken away particular insights about the shape and nature of 'cultural identity' itself?