Afropolitanism and Afropolitan Literature: the New Voices of Africa

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Übung, 2 SWS, ECTS: 4, Studium Generale, Gender und Diversität, Erweiterungsbereich, Modulstudium

Termine:

Mi, 12:00 - 14:00, KR14/00.06

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:
all modules including an obligatory/optional reading tutorial (Übung) for literature in
LA GS/HS/MS/RS/GY
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik
MA English and American Studies
MA WiPäd
Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies

open for Consolidation Module Literature (Übung)
NOT open for Ergänzungsmodul Literature

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 01.03.2022, 10:00 – 07.05.2022, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

In her article “Bye-Bye, Babar” (2005), Taiye Selasi coined the word “Afropolitans.” She argues for a new identity for Africans living in the global north. She defines them as Africans of the world, who are not attached to any specific African language, mother tongue, religion, or culture. So, Afropolitanism is the phenomenon of celebrating Africanness, which Simon Gikandi articulates as “a way of being African in the world.”
In this course, we will discuss the history and ideologies of Afropolitanism and how it has been reflected in Teju Cole, Chimamanda Adichie, Yaa Gyasi, and Taye Selasi’s writings. In addition, this course will provide the space to explore Afropolitanism in relation to African identities, cosmopolitanism, diaspora, migration, and transnationalism. Moreover, we will read and look at the texts of this new generation of writers as a critique of western global power.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Obligatory reading:

Students are advised to buy and start reading the following books BEFORE the start of the semester.

Chimamanda Adichie, Americanah (2013)
Teju Cole, Open City (2011)
Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing (2016)
Taiya Selasi, Ghana Must Go (2013)

A list with secondary reading material will be provided during the semester.

Displaced and on the move: Contemporary Literature on Displacement and Immigration

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Seminar/Proseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 6, Studium Generale, Gender und Diversität

Termine:

Do, 16:00 - 18:00, MG1/01.02

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft/ freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
Ergänzungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar max. 6 ECTS
LA Gym: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
BA Berufliche Bildung: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
LA GS/HS/MS/RS: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

NOT open for Consolidation Module Literature
Open for Ergänzungsmodul Literature

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 01.03.2022, 10:00 – 07.05.2022, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

According to the World Migration Report 2020, international migrants make up 3.6% (281 million) of the world population. They make ‘significant sociocultural, civic-political and economic contributions in origin and destination countries and community’ (WMR, 2020). In speaking about migration, one cannot ignore the possible intensification of migrants’ feeling displaced and their effort to re-embed their lives in host localities. The concept of displacement evokes images of being cut off from social and physical worlds that one calls home, which generates differentiated accounts of dispossession, disruption, and dislocation. The possible response to displacement includes a variety of facets from a sense of exile, the development of a global consciousness, the formation of a hybrid identity, and finding a new place in the host localities.

This class will address aspects of displacement as rendered in literature. In particular, it will investigate the link between displacement and immigration, displacement and literature, immigrant experiences and the narrative of displacement, leaving and arriving, nostalgia and the transitory nature of immigrant identities as articulated in literary texts. Discussion will focus on the feeling of an in-betweenness, multi/trans-cultural identities, and the complex experience of immigrant characters living in between two or more languages, societies, and cultures.

The Interdisciplinary Conference on Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration, which will be taking place in Bamberg between 24 and 26 of June 2022, is an integral part of this seminar. Therefore, it requires a mandatory student attendance at the conference; however, students can choose which (or how many) panels they wish to attend.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Obligatory reading:

Students are advised to buy and start reading the following books BEFORE the start of the semester.

Carter, Betsy. We Were Strangers Once (2017)
Gurnah, Abdulrazak. Gravel Heart (2017)
Hemon, Aleksandar. My Parents: An Introduction (2019)
Ibrahim, Djamila. Things Are Good Now (2018)
Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Displaced (2018)
Shukla, Nikesh. Ed. The Good Immigrant (2016)
Stanišić, Saša. Where You Come From (2019)

A list with further readings will be provided during the semester.

Just Write

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Sonstige Lehrveranstaltung, This course is an extracurricular course and does not offer any ECTS credits.

Termine:

Zeit/Ort n.V.

Inhalt:

Just Write! is a literary magazine publishing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry with a focus on writers who produce creative texts in English. Not only is Just Write! a publication, but it also acts as a platform where the University of Bamberg’s students with creative minds can come together and share their works with fellow students.

Interested to know more, then get in touch by simply writing an email to justwrite.englit(at)uni-bamberg.de

Nachholtermine EngLit

Dozentinnen/Dozenten:

Igor Almeida Ferreira Baldoino, Kerstin-Anja Münderlein, Susan Brähler, Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Seminar

Termine:

Do, 18:00 - 20:00, U5/02.22
Mo, 18:00 - 20:00, U9/01.11

Postcolonial Novels and Novelists from South Asia

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Übung, 2 SWS, ECTS: 4, Studium Generale, Gender und Diversität

Termine:

Di, 18:00 - 20:00, MG1/01.02

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:
all modules including an obligatory/optional reading tutorial (Übung) for literature in
LA GS/HS/MS/RS/GY
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik
MA English and American Studies
MA WiPäd
Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies

open for Consolidation Module Literature (Übung)
NOT open for Ergänzungsmodul Literature

2. (De)Registration: in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 01.03.2022, 10:00 – 07.05.2022, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

This course will explore the postcolonial novels by writers of South Asian origin, which have been both written and published in the last two decades. We will examine literary dynamics of postcolonial South Asia and look at them as manifested in selected novels. The course will also discuss and explore themes such as identity, sexuality, nation-building, partition, exile and migration. We will also touch on critical issues relevant to the region and its Diasporas around the world.

Each participant is expected to give a short presentation on the major topics of one text and lead us into a discussion. The central part of each session, however, will be devoted to close readings and to situating the text concerning its historical, cultural, and social context.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Obligatory reading:

Students are advised to buy and start reading the following books BEFORE the start of the semester.

Ali, Monica. Brick Lane (2003)
Anam, Tahmima. A Golden Age (2007)
Hamid, Mohsin. Exit West (2017)
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner (2003)
Rahman, Mahmud. Killing the Water (2010)
Roy, Arundhati. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017)
Shamsie, Kamila. Burnt Shadows (2009)

A list with secondary literature will be provided during the semester.

Reading Black British Women Writers

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Seminar/Proseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 6, Gender und Diversität, Erweiterungsbereich, Modulstudium

Termine:

Mi, 18:00 - 20:00, U5/02.17

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft/ freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
Ergänzungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar max. 6 ECTS
LA Gym: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
BA Berufliche Bildung: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
LA GS/HS/MS/RS: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

NOT open for Consolidation Module Literature
Open for Ergänzungsmodul Literature

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 01.03.2022, 10:00 – 07.05.2022, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

Bernardine Evaristo winning the Booker Prize in 2019, acknowledged the new group of writers: Black, female writers, who do not fall under the canonical scenario of the British literary culture. On the one hand, categorising this group of writers under the umbrella term “Black British Women Writers” because of their racial and sexual identity may often appear to be, what Salman Rushdie argued about the Commonwealth literature too, an “exclusive ghetto.” However, on the other hand, this categorisation enables a renewed discussion on re-imagining and re-contextualising the never old debates on race, sexuality, diversity, and identity. Moreover, the works of these writers also provoked a new debate and conversation about the concepts of nation, home, and belonging.

Suzanne Scafe, co-author of Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain (1985), once said in an interview that writing by Black authors, in general, aspires to disrupt, intervene, and transform contemporary discourses of power, knowledge, and feeling. In line with Suzanne Scafe, this course will read and discuss writings by “Black British Women Writers” to see the disruption, intervention, and transformation it brings into our understanding of race and gender discourse of contemporary Great Britain. We will read and critically analyse works by authors like Andrea Levy, Bernardine Evaristo, and Zadie Smith in relation to race, gender, ethnicity, diversity, nationality, and identity.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Obligatory reading:

Bedford, Simi. Yoruba Girl Dancing (1991)
Evaristo, Bernardine. Girl, Women, Other (2019)
green, debbie tucker. Hang (2015)
Kay, Jackie. Wish I Was Here (2006)
Levy, Andrea. Small Island (2004)
Smith, Zadie. White Teeth (2000)

A list with further readings will be provided during the semester.