Anglophone Postcolonial Studies

Anglophone Postcolonial Studies at the department focus on contemporary fiction, media and their historical contexts and cultural archives across Anglophone regions. We pull away from more transcendental notions of belonging and identity, looking at the cultural work of literature and culture as a productive counter-force with interventionist possibilities. Our research and teaching foci include:

  • Theorisations of colonial and postcolonial structures and subject formations with a focus on critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, Marxist theory, affect theory, Ecocriticism, decolonisation and gender justice, and postcolonial narratology
  • Transcultural encounters and transnational mobilities in Anglophone literatures and media across regions such as Nigeria, Rwanda, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, Britain, Canada as well as the USA, with a specific focus on diaspora, the figure of the migrant, refugee tales, and notions of indigeneity
  • Settler colonialism, settler subjectivity and the Indigeneous challenge to settler notions of belonging, nation, property and home-making
  • Transcultural fictions of home, including representations of everyday home-making practices, their racialisation and their intersection with norms and ideals of class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, etc.
  • Anglophone children's and young adult literature and media
  • Diversity, 'race' and ethnicity in teaching materials and in the EFL classroom
  • Wars and Genocides in film, graphic novels and fiction
  • Black and Asian British literature

Research Cooperations

Our research cooperations include the White Spaces Network, the research platform/doc.funds "Mobile Cultures and Societies", the Working Group "Scales of Home", Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies at WWU Münster, LiLLT (Literature in Language Learning and Teaching) – AILA Research Network, as well as cooperations with colleagues from the University of Exeter (UK), Leeds Beckett University (UK), the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan (USA), the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany), and TU Dortmund (Germany).

Centers & Research Projects

  • The Centre for Canadian Studies (ZKS, in cooperation with the Department for Romance Studies) facilitates international scholarly cooperation, creating fruitful synergies between research and teaching. By organizing readings, guest lectures, lecture series, and teaching exchange, we offer students the opportunity to learn with scholars from Canada and form long-lasting connections with renowned partner universities.
  • The Centre for Irish Studies includes research on postcolonial Ireland and its narrative and filmic assessment of Irishness as a national identity.