Windrush to Brexit and Beyond: “Race” and Nation in Contemporary British Literature

ENGL

344

Windrush to Brexit and Beyond: “Race” and Nation in Contemporary British Literature

This course will focus on literature by contemporary authors of Black British, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. It will examine texts from a range of genres in terms of their artistic innovations, their thematic concerns, and their relationship to broader cultural and social contexts. The historic arc begins after the Second World War with the arrival of Windrush Generation migrants from the Caribbean and continues with migrant, refugee, and British-born BAME writing to the present day. The course will examine changing constructs of “Blackness” and British national identity throughout the period and their literary manifestations. In addition to “race” and ethnicity, the course will address other areas of difference and the intersecting cultural projects emerging throughout the period with Black feminist, LGBTQ, and other movements that have urged an inclusive vision of nation. The course will also examine opposing cultural discourses culminating in the Brexit decision to withdraw from the European Union.

All Terms

Undergraduate

Yes

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