Decolonial Discourses in German Studies: Colonial Discourses and Decolonizing the Curriculum

Unterspülter Bahndamm zwischen Keetmanshoop und Lüderitz, Fotografie um 1910, © Deutsches Historisches Museum

Unterspülter Bahndamm zwischen Keetmanshoop und Lüderitz, Fotografie um 1910, © Deutsches Historisches Museum

Colonial Discourses and Decolonizing the Curriculum

Online roundtable, Tuesday HT Week 1, 17.00-18.30

 

Prominent initiatives like the “Rhodes must Fall in Oxford” movement have heightened the awareness of the need to engage with the continuing legacy of colonialism in the education sector. At Oxford in particular, calls to decolonize the structures and curricula are growing increasingly common. Modern Languages have long played a central role in postcolonial critique and political discourse, but the entanglement of German and German studies within colonial discourses is often discounted, which makes it all the more difficult for those who wish to address these issues. In this roundtable we bring experts from Postcolonial Studies in English, French, and Cultural History in dialogue with German Studies to discuss practical steps towards decolonizing the curriculum in Modern Languages.

 

Speakers:

Prof. Elleke Boehmer,  Prof. Jane Hiddleston, Dr. Barry Murnane, hosted by Dr. Veronika Schuchter. 

 

Speaker bios:

Elleke Boehmer is Professor of World Literature in English in the English Faculty, University of Oxford, and Director of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW), based at Wolfson College.

 

Jane Hiddleston is Professor of Literatures in French in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and Co-Investigator on the Oxford-led AHRC programme ‘Creative Multilingualism’.

 

Barry Murnane is Associate Professor of German in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and Co-Investigator on the German Sub-Faculty’s project “Decolonial Discourses in German Studies”.

 

Veronika Schuchter is a Lektorin in German in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages and Co-Investigator on the German Sub-Faculty’s project “Decolonial Discourses in German Studies”.

 

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