Globalized Identities in Literatures and Cultures in English
Summary
This course explores the complexities inherent in defining globalized identities and aims to understand and analyse globalization in all the areas it is composed of. To do so, aside from exploring the concept of globalization and globazied identities, an exploration of three different key areas will be carried out, by looking at the connection and intersection between 1) globalization and decolonisation (placing specific emphasis on the figure of the migrant and the refugee), 2) globalization and trauma (by exploring a branch of trauma theory that deals with continuous stress disorder and/or risk culture), and 3) globalization and posthumanism (by delving into posthuman and transhuman studies, as well as digital identities and the effects new technologies have on the individual). The course aims to show how all of such areas are intertwined and contribute to the understanding of globalized identities.
What Do We Study
Different analyses of a variety of literary and cinematic texts will be carried out, placing specific focus (though not exclusively) on contemporary British literature and visual media.
The course will follow the following structure:
- An introduction to Globalisation Studies and globalised identities
- An introduction to Trauma Studies
- An exploration of Postcolonialism and Decolonisation
- An introduction (and exploration) of Posthuman Studies
A reflection on Digital Identities
Which is the Line of Thought
Theoretical postulates from a range of fields and areas will be used: Globalization Studies, Cultural and Postcolonial Studies, Decoloniality, Migration and Diaspora Studies, Posthuman Thought, Trauma Studies, as well as the Ethics of Care.
Theoretical and Practical Approaches
Appiah, Kwame Anthony. The Ethics of Identity. Princeton UP, 2005
Ashcroft, Bill. Borders, Bordering, and the Transnation. English Academy Review. A Journal of English Studies 36.1 (2019): 5-19
Bauman, Zygmunt. Globalization: The Human Consequences. Polity Press, 1998
Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994
Bourguignon, François. The Globalization of Inequality. Princeton UP, 2015.
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity Press. 2013.
Brubaker, Rogers. The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora. Ethnic and Racial Studies 28.1 (2005): 1-19
Caruth, Cathy. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative & History. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1996.
Cazdyn, Eric & Szeman, Imre. After Globalization. Blackwell. 2013
Chatzidakis, Andreas et al. The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence. Verso, 2020
Cheran, Rudramoorthy. Multiple Homes and Parallel Civil Societies: Refugee Diasporas and Transnationalism. Refugee Diasporas and Transnationalism/ Introduction 23, 1 (2006)
Craps, Stef, Beyond Eurocentrism: Trauma Theory in the Global Age. In The Future of Trauma Theory: Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism. (Buelens, Gert; Durrant, Samuel & Eaglestone, Robert (eds)). 2013.
Croisy, Sophie (ed). Globalization and “Minority” Cultures: The Role of “Minor” Cultural Groups in Shaping Our Global Future. Brill, 2015
Gupta, Suman. Globalization and Literature. Polity, 2009
Hall, Stuart and du Gay, Paul (eds.) Questions of Cultural Identity. Sage Publications, 1996.
Hall, Stuart. Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In Colonial Discourse & Postcolonial Theory: A Reader, ed. Patrick Williams y Laura Chrisman. Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993
Haraway, Donna. A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.In University of Minnesota Press. 1985.
Haraway, Donna. Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin. Environmental Humanities, 6 (2015): 159-165
Held, Virginia. The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. Oxford University Press, 2006
Huxley, Julian. “Transhumanism” Ethics in Progress Quarterly, vol.6, no. 1, 2015 (1957)
Krishnaswamy, Revathi & Haley, John C. (eds) The Posctolonial and the Global. University of Minnesota Press. 2007
Larsen, Svend Erik. Literature and the Experience of Globalization: Texts Without Borders. Bloomsbury, 2017.
LaCapra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. John Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Laub, Dori & Felman, Shoshana. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History.Routledge. 1993.
O’Brien, Susie & Szeman, Imre. “Introduction: The Globalization of Fiction/the Fiction of Globalization.” In South Atlantic Quarterly 100.3 (2001): 603-626
Persson, Ingman & Julian Savulescu. “Moral Transhumanism.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, vol. 35, no. 6, 2010
Porter, Allen. “Bioethics and Transhumanism.” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (United Kingdom), vol. 42, no. 3, 2017
Steger, Manfred B. Globalization: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP, 2020
Steger, Manfred B. et al (eds). Globalization: Past, Present, Future. University of California Press. (2023)
Waldinger, Roger. The Cross-Border Connection: Immigrants, Emigrants and Their Homelands. Harvard University Press, 2015
Winterson, Jeanette. 12 Bytes. Random House, 2021
Selected articles from APA Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 2013 May issue