HENA01103U English - Elective 2: Theme in Postcolonial Studies A: The Black Atlantic

This course is inspired by Paul Gilroy’s seminal work The Black Atlantic (1993) in which Gilroy re-explores the former Triangular Trade Routes as significant ‘cultural’ trade routes that initiated a vibrant global spreading and transformation of African-derived cultures in new geographical domains. Gilroy employs ‘the ship’ as an emblem of cultural passage and of a discursive process through which black peoples, cultures and ideas also came to influence and challenge Western modernity culture and perceptions of race, blackness, and identity. The Black Atlantic refers to a transnational and transcultural perception of identity which is dynamic, fluid and constantly in process - like ‘the ship’ always in transit and passage. Black Atlantic culture comes into being ‘in-between’ departure and arrival. From this vantage point we shall study a diverse selection of texts (from slave narratives and colonial documents, to contemporary literature, film and music as well as critical writings and theory) in the attempt to understand the hugely significant dialogical relationship between roots and routes, History and story, home and belonging that was first set in motion by the slave trade of imperial times.

This course may both be taken in tandem with or independently from ‘Introduction to Postcolonial Studies’.