HENA03826U English - Free topic: The Figure og the Stranger in (Postcolonial) Theory and Text

Who is the stranger? What is a stranger? How does society deal with those figures labelled strangers? Is the stranger ‘the other’ or the ‘unknown’, is s/he just passing through or here to stay? In this class we will discuss such general questions from both a theoretical and literary perspective. The figure of the stranger will be theorised through detailed readings of work by scholars such as Georg Simmel, Zygmunt Bauman, K. Anthony Appiah and Sara Ahmed. We will also consider how notions of strangeness can be transcended by engaging in some of Bhikhu Parekh’s recent ideas on a new politics of identity. All this “stranger theory” will be applied on and read in tandem with a selection of generically different (postcolonial) texts – poetry, short stories, novels and film – including work by Merle Collins, Joseph Conrad, Caryl Phillips, David Malouf and Rudy Wiebe.