|
Titel
8
|
7) The British Empire and its aftermath - EKSAMEN
Focus Points (særlige fokuspunkter):
After a brief introduction to the British Empire from a historical point of view and the students' short oral presentations on selected topics (the Potato Famine; the Transatlantic slave trade; the Scramble for Africa; the Commonwealth of Nations; the Windrush generation and scandal; the Partition of India), we analyse a number of texts that explore the representation and the aftermath of the British Empire from different points of view. What narrative do the colonisers create about colonialism? How do ex-colonies experience the aftermath of colonisation? How is individual and national identity formed by colonialism? Can trauma be inherited? What place do long-lasting representations of colonialism have in contemporary discourse (the "Rule, Britannia" debate). In our work with the fictional texts, we have focused on three methods of analysis: New Criticism, New Historicism, and Postcolonial Analysis. We have worked with the following postcolonial terms: the colonial discourse (representation), binary representations, the colonisers, the colonised, the colonial mindset (white privilege, entitlement), generational trauma, the colonization of the mind. In the non-fictional texts, we've focused on argumentation analysis. Finally, we talk about English as a lingua franca and we learn about varieties of English and the factors that determine whether a language can become a world language.
Methodology (progression og arbejdsformer):
We continue our work with text analysis and oral presentations (fact-finding project), and the students are introduced to another analytical method for fiction, namely postcolonial analysis. The two poems about Canada were used in a project that practices the oral exam: the students have an hour to read, analyse, interpret them, and prepare a 7-minute presentation that also compares them to the rest of the texts in this course. We also held a formal class debate about whether or not "Rule, Britannia" should be dropped as a representation of modern Britain.
Grammar:
Past Paper 28 (091226): verb tenses, gradation of adjectives, adverbs, word classes and synonyms
Past Paper 26 (270525): verb tenses, adjectives in the superlative, the plural form of nouns, word classes and synonyms
Academic focus (faglige mål fra lærerplanen):
- at udtrykke sig sammenhængende og forholdsvis flydende, herunder formulere egne synspunkter, i præsentation, samtale og diskussion på engelsk om almene og faglige emner med en relativ høj grad af grammatisk korrekthed
- at analysere og fortolke tekster med anvendelse af faglig terminologi og metode
- at analysere og perspektivere aktuelle forhold i Storbritannien og andre engelsksprogede regioner med anvendelse af grundlæggende engelskfaglig viden om historiske, kulturelle og samfundsmæssige forhold
- at anvende faglige opslagsværker og øvrige hjælpemidler
Reading List (kernestof):
- James Thomson, "Rule, Britannia", 1740 (poem)
- Sinéad O'Connor, "Famine", 1994 (song)
- Phillip Noyce, dir. Rabbit-Proof Fence, 2002 (film)
- Stan Grant, Speech at the IQ Racism Debate, 2015 (speech)
- Ruperake Petaia, "Kidnapped", 1980 (poem)
- Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, 1986 (excerpt)
- Piyumi Kapugeekiyana, “The Original Is Not Here”, 2025 (short story)
- Kenneth Mohammed, “Don’t look at who voted to call the slave trade ‘the gravest crime’, look at who didn’t”, 2026 (opinion piece)
- Robert Stanley Weir, "O Canada", 1908 (English version of the Canadian national anthem)
- Lenore Keeshig-Tobias, "Canada", 1992 (poem)
- David Crystal, "Will English always be the global language?" and "World Englishes", 2013 (lecture excerpts, clips on YouTube)
- Tina Østergaard, "English as lingua franca" in The English Handbook (Systime 2020)
Additional Material (supplerende stof):
- Student ppts on assigned aspects of the British Empire
- Teacher ppt on the British Empire and its aftermath
- "Imperialism: Crash Course World History #35" (YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alJaltUmrGo)
- "The History of the British Empire" (YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm9NlYfjqXw)
- Foil, Arms, and Hog, "When Europe Divided Africa..." (YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-tp2ISCCuE
- Samuel Ojo, "Global English vs. British English", 2026 (cartoon published in The Guardian)
- Amnesty International, "Why saying 'Aborigine' isn't OK: 8 facts about Indigenous people in Australia", 2015 (article)
|