Decolonizing British Literature

 

In this section you will find helpful links created specifically for the

needs of ENGL 215 students

 

Syllabus

If you are taking this class please make sure you have the most up to date syllabus found in your Canvas class modules. 

Class Text

The Mere Wife - The library has a copy of this book on "course reserve" in the LRC, on the 1st floor. The course reserve number for this book is PS3608.E233 M47 2018 . You can go into the library and check out course reserve books for two hours at a time, within the building. There are copiers and free scanners available for you to use during that time. 

Scanning Service- The library staff are able to scan up to 20% of any book within the building and send it to you via email for free. If you are interested in this service click here for the student scanning form that you will need to fill out in order to make the request. 

Resources of Interest

General Interest

• The Bloom Has Faded; Reforming the Western Canon May Not Go Far Enough - by Robert Zaretsky in The American Scholar

• British Asians- An article that outlines the history of Asian people in Britain

• “Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and the Tyranny of Language” by Francis Wade -  An article regarding “Movements across Africa and elsewhere have advocated a revival of local languages in their countries’ literary output, while translation projects have sought to both expand the non-English audience for African writers, and to “return” African literature to its native soil.”

• The Public Medievalist- The Public Medievalist is a volunteer, scholar-run online magazine devoted to the idea that the Middle Ages matter to people today. Our goal is simple: to present compelling, exciting, meaningful medieval histories that showcase the best of contemporary scholarship in a way that is accessible and enjoyable to the public for free.

• Canon: Dictionary Definitions - by Kathryn B. Stockton, Associate Professor of English, Univ. of Utah

• British Literature - An Open Access Textbook (not the text for this class)

• Æthelflæd: the Anglo-Saxon iron lady - “The UK now has a female prime minister and Elizabeth II has been queen for more than six decades, but few would associate Anglo-Saxon England with powerful women. Nearly 1,100 years ago, however, Æthelflæd, “Lady of the Mercians”, died in Tamworth – as one of the most powerful political figures in tenth-century Britain.”

• A Family Letter From a Serf in Medieval England - by Cirocco Dunlap in the New Yorker

• Bibliography List - from  researcher whose interests are “Medieval Literature, Race in Early England, Early English Studies and Black Marxism, Medieval Studies and White Supremacy, Medievalism, Old English Apocrypha and poetry.”
• “‘Houston, we have a problem:’ Erasing Black Scholars in Old English Literature” by Mary Rambaran-Olm

English Drama

• General

• Shakespeare

  • Roberto Fernández Retamar - connection to depiction of Caliban from Shakespeare’s The Tempest

  • Shakepeare Lives Short Film Collection - “From Lady Macbeth with manga animation to Romeo and Juliet with ice cream wars, we bring you a playlist of short films in which contemporary artists reimagine Shakespeare’s work and explore issues such as the representation of women, racial stereotyping, ageing and mental health.”

  • The Folger Shakespeare - Resources on Shakespeare and access to full plays (written and audio)

British Slavery

• Britains Forgotten Slave Owners-  “How Britain as we know it was built on the profits of slavery, with abolition involving the shocking decision to compensate slave owners for their loss of 'property'.”

• The History of British Slave Ownership Has Been Buried: Now its scale can be revealed- “A new BBC documentary tells how a trove of documents lays bare the names of Britain’s 46,000 slave owners, including relatives of Gladstone and Orwell”

• The First Black Britons- BBC History article

• Britain, Slavery and the Trade in Enslaved Africans- History in Focus article by Marika Sherwood

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English Literature

• Rewriting Beowulf; The Task of Translation - by John D. Niles from JSTOR in SD Mesa Library Database

• The Place of Judith in the Beowulf Manuscript - By J.L. Peter from the SD Mesa Library Database

• The Wicked Age Middle English Complaint Literature in Translation -  This site outlines history of “complaint Literature” and houses examples of full works

• Harold Bloom Was Right to Extol Great Literature, but Was Often Blind to Who Was Neglected - by Kenan Malik . This article challenges the literary critic Harold Bloom

• Beowulf and Teejop - Article by Maxwell Gray that discusses the intentional translation and use of Beowulf to erase indigenous/First Nations people

Depiction of Women

• Women's Voices in the Medieval Period - by Mary Wellesley article from the British Library

• Women in Medieval Society- by Alixe Bovey article from the British Library. “From attitudes to original sin to the roles of wives, mothers and nuns, Dr Alixe Bovey examines the role of women in medieval society.”

• The Art of Kehinde Wiley, Princess Essays -  “Conceived as part of his 2012 series, Economy of Grace, Kehinde Wiley’s Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, The Two Sisters, and Judith and Holofernes each redefine African American stereotypes in their own way, recreating famous paintings to demonstrate the prestige, power, and identity of women of color in America.”

• The Life of the Anchoress - by Mary Wellesley from the British Library. “During the medieval period, hundreds of women chose a life of prayer and contemplation, shut up alone in a cell. Dr Mary Wellesley explains the path to becoming an anchoress, how anchoresses spent their days and what medieval texts such as Ancrene Wisse and Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love can tell us about anchoritic life.”

• Women Scribes: The Technologists of the Middle Ages - Article that discusses the existence of female scribes and how/where they fit into society in the Middle Ages.

• Women in Anglo-Saxon Society- Wikipedia Article

Streaming Video

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