IPP Workshop Series: Reading Postcolonial Theories: Key Concepts and Approaches in Literary and Cultural Studies
- https://www.uni-giessen.de/en/faculties/ggkgcsc/ggk-gcsc-calendar/winter-semester-2627/ipp/ipp-workshop-series-reading-postcolonial-theories-key-concepts-and-approaches-in-literary-and-cultural-studies
- IPP Workshop Series: Reading Postcolonial Theories: Key Concepts and Approaches in Literary and Cultural Studies
- 2026-11-12T14:00:00+01:00
- 2026-11-12T16:00:00+01:00
// Akshita Sharma
The history of colonialism shapes literature and cultural studies, cultural identities, knowledge production, representation, and power hegemonies.
This workshop offers an introduction to postcolonial theory focusing on how its central concepts can be employed as analytical tools in
literary and cultural studies.
The workshop engages with major areas of postcolonial thought, including Colonialism and Empire, Metropole and Colony, Representation and Orientalism, Mimicry and Hybridity, and Agency, Resistance and Othering. The ideas of influential postcolonial thinkers, including Homi K. Bhabha, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Frantz Fanon, will provide the theoretical framework.
The workshop aims to equip participants with the theoretical and analytical tools necessary to apply postcolonial concepts to the interpretation of literary texts and cultural analysis.
The workshop will begin with the opening question of: What do we associate with the colonial and the postcolonial? Who has the authority to represent? Whose knowledge and voices become visible and whose remain marginalised?
These questions will provide a starting point for discussion on the theme of colonialism and to understand that colonialism is not only a historical process but rather a structure that shaped representation, knowledge production, cultural identities and so on.
Participants will work with short literary and cultural examples to develop their own postcolonial reading. The participants will learn to interpret literary and cultural texts with postcolonial theories, and 2-3 small literary texts will be closely read and analysed in the second part of the workshop.
Please sign up here for the course!
Please note that a minimum of five participants is needed for the workshop to be able to take place two weeks before taking place. Please sign up on Stud.IP well in advance and note that your attendance is binding. Should you not be able to attend last minute, please inform the IPP team and the workshop leader.