230348 The Adventure of the Caribbean (BS) (SoSe 2020)

The Caribbean – marvellous white beaches, turquoise sea, palm trees, tropical sun, exotic wildlife, cheerful people and hot musical rhythms. A holiday paradise. But the Caribbean is also associated with grim pirates and buccaneers, with wild adventures and hidden treasures, and also with terrible storms and shipwreck. Last but not least, the Caribbean is a place where common people live and work and struggle. This course will oppose the foreign, European, colonial perspective and the native perspective of the Caribbeans. The scope will reach from the nineteenth century to the present day. We will first look at Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous Treasure Island and a few other examples of English fiction and then turn to native Caribbean literature, poetry, music and culture. We will listen to Reggae, Calypso, and Dub poetry and for native Caribbean literature we will resort to recent contemporary short stories.

Texts for the course will partly be provided via a Semesterapparat, the Lernraum or otherwise. But some of the works you will have to purchase yourselves (see: Literaturangaben). All texts must have been read and prepared by the beginning of the seminar.

Bibliography

Please purchase the following works:

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (Oxford World’s Classics) € 7,34

Carrie Gibson, Empire’s Crossroads: A New History of the Caribbean € 4,00 (optional, for those interested in historical background)