Anglophone Literatures and Cultures in Germersheim means investigating English as a field of cultural negotiations, global migrations, disciplinary hybridizations, anthropocentric colonising and post-anthropocentric decolonising processes through the ideas & practices of translation. English in this context, is understood and studied in the plural.
As a language and ‘cultural heritage’ which is deeply connected to past and continuing processes of the British Empire & Commonwealth of Nations, anglophone literatures often reflect the imbalances of political and economic power, as well as a struggle for educational and aesthetic autonomy.
While our starting points for studying Anglophone Literatures and Cultures thus may be geographically situated and historically linked to the spread and influence of the English Imperialism in Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific, Australasia, South Asia, North America and Europe, our goal is to trace the influence of English from then, there, and them to ourselves, here, and now.
Owing to the diversity of Englishes spoken, written, performed and transformed throughout the world, we examine Anglophone literature across different media - literary texts, audio-visual media (film, television series, music videos), visual media (paintings, photographs), performance & gestalt media (dance, carving, weaving) - and across different genres, including cookbooks, advertisements, magazine, newspaper articles and social media contents.