The Postcolonial Conversation
Why you should start talking about postcolonialism with your British literature students
Welcome to From the Teacher’s Desk, where we take turns further reflecting on our episodes and applications to the classroom.
Over the past decade of my time as an English teacher, I have learned that American literature is usually one of the most fought-over classes. The Great Gatsby, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” - what isn’t there to love? But the more time I’ve spent developing British literature curriculum, the more I want to argue that real social justice work for our students has to start with a conversation about British colonization and its continued impact on our understanding of power and privilege to this day.
Postcolonialism and British literature
Like many of you, my high school British literature class in high school really only covered content through the Victorian era of history. This meant we studied Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë - and a lot of dead white poets. It wasn’t until years later, when I was putting together a unit to teach Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, that I really paused to consider just how washed out British Literature has become.
As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie addresses in her TED Talk “The Danger of a Single Story”, our limited view of diverse voices in the British literature canon is not only unfortunately for nonwhite authors; it’s also harmful to our worldview at large. Reading and the study of literature are intended to inspire empathy by helping you walk a mile in the shoes of a stranger. This gets rather hard when you keep being handed the same stranger’s shoes.
Main questions of postcolonial literature
Let me clarify a few things. I’m not here to cancel any of the classics. I still see value in students studying complex historical texts like those by William Shakespeare. But I also think, as we are already doing through an anti-racist lens in the American literature classroom, we need to address power and privilege as it manifests in British literature.
So how do you get started? The biggest wins I found when approaching a postcolonial perspective in my British literature classroom happened when I put these very issues in my students’ hands. Start on a simple note. Since colonization is by definition an act of control and appropriation, take any text from the British literary canon and ask your students these two questions:
Who is given the power?
Who has the power taken away?
Some resources
One of the best things about a postcolonial study of British literature is that it can be as broad or focused as you want. You can start grappling with the two main questions of postcolonialism through a study of Beowulf, or you can seek out modern diverse British authors who are continuing to unpack these ideas in their work.
To help you get started, here are some of my favorite postcolonial British literature activities (or you can get all of my postcolonial unit resources in one bundle here):
Invite students to do a diversity audit of traditional British literature reading lists.
Discuss postcolonial ideas through modern protest art.
Unpack Apartheid together as one of many examples of power and privilege in the British Empire.
Introduce the ideas of postcolonialism through political cartoons and music videos.
Discuss the power and privilege of the English language as it has developed over time by looking at the etymology of words.
It’s important to understand that the stories of oppression we’ve inherited are global and interconnected. European colonization is the foundation of our modern social power dynamics. And talking about these patterns from our past can only help guarantee our students are more open-hearted in their futures.
Want to hear more about postcolonial ideas in pop culture? Don’t forget to check out our episode on Ms. Marvel!
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