Studying Anglophone Literatures and Cultures in a World of Globalized Modernity: Notes on the ‘Frankfurt Experience’

Abstract

The following reflections are based on my own experiences of various phases of the institutionalization of the comparative study of anglophone literatures and cultures on a global scale, a field of studies that came into being as 'Commonwealth Literature' in the 1960s, became widely known as the 'New Literatures in English' in the 1970s and 1980s, was often (rather unfortunately, I believe) subsumed under the label 'Postcolonial Studies' in the 1990s and 2000s, and is today increasingly referred to as 'Transcultural English (or Anglophone) Studies'. The vantage point from which I have witnessed much of the development and transformation of this field to which I have dedicated most of my professional energies over the last three decades or so has been the Institute of English and American Studies at Goethe University, Frankfurt. What follows may be read as a case study of the institutionalization and transformation of the comparative study of anglophone literatures and cultures at an institute whose members decided fairly early in the day to turn this field into one of the department's specializations designed to strengthen its teaching and research profile. I will provide a brief account of this institutionalization and transformation with regard to (i) teaching, (ii) research, and (iii) interdisciplinary research collaboration, before ending (iv) with a few observations on the non-institutionalization of postcolonial studies and the 'transcultural tum'.(i) With regard to teaching and curricular reforms, the 'Frankfurt experience' has unfolded as a 'mainstreaming' process that has moved the comparative study of anglophone literatures and cultures from a suspiciously eyed fringe position to the very centre of the institute's pedagogical profile. When Dieter Riemenschneider began to offer courses on anglophone African, Indian, and Caribbean literature and culture (soon to be followed by courses on Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) in the early 1970s (a time when most German universities still ran shy of offering courses on these subjects), quite a few members of the Institute of English and American Studies - and possibly quite a few students, too - probably considered this field a fairly exotic adjunct of dubious relevance to the institute's curricular core concerns. Yet, by the early 1980s, both student demand for 'new literatures' courses and the growing research reputation of the new sub-department of anglophone literatures and cultures (known by the name of NELK, based on the German acronym of Neue Englischsprachige Literaturen und Kulturen) led to an amendment of the Magister course of studies to include NELK as an optional focus area. At the same time, NELK courses (and Staatsexamen with a NELK focus) also became a regular feature of the curriculum for teacher students. A fiirther major step towards mainstreaming the comparative study of anglophone literatures and cultures that decisively brought to an end any residual notions of exoticism and marginality was the introduction of the new Bachelor's programme in 'English Studies' in 2010, with NELK as one of four evenly balanced areas of focus: in addition to the obligatory Introduction to literary studies, the NELK Introduction ('Introduction to Anglophone Cultures and the New Literatures in English') is now the second-largest introductory course offered in the English-studies curriculum. The mainstreaming of anglophone literatures and cultures has become even more pronounced with the introduction of the new Master's courses due to begin in the winter term 2013/14: apart from a Master's in American studies, the Institute now offers a Master's titled 'Anglophone Literatures, Cultures and Media', in which NELK plays a particularly prominent role, and an interdisciplinary Master's titled 'Moving Cultures: Transcultural Encounters' taught in English, French, Spanish, and German, a joint venture between NELK and the Institute of Romance Languages and Literatures that includes optional courses in the social sciences, cultural geography, cultural anthropology, education, and religious studies. …