The English Department as Imperial Commonwealth, or The Global Past and Global Future of English Studies

boundary 2 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-176
Author(s):  
Joe Cleary
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
English Language ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
English Department ◽  
English Studies ◽  
Global English ◽  
English Departments ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American

Though canons and faculty have greatly diversified in recent decades, English departments around the world fundamentally prioritize English and American literatures. To this extent, they resemble the Anglo-American imperial commonwealths that some toward the end of the nineteenth century advocated for in order to stave off the decline of the British Empire and to shore up a permanent Anglo-American supremacy against all threats. Still, as the English language becomes “global,” English departments today founder for a variety of reasons and convey a persistent sense of crisis. Has the time come radically to decolonize the English department, not only at the level of curriculum but also in terms of its basic organizational structures to facilitate the study of anglophone literatures now planetary in reach? If so, how might this best be achieved in the British and American core countries and also in the more peripheral regions of Anglophonia?

Editor's Column: Provincializing English

PMLA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Gikandi
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Global English ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Global Language ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Emerging Powers

What are we to do with english? Of all the major languages of the world, it causes the most anxiety. Its words seem to want to invade the citadels of other languages, forcing institutions such as the Académie Française to call for barricades against it; in the enclaves of Englishness, a Celtic fringe struggles to hold on to the remnants of the mother tongue; and in most parts of the world those without the ostensibly anointed language often see themselves as permanently locked out of the spring-wells of modernity. Sometimes the global linguistic map appears to be a simple division between those with English and those without it. In the reaches of the former British Empire, a swath of the globe stretching from Vancouver east to the Malay Peninsula, English has come to be seen as an advantage in the competitive world of global politics and trade; in the emerging powers of East Asia, most notably China and South Korea, the consumption of global English is evident in the huge sale of books on English as a second language; in parts of the world traditionally cut off from English, including eastern Europe, the mastery of the language marks the moment of arrival. Most linguistic research on English is carried out in institutions in the Germanic and Nordic zones of northern Europe. In popular books on language and in serious linguistic studies, a powerful myth of English as the global language has taken hold. We are presented not with a world at the end of history but with one in which English sits at the center of a new global community: “English-speaking people and their culture are more widespread in numbers and influence than any civilization the world has ever seen,” claims Robert McCrum (257).

Exploring the Difficulties Encountered by the Non-English Department Students in Learning the English Language: A Study on the Tertiary Level of Education in Bangladesh

2021 ◽  
pp. 47-55
Author(s):  
Md. Musrifur Jelane
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
English Language ◽  
Tertiary Level ◽  
English Department ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
English Departments

Most of the non-English departments at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh conduct the English language course for the development of English language skills of the non-English department students. However, the non-English department students at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh face many troubles in learning the English language efficiently. The purpose of this study was to explore the difficulties encountered by the non-English department students at the tertiary level of education in Bangladesh in learning the English language. This study followed a quantitative research approach. Data collected from 100 non-English department students both from public and private universities of Bangladesh through survey questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The findings of this study disclosed that the non-English department students face the most difficulty in productive skills (speaking and writing). Moreover, duration of the class and semester, syllabus design, needs analysis, classroom techniques, and methods are the significant factors that affect the English language learning of the non-English department students.

Anglospheres: Empire Redivivus?

2019 ◽  
pp. 38-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duncan Bell
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
American Union

This chapter will explore the similarities and differences between late nineteenth-century debates on the British settler Empire and more recent visions of the Anglosphere. It suggests that the idea of the Anglosphere has deep roots in British political thought. In particular, it traces the debates over both imperial federation and Anglo-American union from the late nineteenth century onwards into the post-Brexit world. I examine three recurrent issues that have shaped arguments about the unity and potential of the ‘English-speaking peoples’: the ideal constitutional structure of the community; the economic model that it should adopt; and the role of the United States within it. I conclude by arguing that the legacy of settler colonialism, and an idealised vision of the ‘English-speaking peoples’, played a pivotal role in shaping Tory Euroscepticism from the late 1990s onwards, furnishing an influential group of politicians and public intellectuals, from Thatcher and Robert Conquest to Boris Johnson and Andrew Roberts, with an alternative non-European vision of Britain’s place in the world.

Spiritual imperialism and the mission of the Irish race: the Catholic Church and emigration from nineteenth-century Ireland

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (152) ◽  
pp. 600-619 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Roddy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The World ◽  
Catholic Religion ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Catholic Church

The idea of an ‘Irish empire’ has had enduring appeal. It was a rare source of pride promoted by politicians and churchmen during depressed periods in independent Ireland, particularly the 1950s, and the phrase provided an evocative title for at least one popular – and notably sanguine – version of the Irish diaspora's story as late as the turn of this century. In such contexts ‘Irish empire’ can appear simply a wry play on a far more commonly used and, if recent scholarship is to be taken into account, by no means unrelated term, ‘British empire’. Yet as many historians of the Irish abroad, the Irish Catholic Church, and Irish culture more generally have noted, the existence of a peculiarly Irish ‘spiritual empire’ was widely spoken of even as the island's ports were daily choked with emigrants. Nevertheless, the pervasiveness and persistence of the concept, invariably involving the perception of a special, God-given emigrants' ‘mission’ to spread the Catholic religion in whatever part of the world they settled, warrant a more searching analysis than historians in the above-mentioned categories have hitherto devoted to it.

South Africa and the International Community

1966 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Dale
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Nobel Laureate ◽  
Western World ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Boer War ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

Ever since the discovery there of gold and diamonds in the last half of the nineteenth century, South Africa has engaged the rapt attention of the Western world. The saga of the Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902, perhaps the last of the “gentlemen's wars,” and now the refurbished accounts of the gallant defense of Rorke's Drift in the AngloZulu War of 1879 have been fascinating material for both novelists and film scriptwriters. In addition, the history of South Africa is replete with titanic figures who rank with, or perhaps even above, those from the rest of the continent: the aggressive architect of empire, Cecil J. Rhodes; the redoubtable Zulu warrior, Chaka; the dour, stern-willed President of the South African Republic, “Oom” (Uncle) Paul Kruger; the world-renowned statesman and philosopher, Field Marshal Jan C. Smuts; the founding father of Indian independence, Mohandas K. Gandhi; the compassionate and courageous writer, Alan S. Paton; and the dignified, modest Zulu Nobel Laureate, Albert J. Luthuli. By any standard, South Africa and its leaders of all races have made far-reaching and impressive contributions to the continent, the British Empire, and the world at large.

Anglo-American Post-War Coöperation and the Interests of Europe

1942 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 656-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Wolfers
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Post War ◽  
Essential Prerequisite ◽  
Peace In Europe

Often it has been asserted that if the United States had stood by her allies after 1918 and joined the League of Nations, peace in Europe would have been secure. While this overstresses the point, it is certainly true that the lack of unity among the victors, both at Versailles and afterwards, deprived the world of anything like a center of coördination and leadership. Even the Concert of Europe of bygone days could claim greater authority than a League from which five out of seven great powers were either permanently or temporarily absent, and in which the two remaining powers, Britain and France, were rarely in agreement.In view of this experience, it makes sense to regard continued coöperation between at least some of the important allies of this war, assuming the defeat of Hitler and his partners, as being an essential prerequisite for a more durable peace. If at least the two great English-speaking powers could form between themselves a solid partnership, so it is argued, would not their combined strength and their supremacy of the seas quite naturally attract other nations into their orbit and thus enable them to preserve the order and peace of the world? Their rôle is envisaged as a kind of enlarged replica of that which the British Empire fulfilled with no little success throughout most of the nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Theory-Inspired Rather than Theory-Based Criticism: Towards a Semeiocritical Method for the Interpretation of Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-41
Author(s):  
Khaled Besbes
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
English Studies ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
English Departments ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
Literary Theories ◽  
The World

AbstractThe present article is written almost a decade and a half after the reticent announcement of the death of literary theory by a number of scholars around the world. But during all these years, the humanities have not managed to drive Theory out of the seminar rooms of English departments, nor have the anti-theory proponents managed to remove it from the syllabi of English studies or even from the shelves of specialized libraries. After all these years, English studies academicians find themselves still doing Theory: holding conferences on how to conduct literary studies, organizing debates on how to launch new approaches that could possibly replace critical theories, and encouraging research into less-theorized methods of literary interpretation that could respond to the ineluctable need for a method in studying literature. For good or ill, whether we admit it or not, the echoes of literary theories continue to linger behind the scenes of all debates about literature and literary studies. The question is therefore not how to bring those echoes to silence, but rather how to find a way out of the post-theory deadlock by proposing what I have chosen to name the semeiocritical method as a theory-inspired, rather than theory-based approach to literature. The present article seeks to answer two questions: (1) how can we benefit from the lessons of literary theory without systematically doing theory or being methodically loyal to theories? and (2) how can we maximize the effects of literary interpretation in such a way as to cover as many aspects as possible of the signifying processes in the literary text while maintaining interpretive consistency?

scholarly journals Is English a Killer Language or an International Auxiliary? Its Use and Function in a Globalised World

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Ceramella
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
And Function

<strong><strong></strong></strong><p align="LEFT">I<span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">n the Introduction to this article, I deal with the importance of speaking one’s </span>own language as a way to assert one’s identity. Then I pass on to the evolution of the English language from its start as Old English, spoken by only a few thousand Angles and Saxons.</p><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">I remark how, at fi rst, it was contaminated by thousands of </span>Latin, French and Scandinavian words, of which contemporary English still bears many clear traces, but nobody has ever thought that English was ever in danger of disappearing. By contrast, in the long run, it became the mother tongue of the speakers in comparatively newly founded countries, such as the USA, Australia, and New Zealand, and owing to the spread of the British Empire, it has dramatically increased its appeal becoming the most spoken and infl uential language in the world. Thus, according to some linguists, it has led several languages virtually to the verge of disappearance. Therefore, I argue whether English has really vampirised them, or has simply contributed to make people understand each other, sometimes even in the same country where lots of diff erent tongues are spoken (e.g. Nigeria).</p><p align="LEFT">It is self-evident that English has gradually been taking the role of a common unifying factor in our globalised world. In this view, I envisage a scenario where English may even become the offi cial l anguage o f the E U with the c ontributions &amp; coming, though in varying doses, from all the speakers of the other EU languages.</p>

Fiction and the Native Author

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Stafford
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Short Story ◽  
English Language ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Indigenous Identity ◽  
Do So

This chapter discusses native authors of fiction. Indigenous, colonized, or native authors of fiction in English are rare in the British Empire before 1950. There are exceptions, however, in India, there is a body of English-language fiction from the second half of the nineteenth-century onwards. Nevertheless, a sustained presence and the development of a local literary tradition in English were difficult. The short story, published in newspapers and magazines, was a more common though at the same time more ephemeral form than the novel. Native writers authored prose collections of Indigenous myths and legends in English, overtly signalling their authority to do so in terms of their Indigenous identity and the access it entailed.

A Messenger of Peace to the World

2020 ◽  
pp. 301-356
Author(s):  
Duncan Bell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fin De Siecle ◽  
The World ◽  
Fiction Writers ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Inter State

This chapter traces the Anglotopian visions of universal peace in the context of fin-de-siècle debates about democracy, empire, race, and war. It contends that the most ambitious projects for Anglo-American synthesis promoted the idea of global racial peace — the abolition of war through the unification of Britain and the United States. Recognizing the character and significance of such arguments requires a reappraisal of the genealogy of modern peace discourse. After delineating several popular visions of peace that circulated during the nineteenth century, the chapter introduces the “democratic war thesis” and the “democratic empire thesis.” The former posited that democratic political structures caused or exacerbated inter-state conflict, while the latter suggested that vast empires could cooperatively govern the world and eradicate war. The chapter examines the racial peace thesis, which was propounded, albeit in different forms, by Andrew Carnegie, Cecil J. Rhodes, W. T. Stead, and H. G. Wells, many of the science fiction writers discussed in Chapter 5, and an array of other unionist political thinkers. This was the utopian core of the Anglo-racial dreamworld.

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