GER 372 Postcolonial Switzerland
This course, taught in German, introduces students to Switzerland as a postcolonial nation, exploring its active role in global power structures past and present through a variety of case studies drawing on historical engagements, cultural institutions and their legacies, postcolonial cityscapes, the chocolate and tobacco industries, and contemporary discussions of migration, collective memory, and "nation." German-language creative and critical engagement is rich, and the Swiss context, as Putschert and others state, of "colonialism without colonies" encourages students to begin by asking what it means to apply postcolonial methodologies in interrogating colonialism and imperialism in their different forms, past and present (trade, missions, expeditions, legacies of migration). Students will develop a critical and conceptual toolbox that will enable them to actively engage in discussions to seek to understand how and where colonial power relations of the past have left their mark on Swiss (cultural) landscapes, and how actors such as contemporary filmmakers, curators, artists and action groups are working to make these traces visible in the present.