17380

HS-Studying the Present Moment: Populism and Literature

Lukas Lammers

Kommentar

Populism is certainly “one of the main political buzzwords of the 21st century” (Mudde and Kaltwasser 1). Trump, Brexit, the rise of European right-wing parties, manipulation through online media, emergence of a post-truth era are only some of the phenomena commonly linked to populism. But what is populism? How can we usefully define it, and, more to the point, how is it related to literature? Can literature itself be populist, or at least fuel populist tendencies? More often, populism is cast as negative and as diametrically opposed to literature or ‘culture’ more generally. So, is populism something to be shunned, and is literature a bulwark against populism? Is populism always antidemocratic? Or could it be considered the only viable way to respond to antidemocratic tendencies? This seminar seeks to explore populism and its relation to literature from various perspectives. In particular, we will closely study a range of literary texts to discuss how populism operates and how far these literary texts position themselves vis-a-vis an understanding of populism. We will read and discuss four longer texts as well as short(er) fiction. The longer texts are Ali Smith’s Spring, Jonathan Coe’s Middle England, Ian McEwan’s The Cockroach, and Laura Wade’s play Posh. While these works have a strong focus on Brexit, we will also discuss populism as a much broader phenomenon.

Assessment: Students are expected to participate regularly, read the assigned texts, take part in the discussions, and contribute a presentation and/or short response papers (format to be discussed at the beginning of the seminar). The exam is an essay of 7500 words.

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