Postcolonial Storytelling: Narratives and Agency

About this course

This course will explore European colonial narratives and investigate how they permeate current discourses and lived realities. A comparative approach in this course allows for a deconstruction of national narratives which have enabled European nations to marginalize and romanticize their colonial past, each in their own unique ways. Through interactions with decolonial storytellers, artists, and activists, students will be introduced to ways of knowing that challenge Western thought paradigms.

The course will offer students a space for contemplation and in-depth reflection: Our personal narratives are impacted by collective narratives, beliefs, and values in ways that we are often quite unconscious about. Through written reflections and storytelling circles, students will increase their awareness of the values and beliefs they want to embody and thus gain a stronger sense of personal agency. The stories we lean into, may constrain us, or they may offer powerful pathways to reimagine the futures, we want to see emerge.

“This course created a supportive learning community for grappling with Europe’s colonial past and engaging in debates that are essential for understanding the world we live in today.”

Izumi

Harvard University

Faculty

Ditte Marie Egebjerg-Rantzau

Faculty

Cand. mag. in Nordic Literature and French, University of Copenhagen. BA studies in French Literature, Paul Valéry University, Montpellier, France. Vice Consul at the Royal Danish Consulate of Ethiopia (2000). Educator at Novo Nordisk and Mærsk (>2006). Areas of specialization: Memory studies, postcolonial studies and civic education. With DIS since 2006.