About the conference
Date: Friday, September 21, 2018 - Sunday, September 23, 2018
Venue: ArtsOne
Conference organizers
Professor Felicity Rash (Queen Mary University, London), Dr Geraldine Horan (University College London), Professor Andreas Musolff (University of East Anglia)
Conference Contact: Professor Felicity Rash <f.j.rash@qmul.ac.uk>
Key-note speakers
Dr Stefan Manz, University of Aston will speak on “Colonialism and Diaspora in Imperial Germany”.
Dr Angus Nichols, Queen Mary, University of London, will speak on Friedrich Max Müller.
Professor Albert Gouaffo, University of Dschang, Cameroon, will speak on scientific and cultural transfer.
Conference Papers are invited which cover some of the following topics:
I) Mainstream Colonialism and Resistance to it
- Early German discourse on colonization and its sources in British colonialist discourse
- British and German anti-colonialist discourse
- British and German anti-slavery discourse
- British and German anti-Islamic discourse pertaining to the colonies
- British and German attitudes towards the punishment and internment of native “malefactors”
- British and German attitudes towards the treatment of colonized subjects
II) Discourses of Imperialism and Early Globalization
- Industrialisation, imperialism and lebensraum politics
- “Made in Germany” as a British problem. The respective versions of an imperialist myth of multiculturalism
- Racial and bio-political theory in relation to colonialist discourse
- Contact and competition between British and German archaeologists and ethnologists
III) Travel Literature in the Age of Colonialism
- In the footsteps of Livingstone and Stanley: British and German travel writing and colonialism
- The German reception of the Robinson Crusoe stories
- The perspectives and writings of Christian missionaries
IV) Representations of Colonialism as Acculturation in both British and German Discourses
- A comparative study of the metaphorical representation of colonies in terms of family relationships, human body, flowing/overflowing and planting/plant growth in British and German discourse, and of mutual cross-fertilization between both discourse traditions
- Comparison and contrast of feminist and anti-feminist discourse in both British and German colonies
- British and German claims to leadership of Western, “civilized” culture
V) Colonialism and War
- Colonialist discourse during the First and Second World Wars
- British and German discourse on the planning and aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles in relation to former German colonies
- Imprisonment and internment policies in the colonies and during war-time
VI) Discourses on the Medium- and Long-term Effects of Colonialism
- Similarities and differences between historical discourses on European overseas migration and modern discourses on migratory movement into and within Europe
- The impact of medical and other scientific research undertaken in the colonies
- The lasting effects of colonialism upon modern-day former colonies
- Vergangenheitsbewältigung of colonial pasts: nostalgia and/or apologies
VII) Memorialization and Opportunities for Tourism and Development in former Colonies
- Museums and open-air sites – Namibia as a specific example
- Artistic representations of colonial activity
- Architectural monuments and their place in the modern world
Abstract
This conference will explore the various connections and synergies between British and German colonialist discourses from the seventeenth century onwards. While it is known that similarities and differences exist in the British and German discourse traditions expressing colonialist ideology, this is an under-researched area in respect of historical texts. A discipline of historical discourse analysis is well-established for German political discourse (see, for example, Horan (2003), Wengeler (2005), Wodak et al. (2009), Rash (2012 and in press for 2016)), but is not well-represented for similar English-language discourse and analysis of the primary texts of colonialist discourse tends to rely upon non-linguistic methods (see, however, Musolff 2010). Papers are invited from scholars working in the fields of historical discourse using the methods of Critical Linguistics, Historical Discourse Analysis, Conceptual History (German “Begriffsgeschichte”) and Critical Metaphor Analysis. Source texts could include political, scientific and philosophical tracts, travel literature, autobiography and fiction. The study of images and of the modes of display of historical artefacts are also considered relevant constituents of discourse. The conference will mark the start of an innovative interdisciplinary project which will broaden the field of historical discourse analysis within the English-speaking world and allow comparison of British and German colonialist discourse. A major achievement of this future project would be to shed light upon the history of discursive strategies to be observed in modern discourses concerned with migration, race relations and post-colonial politics.
Introduction
The age of European colonialism started in the 15th century, with Britain, France and Spain founding colonies in the America. Commencing in the mid-17th century, the economic and political advantages of possessing overseas territories started to influence German nationalist ideology. One read, for example, in Johann Joachim Becher’s Politischer Discurs of 1669:
Wohlan dann, dapffere Teutschen, machet, dass man in der Mapp neben neu Spanien, neu Frankreich, neu Engelland, auch ins künfftige neu Teutschland finde. Es fehlet euch so wenig an Verstand und Resolution solche Sachen zu thun als anderen Nationen … [Bestir yourselves, then, brave Germans, take care that henceforth there be found on the map, besides New Spain, New France, New England, also New Germany. You are no more deficient in understanding or resolve to do such things than other nations …] (quoted from Zantop 1997, 216)
As with much British colonialist discourse, many such calls for colonial enterprise were cloaked in a message that the colonized peoples would be the major beneficiaries of colonization in that they would be given access to European culture and Christianity. The absence of a unified nation from which cultural and political influence would spread meant, however, that Germany could not operate from the same governmental and financial base as the British, French and Spanish empires.
During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, before Britain and Germany entered into competition with one another as world colonizers, they shared a great deal of intellectual heritage and, particularly within the ruling classes, cultural orientation. This led to both believing in the cultural centrality of Europe in relation to the rest of the world. The aims of spreading what they saw as civilization to the world outside Europe had much in common, in particular their Christian basis. While Germans were welcome to settle in British and Spanish colonies, to a certain extent they felt as though they were contributing to the successes of the colonies of other nations without reaping nay of the same rewards. German explorers were largely unable to raise funds for their own excursions into uncharted territories and joined British expeditions. The British valued German scientific expertise and a largely cooperative relationship developed among explorers. One notable cooperation was that between Johann Reinhold Forster and James Cook on the exploratory voyage of the Resolution between 1772 and 1775 (see Hawskworth et al. 1773, Forster 1778).
During the nineteenth century, the British Empire expanded as a result into the largest on the globe; Germany was left behind and felt outclassed. German colonialist discourse was permeated with the motif of “Sein oder Nichtsein” [to be or not to be], which lent upon a corrupted version of Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theories and a misunderstanding of Herbert Spencer’s “survival of the fittest”. The First World War did not stop the competitive attitude between Britain and Germany, and the settlement of colonial territories at the Treaty of Versailles left German colonialist ideologues smarting and intent on rectifying what they saw as theft of territories which they believed they were justified in reclaiming.
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