Astrid Rasch (International) assertion Astrid Rasch i(10965228 works by)
Gender: Female
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1 y separately published work icon Life Writing after Empire Astrid Rasch (editor), London : Routledge , 2017 10965257 2017 anthology criticism
1 'This Union-Jacked Time : Memories of Education as Post-Imperial Positioning Astrid Rasch , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Life Writing , vol. 13 no. 2 2016; (p. 255-270) Life Writing after Empire 2017;

'The end of the British Empire saw profound changes to collective narratives of identity in former colonies—changes which did not leave individuals untouched. This essay examines how individuals use their autobiographical memories of education to position themselves within the new discursive and aesthetic frameworks of their postcolonial societies. Australian historian Russel Ward and Canada-based Barbadian novelist Austin Clarke both wrote their autobiographies in the 1980s and their texts reflect the after empire context in strikingly similar ways. As they recall their education, they link a curriculum focused on Britain to alienation from their local surroundings and associate their adoption of English speech patterns with snobbery. Clarke and Ward employ different positioning strategies in terms of their former selves, suggesting either their complete immersion in an imperial world view or their budding criticism of the curriculum. However, both authors signal to their postcolonial audiences that they now reject the politics of their schooling and by extension the imperial system which it is retrospectively made to represent.'

Source: Abstract.

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