‘Like David Bowie, he was eager to find an identity, throw it away, and start again the next day with another one, brand new.’ - Hanif Kureishi

Dive into this exploration of British identities through a genre-bending study of some of the most exciting immigrant/ BIPOC/queer British novelists, filmmakers and poets writing today. From a multigenerational novel in verse to a queer national romcom, and so much in between, our course explores how British writers are celebrating intersectional identities while grappling with the legacies of colonisation and imperialism, racism, classism, xenophobia and globalisation.

With an eye for inclusivity of genres both popular and literary, and an approach that embraces student-to-text interaction through creative and reflective writing, we will study and draw inspiration from work by Zadie Smith, Hanif Kureishi, Kamila Shamsie, Bernadine Evaristo, Marzanna Bogumiła Kielar, Monica Ali, and a number of other writers who identify as refugees, immigrants, and members of various diasporas living in the UK. How do these writers locate questions of identity in their work, and reflect back to readers a multicultural England?

Our course concludes with a scavenger hunt-style field trip to London neighbourhoods and hotspots featured in the works we’ve studied and enjoyed, including a visit to the Museum of London Docklands.

Professor: Mary Kovaleski Byrnes, Senior Lecturer II in Writing, Literature and Publishing, Emerson College, mary_kovaleski@emerson.edu