Shadows of Empire: How (not) to remember Britain`s tricky past

„Must Rhodes Fall?“ In the past few years, and particularly since the ‚Black Lives Matter‘ protests of 2020, there have been ever louder calls for Britain to face up to the legacy of its imperial and colonial past. An Oxford statue of Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) – both a brutal imperialist and a willing philanthropist – became a particularly controversial focal point in this debate. Should it stand? Should it fall? Should it be curated in a museum? Destroyed? Pushed into a dark corner and forgotten about? And what do our answers say about both our relationship with the past, and our values in the present and future? In this talk, Dr Robert Craig wants to think about these questions through his own experience as both a literary and cultural theorist and a native Brit. He will ask what the British can learn from Germany’s difficult (and ongoing) process of „Vergangenheitsbeschäftigung“ – and how Europe in general can come to terms with national histories that have often been far from glorious.

Dr. Robert Craig is a Lecturer in English, American, and German Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Bamberg. He’s edited a book on the interplay of literature and science around 1900 and written a monograph, which was published in 2021, about the groundbreaking German modernist author, Alfred Döblin. He’s also published articles on various aspects of modern literature, philosophy, and cultural theory. He sits on the board of ‚Europa in Bamberg‘; and he has appeared on German Radio and TV as a commentator on British cultural affairs — specifically in relation to the monarchy and its changing significance in contemporary Britain.