Astrid Rasch
Biographic Data
| ID | 3592114 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Astrid Rasch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Astrid |
| FAMILY NAME | Rasch |
| SIGNATURE | RASCH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Norwegian University of Science and Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1517-6167 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Life Writing and the End of Empire
Intimate afterlives of empire
Exemplar empires
This chapter explores the heated debate over the memory of the British Empire through an examination of the public interventions by scholars Nigel Biggar and Niall Ferguson and their critics. On either side of the debate, scholars agree that the colonial past is too complex to be reduced to a simple question of for or against. To begin to understand why the debate is nevertheless so fierce, this chapter studies it as a case of disagreement over ‘…
Anxious Reading
Analyzing Citizen Engagement With European Politics on Social Media
Contributions in this thematic issue focus explicitly on citizens and their online engagement with European politics. For social media research in the European Union, citizens remain an understudied actor type in comparison with political elites or news organizations. The reason, we argue, is four key challenges facing social media research in the European Union: legal, ethical, technical, and cultural. To introduce this thematic issue, we outlin…
Anxious Reading
This essay considers a researcher’s anxiety at submitting a trauma memoir to critical scrutiny. By studying the uneven distribution of grievability in a white expatriate’s memoir of Zimbabwe, it explores how this anxiety can open up for a reading strategy that is sensitive to the political power of selective empathy
Subversion or Identity Work? Tracing the Reception of Zimbabwean Counter-Narrative Memoirs
This article analyses the reception of memoirs that position themselves as counter-narratives to state-sanctioned Zimbabwean storytelling. It asks whether these texts play the subversive role that one might expect from their status as counter-narratives. To study the lives of counter-narratives, I propose that it is helpful to examine their narrative communities, distinguishing between implicit and imagined narrative communities. Under scrutiny a…
Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe
Reviewed by: Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis by Oliver Nyambi Astrid Rasch (bio) Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis, Oliver Nyambi, Routledge, 2019, xi + 235 pp. ISBN 9781138352568, $160.00 hardback. ISBN 9781032178110, $48.95 paperback. In Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis, Oliver Nyambi takes us inside some of the…
Keep the Balance”
This article uses a memory studies lens to explore the inherent tension in discourses that defend empire in postcolonial Britain. It argues that many Britons try to reconcile their awareness of colonial violence, racism, and exploitation with their wish to view themselves in a positive light. This at a time when the memory of empire continues to be associated with British national identity in the present. It uses the rhetoric of a number of autho…
Postcolonial Nostalgia
This article introduces the concept of "postcolonial nostalgia" to discuss four memoirs by white expatriate Zimbabweans Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. The authors borrow from colonial discourse, producing nostalgic accounts that may appeal to their Western audiences but which fail to challenge colonial mindsets in the way that their postcolonial self-image might lead us to expect. Written at a time of national crisis in Zimbabwe, the memoirs …
The Family Connection
One of the most striking phenomena of Zimbabwean literature since the 1990s has been the boom in white memoirs. Often written from abroad, these texts respond to the hostile political climate of the land reforms by insisting upon their authors’ right to speak as national subjects. This article studies four memoirs by the two most famous exponents of the genre, Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. It argues that their texts negotiate a contested sen…
Life Writing After Empire
A watershed moment of the twentieth century, the end of empire saw upheavals to global power structures and national identities. However, decolonisation profoundly affected individual subjectivities too. Life Writing After Empire examines how people around the globe have made sense of the post-imperial condition through the practice of life writing in its multifarious expressions, from auto/biography through travel writing to oral history and pho…
This Union-Jacked Time’
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 …
Subversion or Identity Work? Tracing the Reception of Zimbabwean Counter-Narrative Memoirs
This article analyses the reception of memoirs that position themselves as counter-narratives to state-sanctioned Zimbabwean storytelling. It asks whether these texts play the subversive role that one might expect from their status as counter-narratives. To study the lives of counter-narratives, I propose that it is helpful to examine their narrative communities, distinguishing between implicit and imagined narrative communities. Under scrutiny a…
Analyzing Citizen Engagement With European Politics on Social Media
Contributions in this thematic issue focus explicitly on citizens and their online engagement with European politics. For social media research in the European Union, citizens remain an understudied actor type in comparison with political elites or news organizations. The reason, we argue, is four key challenges facing social media research in the European Union: legal, ethical, technical, and cultural. To introduce this thematic issue, we outlin…
Anxious Reading
This essay considers a researcher’s anxiety at submitting a trauma memoir to critical scrutiny. By studying the uneven distribution of grievability in a white expatriate’s memoir of Zimbabwe, it explores how this anxiety can open up for a reading strategy that is sensitive to the political power of selective empathy
The Family Connection
One of the most striking phenomena of Zimbabwean literature since the 1990s has been the boom in white memoirs. Often written from abroad, these texts respond to the hostile political climate of the land reforms by insisting upon their authors’ right to speak as national subjects. This article studies four memoirs by the two most famous exponents of the genre, Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. It argues that their texts negotiate a contested sen…
This Union-Jacked Time’
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 …
Life Writing After Empire
A watershed moment of the twentieth century, the end of empire saw upheavals to global power structures and national identities. However, decolonisation profoundly affected individual subjectivities too. Life Writing After Empire examines how people around the globe have made sense of the post-imperial condition through the practice of life writing in its multifarious expressions, from auto/biography through travel writing to oral history and pho…
This Union-Jacked Time’
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 …
Postcolonial Nostalgia
This article introduces the concept of "postcolonial nostalgia" to discuss four memoirs by white expatriate Zimbabweans Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. The authors borrow from colonial discourse, producing nostalgic accounts that may appeal to their Western audiences but which fail to challenge colonial mindsets in the way that their postcolonial self-image might lead us to expect. Written at a time of national crisis in Zimbabwe, the memoirs …
The Family Connection
One of the most striking phenomena of Zimbabwean literature since the 1990s has been the boom in white memoirs. Often written from abroad, these texts respond to the hostile political climate of the land reforms by insisting upon their authors’ right to speak as national subjects. This article studies four memoirs by the two most famous exponents of the genre, Alexandra Fuller and Peter Godwin. It argues that their texts negotiate a contested sen…
Keep the Balance”
This article uses a memory studies lens to explore the inherent tension in discourses that defend empire in postcolonial Britain. It argues that many Britons try to reconcile their awareness of colonial violence, racism, and exploitation with their wish to view themselves in a positive light. This at a time when the memory of empire continues to be associated with British national identity in the present. It uses the rhetoric of a number of autho…
Anxious Reading
This essay considers a researcher’s anxiety at submitting a trauma memoir to critical scrutiny. By studying the uneven distribution of grievability in a white expatriate’s memoir of Zimbabwe, it explores how this anxiety can open up for a reading strategy that is sensitive to the political power of selective empathy
Subversion or Identity Work? Tracing the Reception of Zimbabwean Counter-Narrative Memoirs
This article analyses the reception of memoirs that position themselves as counter-narratives to state-sanctioned Zimbabwean storytelling. It asks whether these texts play the subversive role that one might expect from their status as counter-narratives. To study the lives of counter-narratives, I propose that it is helpful to examine their narrative communities, distinguishing between implicit and imagined narrative communities. Under scrutiny a…
Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe
Reviewed by: Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis by Oliver Nyambi Astrid Rasch (bio) Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis, Oliver Nyambi, Routledge, 2019, xi + 235 pp. ISBN 9781138352568, $160.00 hardback. ISBN 9781032178110, $48.95 paperback. In Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis, Oliver Nyambi takes us inside some of the…
Analyzing Citizen Engagement With European Politics on Social Media
Contributions in this thematic issue focus explicitly on citizens and their online engagement with European politics. For social media research in the European Union, citizens remain an understudied actor type in comparison with political elites or news organizations. The reason, we argue, is four key challenges facing social media research in the European Union: legal, ethical, technical, and cultural. To introduce this thematic issue, we outlin…
Exemplar empires
This chapter explores the heated debate over the memory of the British Empire through an examination of the public interventions by scholars Nigel Biggar and Niall Ferguson and their critics. On either side of the debate, scholars agree that the colonial past is too complex to be reduced to a simple question of for or against. To begin to understand why the debate is nevertheless so fierce, this chapter studies it as a case of disagreement over ‘…
Anxious Reading
Intimate afterlives of empire
Life Writing and the End of Empire
History (10 works) · Art (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Literature (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Memoir (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Ancient history (5 works) · Empire (5 works)