Astrid Rasch
Background and activities
I'm an Associate Professor of Anglophone Cultural Studies at the Department of Language and Literature. My research examines memory culture at the end of the British Empire with a particular focus on memoirs from Zimbabwe, Australia and the Caribbean, and post-imperial memory politics in contemporary Britain. I hold a master and a PhD in English from the University of Copenhagen. In addition, I have studied at Monash University, Melbourne and been a visiting doctoral fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. I am a co-chair of the Nordic regional group of the Memory Studies Association.
I teach the courses ENG1404 (Britain and the World after 1945) and ENG2455 (Memory Politics After Empire). In addition, I am happy to supervise masters theses within the areas of society and culture of the English-speaking world, postcolonial studies, imperial history, and modern literature, in particular life writing and postcolonial literature.
Professional interests
- Memory politics
- Decolonisation
- British, Australian, Caribbean and Zimbabwean history and society
- Autobiography
- Nostalgia
- Online memory culture
Research projects
- Leader of research project: Trondheim Analytica (2018-2024)
- Leader of research network: Literatures of Change: Culture and Politics in Southern Africa (2019-2023)
- Co-organiser of research network: Anglophone Political Cultures
- Leader of research network: Decolonial Research Group (2018-2020)
- Member of research project: The Embers of Empire (2013-2018)
- PhD fellow: Autobiography After Empire: Individual and Collective Memory in Dialogue (2013-2016)
Editorial work
- Editor of the special issue on Writing Repression in Zimbabwe for Journal of Southern African Studies (with Minna Niemi and Jocelyn Alexander, 2021)
- Editor of the anthology Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain (with Stuart Ward, 2019)
- Editor of special issue on Life Writing After Empire for Life Writing (2016)
- Guest editor of Kvinden&Samfundet (Woman and Society) (2009)
Scholarly and professional work
I provide expert commentary on British and Zimbabwean affairs on Danish national television and radio.
Together with colleagues and students, I have helped set up platforms for Scandinavian students and researchers concerned about climate change. I have written op-eds on the narrative challenges of tackling climate change.
PhD students
Tóra Djurhuus: The Legacy of the Past in Brexit Britain (primary supervisor: Sara Dybris McQuaid). Defended 3 June 2022.
Anna Bil-Jaruzelska: Emotion and Identity Politics on Social Media
Kristine Graneng: Migration sentiments and attitudes towards European integration: Migration discourses in EU referenda (primary supervisor: Pieter de Wilde)
Scientific, academic and artistic work
Displaying a selection of activities. See all publications in the database
Journal publications
- (2021) Anxious Reading: Interrogating Selective Empathy in Trauma Memoirs. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies.
- (2021) Subversion or Identity Work? Tracing the Reception of Zimbabwean Counter-Narrative Memoirs. Journal of Southern African Studies. vol. 47 (5).
- (2021) Reading Repression and Resistance in Zimbabwean Literature. Journal of Southern African Studies. vol. 47 (5).
- (2020) Increasing student preparation and participation through flipped classroom and other measures. Læring om læring. vol. 5 (1).
- (2019) “Keep the balance”: The Politics of Remembering Empire in Post-Colonial Britain. Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies. vol. 7 (2).
- (2018) Postcolonial Nostalgia: The Ambiguities of White Memoirs of Zimbabwe. History and Memory. vol. 30 (2).
- (2018) The Family Connection: White Expatriate Memoirs of Zimbabwe. Journal of Southern African Studies. vol. 44 (5).
- (2017) Review: How Empire Shaped Us, edited by Antoinette Burton and Dane Kennedy. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. vol. 45 (1).
- (2016) Editorial: Life Writing After Empire. Life Writing. vol. 13 (2).
- (2016) 'This Union-Jacked Time': Memories of Education as Post-Imperial Positioning. Life Writing. vol. 13 (2).
- (2015) A Postcolonial Education: Using End of Empire Autobiographies to Introduce Postcolonial Studies. European journal of life writing. vol. 4.
Books
- (2019) Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain. Bloomsbury Academic. 2019. ISBN 9781350113794.
- (2017) Life Writing After Empire. Routledge. 2017. ISBN 978-1-138-22321-9.
Part of book/report
- (2019) Introduction: Greater Britain, Global Britain. Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain.
Report/dissertation
- (2016) Autobiography After Empire: Individual and Collective Memory in Dialogue. 2016.