Astrid Rasch
About
I'm Professor of Cultural Studies and Social Studies in English 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 across the former Empire. 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), ENG2455 (Memory Politics After Empire), and ENG2501 (Africa in the Postcolony). In addition, I am happy to supervise master's 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
- Intimate afterlives of empire: Memory and decolonisation in autobiography, Manchester University Press, 2025, winner of the Wulf Kansteiner MSA First Book Award
- Co-organiser (with Tatek Abebe) research project: Collective for Interdisciplinary Studies of Sound and Text (2024-25)
- Leader of research project: Trondheim Analytica (2018-2022)
- 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 anthology The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe (with Minna Niemi and Amanda Hammar, Brill, forthcoming 2025)
- 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 and Norwegian 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.
Kristine Graneng: Connecting migration and European integration: Discursive issue-linkages in EU referendums (primary supervisor: Pieter de Wilde). Defended 2 May 2024.
Anna Bil-Jaruzelska (secondary supervisors: Pieter de Wilde and Anamaria Dutceac Segesten): Emotion and Identity Politics on Social Media
Competencies
Research
My research examines memory culture at the end of the British Empire with a particular focus on Zimbabwe, Australia, the Caribbean, and Britain.
I am editor of the anthologies Life Writing After Empire (Routledge, 2017), Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain (with Stuart Ward, Bloomsbury, 2019) and a special issue of Journal of Southern African Studies entitled ‘Writing Repression’ (with Minna Johanna Niemi and Jocelyn Alexander, 2021, 47.5).
I headed the initiative Literatures of Change: Culture and Politics in Southern Africa, funded by the Nordic Research Councils through the NOS-HS programme. The research initiative has organised a series of workshops focused on culture and politics in Zimbabwe. Our most recent output is an anthology entitled The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe (edited by myself, Minna Johanna Niemi and Amanda Hammar) which is currently under review with Brill.
I have also been the PI of the interdisciplinary social media project Trondheim Analytica in which four PhD students have examined implications of social media for democratic engagement.
My recent publications appear in History & Memory, Journal of Postcolonial and Commonwealth Studies, Journal of Southern African Studies, and Life Writing.
I am currently finishing a book project on post-imperial autobiographies with the working title Autobiography After Empire: Individual and Cultural Memory in Dialogue (under review with Manchester University Press). The book compares autobiographies from Australia, the Anglophone Caribbean, Zimbabwe, and Britain written between the 1960s-2010s. It argues that authors write their personal memories in a dialogue with existing accounts of the colonial past, seeking to counter or corroborate culturally circulating narratives.
Literatures of Change: Culture and Politics in Southern Africa
The workshop series ‘Literatures of Change: Culture and Politics in Southern Africa’ is an initiative to foster a Nordic research environment on African culture and literature.
Trondheim Analytica
TRONDHEIM ANALYTICA (TA) seeks to address one of the most profound challenges for democracy in the 21st century: the social media revolution and its attendant problems of fake news, message targeting, and echo chambers.
Publications
2026
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2026)
Life Writing and the End of Empire: Homecoming in Autobiographical Narratives by Emma Parker, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2024, 208 pp., ISBN, 9781350353794.
Life Writing
Academic literature review
2025
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2025)
Intimate afterlives of empire: Memory and decolonisation in autobiography.
Manchester University Press
Academic monograph
-
Rasch, Astrid;
Niemi, Minna Johanna;
Hammar, Amanda.
(2025)
The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe.
De Gruyter Brill
Anthology
2024
-
Graneng, Kristine;
de Wilde, Pieter;
Rasch, Astrid.
(2024)
Connecting migration and European integration: Discursive issue-linkages in EU referendums.
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet
Doctoral thesis
2023
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2023)
Exemplar empires: Battles over imperial memory in contemporary Britain.
Academic chapter
2022
-
de Wilde, Pieter;
Rasch, Astrid;
Bossetta, Michael.
(2022)
Analyzing Citizen Engagement With European Politics on Social Media.
Politics and Governance
Editorial
2021
-
Rasch, Astrid;
Niemi, Minna Johanna;
Alexander, Jocelyn.
(2021)
Reading Repression and Resistance in Zimbabwean Literature.
Journal of Southern African Studies
Editorial
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2021)
Subversion or Identity Work? Tracing the Reception of Zimbabwean Counter-Narrative Memoirs.
Journal of Southern African Studies
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2021)
Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis, Oliver Nyambi, (review).
Biography
Book review
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2021)
Anxious Reading: Interrogating Selective Empathy in Trauma Memoirs.
a/b: Auto/Biography Studies
Academic article
2020
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2020)
Increasing student preparation and participation through flipped classroom and other measures.
Læring om læring
Professional article
2019
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2019)
“Keep the balance”: The Politics of Remembering Empire in Post-Colonial Britain.
Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies
Academic article
-
Ward, Stuart;
Rasch, Astrid.
(2019)
Introduction: Greater Britain, Global Britain.
Academic chapter
-
Ward, Stuart;
Rasch, Astrid.
(2019)
Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain.
Bloomsbury Academic
Anthology
2018
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2018)
Postcolonial Nostalgia: The Ambiguities of White Memoirs of Zimbabwe.
History and Memory
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2018)
The Family Connection: White Expatriate Memoirs of Zimbabwe.
Journal of Southern African Studies
Academic article
2017
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2017)
Life Writing After Empire.
Routledge
Anthology
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2017)
Review: How Empire Shaped Us, edited by Antoinette Burton and Dane Kennedy.
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
Book review
2016
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2016)
'This Union-Jacked Time': Memories of Education as Post-Imperial Positioning.
Life Writing
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2016)
Autobiography After Empire: Individual and Collective Memory in Dialogue.
Copenhagen University
Doctoral thesis
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2016)
Editorial: Life Writing After Empire.
Life Writing
Editorial
2015
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2015)
A Postcolonial Education: Using End of Empire Autobiographies to Introduce Postcolonial Studies.
European journal of life writing
Academic article
Journal publications
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2026)
Life Writing and the End of Empire: Homecoming in Autobiographical Narratives by Emma Parker, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2024, 208 pp., ISBN, 9781350353794.
Life Writing
Academic literature review
-
Rasch, Astrid;
Niemi, Minna Johanna;
Alexander, Jocelyn.
(2021)
Reading Repression and Resistance in Zimbabwean Literature.
Journal of Southern African Studies
Editorial
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2021)
Subversion or Identity Work? Tracing the Reception of Zimbabwean Counter-Narrative Memoirs.
Journal of Southern African Studies
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2018)
Postcolonial Nostalgia: The Ambiguities of White Memoirs of Zimbabwe.
History and Memory
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2018)
The Family Connection: White Expatriate Memoirs of Zimbabwe.
Journal of Southern African Studies
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2019)
“Keep the balance”: The Politics of Remembering Empire in Post-Colonial Britain.
Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2016)
'This Union-Jacked Time': Memories of Education as Post-Imperial Positioning.
Life Writing
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2017)
Review: How Empire Shaped Us, edited by Antoinette Burton and Dane Kennedy.
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
Book review
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2016)
Editorial: Life Writing After Empire.
Life Writing
Editorial
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2015)
A Postcolonial Education: Using End of Empire Autobiographies to Introduce Postcolonial Studies.
European journal of life writing
Academic article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2020)
Increasing student preparation and participation through flipped classroom and other measures.
Læring om læring
Professional article
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2021)
Life-Writing from the Margins in Zimbabwe: Versions and Subversions of Crisis, Oliver Nyambi, (review).
Biography
Book review
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2021)
Anxious Reading: Interrogating Selective Empathy in Trauma Memoirs.
a/b: Auto/Biography Studies
Academic article
-
de Wilde, Pieter;
Rasch, Astrid;
Bossetta, Michael.
(2022)
Analyzing Citizen Engagement With European Politics on Social Media.
Politics and Governance
Editorial
Books
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2025)
Intimate afterlives of empire: Memory and decolonisation in autobiography.
Manchester University Press
Academic monograph
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2017)
Life Writing After Empire.
Routledge
Anthology
-
Rasch, Astrid;
Niemi, Minna Johanna;
Hammar, Amanda.
(2025)
The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe.
De Gruyter Brill
Anthology
-
Ward, Stuart;
Rasch, Astrid.
(2019)
Embers of Empire in Brexit Britain.
Bloomsbury Academic
Anthology
Part of book/report
-
Ward, Stuart;
Rasch, Astrid.
(2019)
Introduction: Greater Britain, Global Britain.
Academic chapter
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2023)
Exemplar empires: Battles over imperial memory in contemporary Britain.
Academic chapter
Student thesis or dissertation
-
Graneng, Kristine;
de Wilde, Pieter;
Rasch, Astrid.
(2024)
Connecting migration and European integration: Discursive issue-linkages in EU referendums.
Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet
Doctoral thesis
-
Rasch, Astrid.
(2016)
Autobiography After Empire: Individual and Collective Memory in Dialogue.
Copenhagen University
Doctoral thesis
Outreach
2026
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LectureRasch, Astrid. (2026) Challenging colonialism through academia and activism. Challenging colonialism through academia and activism
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Other presentationRasch, Astrid; Parker, Emma; Boehmer, Elleke. (2026) Life writing and memory at the end of empire. Life writing and memory at the end of empire
2025
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InterviewRasch, Astrid; Niemi, Minna Johanna; Hammar, Amanda; Chikumbu, Anotida. (2025) The Dr. Anotida Chikumbu - BOOK SERIES: The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe.
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Other presentationRasch, Astrid. (2025) Book presentation: Intimate afterlives of empire: Memory and decolonisation in autobiography. ISL-dag
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2025) Studying post-imperial memory politics through autobiography: The case of anti-racist essay-memoirs. The Private Side of Politics
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid; Kennedy, Rosanne. (2025) Book launch: Intimate afterlives of empire: Memory and decolonisation in autobiography. Beyond Crises: Resilience and (In)stability
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2025) Who apologises to whom? Inter- and intra-state requests for colonial reparations. Beyond Crises: Resilience and (In)stability
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Other presentationRasch, Astrid; Niemi, Minna Johanna; Hammar, Amanda; Alexander, Jocelyn. (2025) Book launch: The Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe. African, Afropean, Afropolitan
2024
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LectureRasch, Astrid. (2024) Deep Reading: Introducing Students to the Joy of Uninterrupted Reading. ISL-dag
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2024) Memory Politics After Empire: A work not yet in progress. Critical Uses of the Past in the Present
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2024) Anxious Reading: Interrogating Selective Empathy in Trauma Memoirs. Visceral Writing
2022
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Lecture
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2022) The autobiographical example in black British essay-memoirs. Genres of political writing
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2022) Whose Great Betrayal? Strategies of Self-Defence in Ian Smith and Joshua Nkomo’s Political Memoirs. Politics of the Past in Zimbabwe
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Interview
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Interview
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Interview
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Lecture
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2022) Re-Embodying Mediated Memory: Countermemories of Race and Empire in Black Autobiographical Nonfiction. Explorations of Counter-Memory
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LectureBoasson, Frode Lerum; Rasch, Astrid; Ingulstad, Mats. (2022) Men er det bra? Kritisk Panel vurderer de nominerte til NTNUs litteraturpris. Basta. Sakprosafestivalen i Trondheim
2021
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LectureRasch, Astrid. (2021) (Struggling with) Interdisciplinary Collaboration. How to succeed with interdisciplinary research. Digital transformation webinar
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LectureRasch, Astrid. (2021) Trondheim Analytica: Demokratisk engasjement på sosiale medier. Muligheter og utfordringer – eller, en prosjektleders bekjennelser. Frokostseminar - DH-lab
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Lecture
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LectureBoasson, Frode Lerum; Rasch, Astrid; Ingulstad, Mats. (2021) Kan sakprosa redde verden? Litteraturhusets kritiske panel diskuterer nyere norsk klimasakprosa. Sakprosafestivalen
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Contribution to radio or TV
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2021) Becoming Postcolonial: Memory Dialogues in Post-Imperial Autobiography. Memory Studies Association Annual Conference
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LectureRasch, Astrid. (2021) Avkolonisering av akademia. Avkolonisering av sørsamisk arkeologi og historie?
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2021) Becoming Postcolonial. American Comparative Literature Association's 2021 Annual Meeting
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2021) The people were speaking with my ‘voice’: Legitimating Narratives in Zimbabwean Political Memoir. Memory in Africa
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LectureRasch, Astrid. (2021) Trondheim Analytica: Hva vi vet og ikke vet om demokratisk engasjement på sosiale medier. Møte i Ytringsfrihetskommisjonen
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2021) The Politics of the Past: Exploring Pasts in Zimbabwe's Presents. The Politics of the Past: Exploring Pasts in Zimbabwe's Presents
2020
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Lecture
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Interview
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Lecture
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LectureBoasson, Frode Lerum; Rasch, Astrid; Ingulstad, Mats Asklund. (2020) Men er det bra? Kritisk panel. Sakprosafestivalen i Trondheim
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LectureRasch, Astrid. (2020) Digitale løsninger for økt studentaktivitet. Erfaringer fra høstens undervisning
2019
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2019) Keynote: Storied orders/ordered stories: memoir and power. Storytelling and Social Order
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2019) The other audience of counter-narratives: Ambiguities in Zimbabwean anti-Mugabe memoirs. International Auto/Biography Association Europe Conference
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2019) Complexity made simple: Battles over imperial memory in contemporary Britain. Memory Studies Association Conference
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Feature article
2018
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LectureBoasson, Frode Lerum; Rasch, Astrid; Ingulstad, Mats Asklund. (2018) Men er det bra? Litteraturhuset i Trondheims kritiske panel diskuterer de nominerte til NTNUs litteraturpris: Marit Paasche - Hannah Ryggen, Morten Søberg - Eidsvold-Ekofisk, Dag Hoel - Fred er ei det beste, Maria Berg Reinertsen - Reisen til Bretton Woods. Fakta F. Sakprosafestivalen i Trondheim
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Conference lecture
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2018) 'Keep the balance': The Politics of Remembering Empire in Post-Colonial Britain. After Empire? The contested histories of decolonisation, migration and race in modern Britain
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2018) Complexity made simple - Battles over imperial memory in contemporary Britain. Bordering on Brexit
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2018) Complexity made simple: Battles over imperial memory in contemporary Britain. Colonial Entanglements: Institutions, Memory, Resistance
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Interview
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Lecture
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Interview
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InterviewRasch, Astrid. (2018) I covered Donald Trump’s visit to the UK for the Danish national broadcaster TV2 News.
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2018) Studying post-imperial memory through autobiography: challenges and opportunities. Transnational biographies
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Feature article
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Interview
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Interview
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Interview
2017
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2017) Replaced by Nothing: White Postcolonial Nostalgia. North American Conference on British Studies Annual Meeting
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Conference lectureRasch, Astrid. (2017) The Political Positioning of Trauma: White Zimbabwean Family Memoirs. Second Annual Conference of the Memory Studies Association
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LectureRasch, Astrid. (2017) Ekspert på panel til litteraturfestivalen Fakta F. NTNUs litteraturpris : Kritikk, kåring og kunstnerisk