| Summary: | The study is an investigation of responses to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in German and English language literary and cinematic fictions. These fictions extend a critique of modernity implicit in Conrad's critique of colonialism. Through comparative Anglo-German literary and film analysis, the study intervenes in the ongoing debate about postcolonialism as "the restrospective re-phrasing of Modernity within the framework of 'globalisation'" (Hall 1996). Involving 'the imperial regulation of land, the discipline of the soul, and the creation of truth" (Turner 1990), modernity is significant in colonial discourse as it separates colonizing and colonized cultures as 'modern' and 'pre-modern'. The thesis starts by mapping historical and theoretical context, followed by a rereading of Conrad’s novella as a critique of both colonialism and modernity. The third part deals with case studies of post-1960s literary and cinematic sources responding to Conrad while also casting their postcolonial critique as a critique of modernity.
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