Interpreting the First World War

Dozent/in:

Tom Nolan

Angaben:

Seminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8, Teilnehmerbegrenzung 15 Studierende; An-/Abmeldung über FlexNow vom 04.07.2014 (08:00 Uhr) bis 10.10.2014 (23:59 Uhr); An-/Abmeldung zur Prüfung über FlexNow: 22.12.2014 (10:00 Uhr) bis 23.01.2015 (23:59 Uhr); Abgabe der schriftlichen Hausarbeiten spätestens 15. März 2015 (Wenn der Lehrstuhl nicht besetzt ist, bitte sämtliche Postsendungen [eindeutig adressiert] in der Pforte, Kapuzinerstr. 16, abgeben oder dort in den Briefkasten einwerfen. Danke.)

Termine:

Do, 14:15 - 15:45, U5/01.18

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Modulzugehörigkeit und Zugangsvoraussetzungen/Module applicability and conditions of participation
B.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Vertiefungsmodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS), Zugangsvoraussetzung: Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft
B.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik (bis einschließl. Studienbeginn zum WS 2008/09): freie Erweiterung: Seminar (6 ECTS)
M.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante I): Seminar (8 ECTS) M.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante II): Seminar (6 ECTS)
M.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Profilmodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)
M.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Erweiterungsmodul: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Erweiterungsbereich Anglistik/Amerikanistik im Rahmen anderer M.A.: Exportmodul Anglistik/Amerikanistik 1 oder 2: Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante I): Seminar (8 ECTS)
Erweiterungsbereich Anglistik/Amerikanistik im Rahmen anderer M.A.: Exportmodul Anglistik/Amerikanistik 2: Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante II): Seminar (6 ECTS)
LA (alt) alle, Diplom, Magister: Hauptseminar Kulturwissenschaft, Zugangsvoraussetzung: Zwischenprüfung oder Hauptseminaraufnahmeprüfung
Joint Degree: Compulsory Subjects and Restricted Electives: Mastermodul Cultural Studies
Joint Degree: Restricted Electives: Profilmodul Cultural Studies

Lehrformen/Teaching Formats
Seminars in English

Voraussetzungen für Schein- bzw. Punktevergabe/Prerequisites for obtaining credit points
Term-paper according to the style-sheet, active participation

Further information on the term paper can be obtained from this address: http://www.uni-bamberg.de/britcult/leistungen/studium/.

Inhalt:

Inhalte/Contents
Few events in modern history have so haunted the British imagination as the First World War. While it was still being fought and during the nineteen-twenties it was regarded as a dreadful but necessary enterprise – a cause for melancholy national pride. Starting in the late nineteen-twenties, however, and gaining strength in the nineteen-thirties, a quite different view of the conflict came to predominate – one endorsed by Robert Graves in his 1929 memoir of the conflict: that the War was the meaningless slaughter of an innocent generation of young Britons at the whim of an ‘old gang’ of corrupt politicians and generals. One might have thought that The Second World War would, in the years after 1945, have eclipsed the First in the national memory. But with its relatively small number of casualties, its evident justice, and its strong association with the post-war Labour government it helped usher in, the Second World War was not problematic enough to be suitable fodder for national self-criticism – self-criticism which became ever more class-orientated as the decades passed. The course will follow these changing trends by considering a number of works, some of which, though creating a strong contemporary impression, are scarcely remembered today. Included will be R. C. Sheriff’s 1928 play Journey’s End, Peter Wheelan’s 1982 play The Accrington Pals, Sebastian Faulks's 1994 novel Birdsong, the 1969 film Oh What a Lovely War and the popular 1989 comedy Black Adder Goes Forth. Throughout, there will be an emphasis on the continuing controversy in Britain – with a strong tendency to revisionism in recent years – as to the real significance and continuing effects of the ‘War to end all wars’.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Zu erwerbende Bücher/Books to buy
Faulks, Sebastian: Birdsong (London: Vintage, 1994). Vintage edition.

Graves, Robert: Goodbye To All That (London: Penguin, 2000). Penguin Classics.

Korte, Barbara and Einhaus, Ann-Marie (eds.): The Penguin Book of First World War Stories (London: Penguin, 2007).

The Supernatural in British Literary, Cinematic and Televisual Culture: A Two-Hundred Years' Survey

Dozent/in:

Tom Nolan

Angaben:

Seminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 6, Teilnehmerbegrenzung 25 Studierende; An-/Abmeldung über FlexNow vom 04.07.2014 (08:00 Uhr) bis 10.10.2014 (23:59 Uhr); An-/Abmeldung zur Prüfung über FlexNow: 15.12.2014 (10:00 Uhr) bis 06.01.2015 (23:59 Uhr); Abgabe der schriftlichen Hausarbeiten spätestens 15. März 2015 (Wenn der Lehrstuhl nicht besetzt ist, bitte sämtliche Postsendungen [eindeutig adressiert] in der Pforte, Kapuzinerstr. 16, abgeben oder dort in den Briefkasten einwerfen. Danke.)

Termine:

Mo, 14:15 - 15:45, U5/02.22

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Teilnahmevoraussetzungen/Conditions of participation
B.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Abgeschlossenes Basismodul Britische und Amerikanische Kulturwissenschaft
Lehrämter (neu): GYM Abgeschlossenes Basismodul Landeskunde/Kulturwissenschaft

Modulzugehörigkeit/Module applicability
B.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Aufbaumodul Britische und Amerikanische Kultur: Seminar Britische Kultur (6 ECTS)
B.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Ergänzungsmodul (ab WS 2014/15; je nach Belegung des Faches 6, 4 oder 3 ECTS)
Lehrämter (neu): GYM Aufbaumodul; GYM Wahlpflichtmodul (Kombination mit Russisch) Landeskunde/ Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar Britische Kultur (5 ECTS)
Erasmus and other visiting students: Seminar (6 ECTS)

This seminar is exclusively intended for those students looking to complete a Seminararbeit and for whom an Aufbaumodul is a requirement. It does not count as a Vertiefungsmodul or any other kind of module not listed above on the grounds, above all, that otherwise fresher students often fail to achieve the degree of participation which seminars demand.

Lehrformen/Taught by
Seminars in English

Prüfungsformen, Voraussetzungen für die Vergabe von Kreditpunkten/Types of examinations, Prerequisites for obtaining credit points
active participation; term-paper in English in accordance with Style Sheet.

Further information on the term paper can be obtained from this address: http://www.uni-bamberg.de/britcult/leistungen/studium/.

Inhalt:

Inhalte/Contents
The supernatural plays an important role in the British literary and cultural tradition, and numerous first-rate writers – from Walter Scott, to Dickens, to Henry James, to H. G. Wells – have tried their hand at stories which deal with ghosts, demons, and the twilight realm that lies between psychological disturbance and something more essentially mysterious. There have also been a number of writers, such as M. R. James and Arthur Machen, who have specialized in the genre, and who, though never admitted to the canon of literary classics, have had a marked impact on the popular imagination. The course will follow the history of supernatural fiction over the last two centuries in the light of the waning of traditional faith, the growth of a secular and scientific mentality, and the individual’s ever sharper sense of loss and alienation. The set texts will be The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories and Henry James’ novella The Turn of the Screw; other stories will be made available to students via the Virtual Campus. The course will also try to do justice to the remarkable British tradition of supernatural cinema and television, with considerations of such classics as Cavalcanti’s 1945 film Dead of Night and Jack Clayton’s 1961 film The Innocents, along with the superb adaptations of M. R. James short stories produced by Jonathan Miller and Lawrence Gordon Clark throughout the 1960s and 1970s for BBC television, and usually broadcast late on Christmas Eve.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Zu erwerbende Bücher/Books to buy
Cox, Michael and Gilbert, R. A. (eds.): The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

James, Henry: The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers (London: Penguin, 1984).

Other texts will be made available in the course of the semester.