Antisemitism in English and American Literature and Culture

Dozentinnen/Dozenten:

Christoph Houswitschka, Pascal Fischer

Angaben:

Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8, Erweiterungsbereich

Termine:

Mi, 18:00 - 20:00, MG1/02.05

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)

Vertiefungsmodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (bis einschließl. Studienbeginn zum WS 2008/09):
freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS

LA GY:
Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Vertiefungsmodul Kulturwissenschaft. Seminar (8 ECTS)

MA English and American Studies:
Master Module English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Master Module British and American Culture: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Profile Module English and American Literature I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
Profile Module British and American Culture I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)

Consolidation Module English and American Literature I-IV: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
Consolidation Module British and American Culture I-IV: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)

Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies:
Master Module or Profile Module I or III English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Master Module or Profile Module I or III British and American Culture: Seminar (8 ECTS)

Erasmus and other visiting students:
Seminar (6 or 8 ECTS)

BA-Hauptfach Jüdische Studien:
B/H 2a+b (Einführung in die jüdische Religionsgeschichte)
A/H 1a+1b+1 Sternchen (Jüdische Religionsgeschichte)
V/H 1 (Jüdische Literatur, Kunst und Kultur)

BA-Nebenfach Jüdische Studien und Judaistik 45:
A/N-45 1+2 Sternchen (Jüdische Religionsgeschichte)
V/N-45 2a+3a (Sprache und Literatur)

BA-Nebenfach Jüdische Studien und Judaistik 30:
A/N-30 1+2 Sternchen (Jüdische Religionsgeschichte)

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 01.10.2018 (10:00) - 10.01.2019 (23:59)
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

While Britain and the United States have contributed greatly to the promotion of liberal ideals like justice, tolerance and equality, one should not ignore the ugly underbelly of narrow-mindedness, prejudice and bigotry that has also existed. That anti-Semitism has proved to be one of the most enduring and baneful forms of hostility can partly be attributed to its ability to transform – “like a virus, it mutates,” as Jonathan Sacks, the former Orthodox Chief Rabbi of the UK, put it in a speech in the House of Commons on September 13, 2018.
This advanced seminar in literary and cultural studies will look at many of the mutations of the disease from the early modern period until today. Christian anti-Judaism did not only decry the Jewish religion as callous and legalistic, but accused its followers of blindness, stubbornness and clannishness. Ultimately, Jews were blamed for the death of Christ. Racial forms of anti-Semitism, which developed in the course of the 19th century, elaborated on these ancient prejudices, hallucinating about unsavory Jewish character traits, filthy bodies and licentious practices. The irrational character of anti-Jewish racism is nowhere better illustrated than in the grand conspiracies Jews were suspected of scheming.
Drawing upon a plethora of texts and phenomena, the seminar will elucidate these elements in their historical contexts. Questions addressed in the seminar include, but are not limited to, the following: How is the issue of Jewishness and anti-Semitism negotiated in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice? In what way did nineteenth-century physiognomic theories reflect anti-Semitic ideas? To what extent does Charles Dickens' character Fagin in Oliver Twist epitomize anti-Semitic stereotypes? What was the impact of the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on early-twentieth century attitudes towards the Jews? What role did Henry Ford play in the promotion of anti-Semitism in the US? Who followed Nazi ideology in Britain and the US in the 1930s and ‘40s? What Jewish institutions combatted anti-Semitism in America? How has anti-Semitism been portrayed by Jewish-American authors? What are the connections between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism? What is the debate about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's anti-Semitism all about?

Empfohlene Literatur:

tba

Put the kettle on! Tea and other hot drinks in British culture and literature from the seventeenth century to the present.

Dozent/in:

Christoph Heyl

Angaben:

Hauptseminar, ECTS: 8

Termine:

Blockveranstaltung 16.11.2018-18.11.2018 Mo-Fr, Sa, So
This course is offered outside of the university at Königsberg

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:
MA English and American Studies:
Master Module English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Master Module British and American Culture: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Profile Module English and American Literature I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
Profile Module British and American Culture I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
Consolidation Module English and American Literature I-IV: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
Consolidation Module British and American Culture I-IV: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)

Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies:
Master Module or Profile Module I or III English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Master Module or Profile Module I or III British and American Culture: Seminar (8 ECTS)

2. (De)Registration: to sign up for this class, please approach Igor Baldoino or Kerstin-Anja Münderlein at the department. Please note that this class can only be taken by Master students and that it will be held outside of the university at Königsberg. To sign up for credits, please use FlexNow! during the credit registration time (you will be informed about this in Königsberg)

Inhalt:

Well into the mid-seventeenth century, everybody in England – men, women and children – drank beer. Beer was the standard drink because drinking water was not particularly safe, especially in cities. The transition from beer to hot drinks such as coffee, chocolate and, above all, tea in the British Isles is a remarkable phenomenon. We shall trace this development from its beginnings in the seventeenth century.
The rise of hot drinks was intimately connected with global trade, colonialism, slavery (no hot drinks without sugar, no sugar without slaves) and the opium trade (Chinese tea was exchanged for opium produced in British India). There is an interesting and important connection between coffee and journalism and the development of the public sphere as the earliest newspapers were both written and read in London´s coffee houses. In the eighteenth century, the tea table became a site of middle-class domestic sociability. Hot chocolate was popular as a hangover cure or an aphrodisiac. The etiquette of preparing and taking various drinks was intimately tied to evolving gender roles as well as notions of national identity. Bovril, a beef-based hot drink, was and still is associated with Britishness and muscular masculinity. Horlicks, a malted milk drink, was marketed as a wonder cure for “night starvation”, a medical condition invented for advertising purposes.
We will study a selection of sources (including texts, images and music) related to the cultural and literary history of hot drinks. There will be tasting sessions, i.e. we will prepare and drink some of the hot drinks under discussion.

The Novel of Sense(s): Reason, Sentiment, and Subjectivity

Dozent/in:

Christoph Houswitschka

Angaben:

Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8, Erweiterungsbereich

Termine:

Do, 16:00 - 18:00, MG2/01.02

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (bis einschließl. Studienbeginn zum WS 2008/09):
freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS

LA GY:
Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)

MA English and American Studies:
Master Module English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Profile Module English and American Literature I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
Consolidation Module English and American Literature I-IV: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)

Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies:
Master Module or Profile Module I or III English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)

Erasmus and other visiting students:
Seminar (6 or 8 ECTS)

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 01.10.2018 (10:00) - 10.01.2019(23:59)
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

In the eighteenth century, the difference between external and internal senses was not regarded to be easily defined. While Shaftesbury continued to see an analogy between the perceptions of external beauty and moral sense, Hutchinson rather argued that internal senses receive pleasure from complex ideas, the external senses from simple ones, both senses being informed by what Locke calls ideas. Later in the century, Kames explains that senses, “whether external or internal, are all of them powers or faculties of mind.” Tasting, touching, and smelling are merely corporeal; only in the mind they acquire a more refined and spiritual quality informed by reason and sentiment. Therefore, “everything clever and agreeable is comprehended in that word . . . a sentimental man . . . a sentimental party . . . a sentimental walk” as Lady Bradshaugh concludes (1749, quoted from Williams). In the later eighteenth century, the association with sensibility, in the sense of “a conscious openness to feelings, and also a conscious consumption of feelings,” causes a continual degeneration of sentiment, eventually meaning uncontrolled feelings.

The subjectivity of perception introduces new aspects of ideas shaped by external and internal senses, reception as discussed by Burke and the participation of the individual developing taste and moral sense on the basis of reason and sentiment. The novel of sense(s) examines these processes of the mind that guide people or mislead them to act inappropriately (Austen). Sentimental journeys could expose the traveler to unexpected perceptions (Sterne) and reading could transform the perception of the ordinary world into a parody (Austen). Other writers provoked their readers into abandoning the complex pleasures of the mind when confronted with the pain caused by simple, but extreme external senses. Smollett could evoke smells, touches, sounds and visual images that terrified and hurt readers. In his novels, physiological and medical concepts of the senses seem to prevail rather than philosophical ones.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Jane Austen. Sense and Sensibility.
Henry Mackenzie. The Man of Feeling.

Emily Dickinson and 19th-Century Popular Culture

Dozent/in:

Christine Gerhardt

Angaben:

Seminar/Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 10, Gender und Diversität, Kultur und Bildung, Eligible for literary AND cultural studies; FIRST SESSION: October 23, 2018!

Termine:

Di, 18:00 - 21:00, U9/01.11
Sessions: Oct 23, Nov 06, Nov 20, Dec 04, Dec 18, Jan 22, Feb 05

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Modulzuordnung und Zugangsvoraussetzung / Part of modules resp. courses of study:

KULTURWISSENSCHAFT/CULTURAL STUDIES
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)

LA (neu) GYM:

• Vertiefungsmodul Kulturwissenschaft (Seminar, 8 ECTS), Zugangsvoraussetzung: Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft

KulturPLUS:

• Lehramtsstudiengänge RS/Gym (2 oder 4 ECTS): Kulturelle Bildung, Grundlagenmodul A (Wahlpflichbereich)
• M.Ed. Berufliche Bildung (3 ECTS): Kulturelle Bildung, Grundlagenmodul B (Wahlpflichtbereich)

M.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik:

• Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante I): Seminar (8 ECTS)
• Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante II): Seminar (6 ECTS)
• Profilmodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)
• Erweiterungsmodul: Seminar (8 ECTS)

M.A. English and American Studies / Joint Degree:

• Compulsory Subjects and Restricted Electives: Mastermodul Cultural Studies
• Restricted Electives: Profilmodul Cultural Studies

M.A. Literatur und Medien:

• Film- und Bildwissenschaft: Seminar (Referat + Hausarbeit, 8 ECTS)
• Erweiterung Film- und Bildwissenschaft: Seminar (Referat + Hausarbeit, 8 ECTS)

Erweiterungsbereich Anglistik/Amerikanistik im Rahmen anderer M.A.:

• Exportmodul Anglistik/Amerikanistik 1 oder 2: Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante I): Seminar (8 ECTS)
• Exportmodul Anglistik/Amerikanistik 2: Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante II): Seminar (6 ECTS)

LA (alt) alle, Diplom, Magister:

• Hauptseminar Kulturwissenschaft, Zugangsvoraussetzung: Zwischenprüfung oder Hauptseminaraufnahmeprüfung

LITERATURWISSENSCHAFT/LITERARY STUDIES

• BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS), Zugangsvoraussetzung: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft
• BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (bis einschließl. Studienbeginn zum WS 2008/09): freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
• LA neu GY: Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS), Zugangsvoraussetzung: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft
• MA English and American Studies: Master Module English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS); Profile Module English and American Literature I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
• Erweiterungsbereich Anglistik/Amerikanistik im Rahmen anderer MA: Master Module or Profile Module I or III English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
• LA alt (alle), Diplom, Magister: Hauptseminar Literaturwissenschaft, Zugangsvoraussetzung: Zwischenprüfung oder Hauptseminaraufnahmeprüfung
• Erasmus and other visiting students: Seminar (8 ECTS)

2. Voraussetzungen für Punktevergabe / Prerequisites for obtaining credit points:

• active participation
• presentation
• term paper in English (following the Style Sheet)
• only KulturPlus (2 ECTS): presentation
• only KulturPLUS (3 or 4 ECTS): short essay

3. An- und Abmeldung (FlexNow) / Enrollment:

• via FlexNow (Students without access to FlexNow (Erasmus or Joint Degree) please send an email to the instructor of the course)
• An-/Abmeldung zur Lehrveranstaltung (course registration): 1. Oktober – 19. Oktober 2018
• An-/Abmeldung zur Prüfung (ECTS/ToR registration): 10. Dezember 2018 – 26. Januar 2019

Für Studienortwechsler, Erasmusstudenten sowie Studierende, die den Leistungsnachweis zur baldigen Prüfungsanmeldung benötigen, werden im begrenzten Umfang Plätze freigehalten. Bei Teilnahmewunsch trotz Überbuchung des Seminars wenden Sie sich bitte per Email an die Dozentin.

Studierende, die an der Lehrveranstaltung als Gäste teilnehmen wollen, melden sich bitte nicht über FlexNow! sondern per Email an und erscheinen zur ersten Sitzung; erst dann kann endgültig geklärt werden, ob Gäste aufgenommen werden können.

Information on how to solve problems with your registration: https://www.uni-bamberg.de/anglistik/studium/informationen-zu-flexnow/*

Inhalt:

Recluse. Isolated genius. Poet of the mind. For decades, Emily Dickinson was seen as an exceptional poet whose proto-modernist work had little to do with the world around her. But much of her poetry responded quite directly to key dynamics that shaped the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, including a vivid letter writing culture and literary mass markets, religious revivals and the temperance movement, popular gardening and the new sciences, industrialization, slavery, and the Civil War. Reading her work in conjunction with these cultural developments opens fresh perspectives on the ways in which Dickinson's elusive work was part of and talked back to many of the most widely discussed issues of her time.

Students should come to this course ready to engage in lively debates about nineteenth-century America, changing notions of literary and cultural studies, and, most of all, Emily Dickinson's poetry.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. R.W. Franklin. 16 €. Further readings will be made available via the VC.

Race and Biopolitics in French and American Culture

Dozent/in:

Judith Rauscher

Angaben:

Seminar/Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 10, Literary and Cultural Studies

Termine:

Mi, 10:00 - 11:30, U5/01.22

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Modulzuordnung und Zugangsvoraussetzung / Part of modules resp. courses of study:

KULTURWISSENSCHAFT/CULTURAL STUDIES
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)

LA (neu) GYM:

• Vertiefungsmodul Kulturwissenschaft (Seminar, 8 ECTS), Zugangsvoraussetzung: Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft

M.A. Anglistik/Amerikanistik:

• Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante I): Seminar (8 ECTS)
• Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante II): Seminar (6 ECTS)
• Profilmodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)
• Erweiterungsmodul: Seminar (8 ECTS)

M.A. English and American Studies / Joint Degree:

• Compulsory Subjects and Restricted Electives: Mastermodul Cultural Studies
• Restricted Electives: Profilmodul Cultural Studies

M.A. Literatur und Medien:

• Film- und Bildwissenschaft: Seminar (Referat + Hausarbeit, 8 ECTS)
• Erweiterung Film- und Bildwissenschaft: Seminar (Referat + Hausarbeit, 8 ECTS)

Erweiterungsbereich Anglistik/Amerikanistik im Rahmen anderer M.A.:

• Exportmodul Anglistik/Amerikanistik 1 oder 2: Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante I): Seminar (8 ECTS)
• Exportmodul Anglistik/Amerikanistik 2: Mastermodul Kulturwissenschaft (Variante II): Seminar (6 ECTS)

LA (alt) alle, Diplom, Magister:

• Hauptseminar Kulturwissenschaft, Zugangsvoraussetzung: Zwischenprüfung oder Hauptseminaraufnahmeprüfung

LITERATURWISSENSCHAFT/LITERARY STUDIES

• BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS), Zugangsvoraussetzung: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft
• BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (bis einschließl. Studienbeginn zum WS 2008/09): freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
• LA neu GY: Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS), Zugangsvoraussetzung: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft
• MA English and American Studies: Master Module English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS); Profile Module English and American Literature I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
• Erweiterungsbereich Anglistik/Amerikanistik im Rahmen anderer MA: Master Module or Profile Module I or III English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
• LA alt (alle), Diplom, Magister: Hauptseminar Literaturwissenschaft, Zugangsvoraussetzung: Zwischenprüfung oder Hauptseminaraufnahmeprüfung
• Erasmus and other visiting students: Seminar (8 ECTS)

2. Voraussetzungen für Punktevergabe / Prerequisites for obtaining credit points:

• active participation
• presentation
• term paper in English (following the Style Sheet)

3. An- und Abmeldung (FlexNow) / Enrollment:

• via FlexNow (Students without access to FlexNow (Erasmus or Joint Degree) please send an email to the instructor of the course)
• An-/Abmeldung zur Lehrveranstaltung (course registration): 1. Oktober 19. Oktober 2018
• An-/Abmeldung zur Prüfung (ECTS/ToR registration): 10. Dezember 2018 26. Januar 2019

Für Studienortwechsler, Erasmusstudenten sowie Studierende, die den Leistungsnachweis zur baldigen Prüfungsanmeldung benötigen, werden im begrenzten Umfang Plätze freigehalten. Bei Teilnahmewunsch trotz Überbuchung des Seminars wenden Sie sich bitte per Email an die Dozentin.

Studierende, die an der Lehrveranstaltung als Gäste teilnehmen wollen, melden sich bitte nicht über FlexNow! sondern per Email an und erscheinen zur ersten Sitzung; erst dann kann endgültig geklärt werden, ob Gäste aufgenommen werden können.

Information on how to solve problems with your registration: https://www.uni-bamberg.de/anglistik/studium/informationen-zu-flexnow/*

Inhalt:

On July 11, 2018, a commission of French lawmakers agreed to remove the word race from the constitution based on the argument that "race" as a biological category of differentiation does not exist and should therefore not appear in any official text. At the same time, Black Lives Matter activists in the United States continue to protest systemic anti-black violence and state-sponsored discrimination. In both countries, then, questions of race and biopolitics are a matter of considerable political as well as popular interest.

This seminar focuses on French and American literature and popular culture that deals with questions of race and biopolitics in different historical and cultural contexts. Drawing on the theoretical and political conversation between French historian and philosopher Michel Foucault and Afro-American philosopher and civil right activist Angela Davis about state power and race-based violence, we will discuss how cultural products such as literary texts, TV shows, and Rap music represent, help to reproduce or can be used to contest exclusionary practices and discriminatory discourses.

This seminar is open to students of Romance languages, students in American studies, and students interested in comparative approaches to literature and culture. The course languages will be German and English. While all seminar participants are expected to read English and should be able to follow course discussions in German, translations of the French materials will be made available via the VC. Students taking the course for an American studies module are required to write a term paper in English. Students studying Romance languages can write their term papers in English, French, or German.

Empfohlene Literatur:

• Foucault, Michel: Surveiller et punir (Fr. Original), excerpts (Full text: https://katalog.ub.uni-bamberg.de/query/BV040521717 )
• OR: Foucault, Michel: Discipline and Punish (Engl. Transl.), excerpts (Full text: https://katalog.ub.uni-bamberg.de/query/BV040521628 )
• OR: Foucault, Michel: Überwachen und Strafen (Germ. Transl.), excerpts (Full text (library/VPN): https://katalog.ub.uni-bamberg.de/query/BV035580586 )
• Davis, Angela: "Racialized Punishment and Prison Abolition" (1988) (Full Text: https://doubleoperative.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/racialized-punishment-and-prison-abolition.pdf )
• Davis, Angela: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003) (Full Text: https://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Angela-Davis-Are_Prisons_Obsolete.pdf )
• Douglass, Frederick: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845)
• Jacobs, Harriet: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), excerpts
• Orange is the New Black, TV Series (2013-), selected episodes
• De Rentiis,Dina: "Stereotypisierung als Form kulturellen Handelns" (Full Text: https://katalog.ub.uni-bamberg.de/query/BV044505299 )

HS Landmarks of Modernism - A Biographical Approach

Dozent/in:

Beatrix Hesse

Angaben:

Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, benoteter Schein, ECTS: 8

Termine:

Fr, 12:00 - 14:00, MG2/01.02

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Modulzuordnung und Zugangsvoraussetzung / Part of modules resp. courses of study:

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (bis einschließl. Studienbeginn zum WS 2008/09):
freie Erweiterung: Seminar (6 ECTS)

LA GY:
Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar (8 ECTS)

MA English and American Studies:
Master Module English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)
Profile Module English and American Literature I-VI: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)
Consolidation Module English and American Literature I-IV: Seminar (8, 6, 5 or 4 ECTS)

Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies:
Master Module or Profile Module I or III English and American Literature: Seminar (8 ECTS)

Erasmus and other visiting students: Seminar (6 or 8 ECTS)

Voraussetzungen für Punktevergabe / Prerequisites for obtaining credit points:

• active participation
• presentation
• term-paper according to the style-sheet

An- und Abmeldung Lehrveranstaltung / Enrollment:
September 24 until October 19, 2018
via FlexNow "Professur für Anglistische und Amerikanistische Kulturwissenschaft" (Students without access to FlexNow (Erasmus or Joint Degree) please send an email to pascal.fischer(at)uni-bamberg.de or carmen.zink(at)uni-bamberg.de.)

Für Studienortwechsler, Erasmusstudenten sowie Studierende, die den Leistungsnachweis zur baldigen Prüfungsanmeldung benötigen, werden im begrenzten Umfang Plätze freigehalten. Bei Überbuchung des Seminars fällt die Entscheidung über die Teilnahme in Rücksprache mit der Dozentin/dem Dozenten.

Studierende, die an der Lehrveranstaltung als Gäste teilnehmen wollen, melden sich bitte nicht über FlexNow! sondern per Email an und erscheinen zur ersten Sitzung; erst dann kann endgültig geklärt werden, ob Gäste aufgenommen werden können.

Inhalt:

This class will introduce students to three key texts of Literary Modernism: Joseph Conrad’s novella “Heart of Darkness”, written in 1899 (and hence a precursor rather than a work of Modernism proper), Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse of 1927 and “Burnt Norton” (1936), a long poem by T. S. Eliot, the first of his Four Quartets. While these texts are highly esteemed by literary critics, experience shows that students are often finding it difficult to relate to them. Hence, this class will approach these three classic texts by locating them firmly within their authors’ biographies, since one thing that they have in common is that they were each clearly inspired by a specific event in their respective author’s life. By means of this aspect of “human interest”, it is hoped, students will develop a personal investment in the texts and feel more motivated to tackle more abstract and difficult issues of literary technique. In a second step, we will therefore invariably discuss those features of the texts that account for their canonical status in literary history, namely different kinds of formal experiment. A word of warning may be appropriate: biographical approaches have long (at least since Roland Barthes proclaimed the “Death of the Author” in 1967) been suspect in academic circles, probably even more so in Germany than in Great Britain. In the wake of feminist and postcolonial criticism, however, this attitude seems to be about to change. But students should note that – for instance in an exam – biographical information should merely be used as a starting point for a thorough literary and technical analysis.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Students must have read “Heart of Darkness” by the second week of term and have finished reading To the Lighthouse by Week 6 – do not let the books’ apparent brevity mislead you, because reading will certainly be difficult! Any decent complete (not simplified, abridged or translated!) edition will do; the text of “Burnt Norton” will be made accessible in class. A reserve shelf with recommended secondary reading may be found in the library.