Refugees and Forced Migration: Introduction to Refugee Studies

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Seminar/Proseminar/Übung, 2 SWS, ECTS: 6, Studium Generale, Gender und Diversität

Termine:

Di, 18:00 - 20:00, Raum n.V.

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Module Allocation:
1.1 Seminar
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft / Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft / freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
Ergänzungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar max. 6 ECTS
BA Berufliche Bildung: Basis/Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
LA GS/HS/MS/RS: Basis/Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft (b): Seminar 6 ECTS
LY GY: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft / Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

1.2 Übung
all modules including an obligatory/optional reading tutorial (Übung) for literature and culture in
LA GS/HS/MS/RS/GY
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik
MA English and American Studies
MA WiPäd
Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies

Open for Consolidation Module (Übung)
Open for Ergänzungsmodul Literature (NOT culture)

(De)Registration in FlexNow: 01.03.2021, 10:00 - 25.04.2021, 23:59

Inhalt:

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, around 80 million people – one in 100 people on the planet – have been forced to leave their homes because of the violent conflict, persecution, famine, or natural disaster. A majority of them are refugees, which is almost 26 million (UNHCR, 2020). These high numbers tell us that the conflict and disaster driven displacement and forced movement of millions of people across the globe is one of the most pressing humanitarian issues of the current century.

Furthermore, this high number of refugees or forced migrants result from a combination of intertwined factors including but not limited to civil war, risk of genocide, internal violence perpetrated by religious extremism, natural disaster due to climate change, and an uneven social and economic development. However, specifically in Europe and the USA, the current political discourse over refugees or forced migration revolves around topics like legal bans, border security, state policies and victimisation of the people, which ignores the humanitarian and human right side of the debate. In our study, we will attempt to analyse these political dimensions as well as the lexicon that differentiates between refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, and aliens.

This class will offer a survey of different intellectual, analytical and research tools to study the complexities of forced migration and refugeehood. To do so, this class will be incorporating theories and literature from different academic disciplines. The class will begin by mapping the political and theoretical field of refugee studies, which then leads to exploring how refugees have portrayed themselves and have been portrayed in literature, film, and art. Finally, this class will inquire how different formal qualities of each piece of literature or film or art dictate our understanding of the refugees.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Obligatory Reading:
Texts:
Refugee Tales (2016)
Refugee Tales II (2017)
Refugee Tales III (2019)
Viet Thanh Nguyen. The Refugees (2017)
Viet Thanh Nguyen. The Displaced (2018)

Films:
Mathew Cassel. The Journey (2016)
Ai Weiwei. Human Flow (2017)
Hassan Fazili. Midnight Traveller (2019)

A more detailed syllabus will be announced in the first session of the class.

“Sick Books”: Viruses, bacteria and other intimate things in modern English and German literature

Dozent/in:

Robert Craig

Angaben:

Seminar/Proseminar, 2 SWS, Aufbaumodul. An-/Abmeldung über FlexNow: 10.02.2021 (10:00 Uhr) bis 16.04.2021 (23:59 Uhr); An-/Abmeldung zur Prüfung über FlexNow: 01.06.2021 (10:00 Uhr) bis 02.07.2021 (23:59 Uhr).

Termine:

Di, 16:15 - 17:45, Online-Meeting

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) Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar Britische Kultur (5 ECTS)
Erasmus and other visiting students: Seminar (6 ECTS)

The module will be examined by a short (20-minute) presentation, and a term paper (word limit: 4,000 words). Further information on the term paper can be obtained from this address: http://www.uni-bamberg.de/britcult/leistungen/studium/.

Inhalt:

“Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick.” Susan’s Sontag’s metaphor opens her celebrated essay of 1978, Illness as Metaphor. The unavoidability of figurative language – despite Sontag’s critique of it – speaks to our difficulty in grasping bodily experiences simultaneously both alien and deeply intimate. But it also shows how the limit states of illness can illuminate the shapes of our “normal” lives. In a trenchant meditation of 1926, ‘On Being Ill’, Virginia Woolf had argued that instead of simply ‘shutting off’ our engagement with the world, illness can sharpen it, making us see things we couldn’t in happier and healthier times.

As we look for our own ways of speaking and writing about the worst pandemic since the Spanish Influenza of 1918-19, now is a good moment to travel more than a century back in time to see how past individuals and generations thought (and fought) their way through their own infectious and contagious illnesses; and to think about how we're doing it in retrospect. The aim of this seminar is to do that – and to consider the ways in which sicknesses may serve as the metaphors, even the scapegoats, for broader obsessions and ailments. With Sontag and Woolf in mind, we’ll turn to examine a selection of twentieth-century narratives of sickness. We'll start with American author Katherine Ann Porter’s short story collection, Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1939), whose title novella offers a delirious, almost hallucinatory account of the ravages of the Spanish influenza. This will be set alongside an astonishingly relevant contemporary take on that pandemic, Emma Donoghue's The Pull of the Stars (2020), which was released to great critical acclaim in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic. Finally, we'll devote a series of sessions to that great German novel of illness, Der Zauberberg (1924), which remains one of the greatest modernist portrayals of tuberculosis and its sanatorium treatment as a means of thinking about the ailing body of pre-war European cultural and intellectual life.

We shall discuss the English-language works in English, and the German-language works in German.

Empfohlene Literatur:

I. Primärliteratur:
Please be absolutely sure to buy the books in the exact editions stated, as we’ll be referring to particular page numbers in our class discussions. Please aim to read Sontag's Illness as Metaphor before the start of the semester; and on account of its length, please buy (and start reading) Der Zauberberg as soon as you can.

Emma Donoghue, The Pull of the Stars (London: Picador, 2020).

Thomas Mann, Der Zauberberg (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1991).

Katherine Ann Porter, Pale Horse, Pale Rider: The Selected Stories of Katherine Ann Porter, ed. Sarah Churchwell (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2011).

Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor & Aids and its Metaphors (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2009).

Virginia Woolf’s essay, ‘On Being Ill’, will be made available in PDF-format on the VC.

II. Sekundärliteratur:
Andreas Blödorn and Friedhelm Marx (eds.), Thomas Mann Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 2015).

Peter Fifield, Modernism and Physical Illness: Sick Books (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).

Elizabeth Outka, Viral Modernism: The Influenza Pandemic and Interwar Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019).

Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor & AIDS and its Metaphors (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2009).

A variety of further texts will be made available on the Virtual Campus, as well as in the seminar Semesterapparat (in the TB 4). Texts will be uploaded in the course of the semester, shortly before the relevant seminar session is due to take place. Please note that you alone are responsible for knowing and keeping track of information made available to you in printed documents and on the Virtual Campus. Needless to say that your active and regular participation is expected. Absences will be excused when they result from circumstances beyond students’ control (illness, family emergency, religious holiday).

"This Double-Consciousness": African American and Afro German Literature and Culture

Dozent/in:

Mareike Spychala

Angaben:

Blockseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 6, Gaststudierendenverzeichnis, Gender und Diversität, Kultur und Bildung

Termine:

Einzeltermin am 23.4.2021, 12:00 - 20:00, Raum n.V.
Einzeltermin am 24.4.2021, 9:00 - 16:00, Raum n.V.
Einzeltermin am 7.5.2021, 12:00 - 20:00, Raum n.V.
Einzeltermin am 8.5.2021, 9:00 - 16:00, Raum n.V.

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:

All modules including an advanced level seminar (Proseminar) for literary studies or cultural studies:

• BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (Seminar 6 ECTS)
• BA Berufliche Bildung (Seminar 6 ECTS)
• Lehramt GS/HS/MS/RS/GY (Seminar 6 ECTS)

>> Open for Ergänzungsmodul literary studies and cultural studies!

2. Prerequisites for obtaining credit points:

• completion of the basic module (Basismodul)
• active participation (individual tasks and group work)
• term paper in English (following the Style Sheet)
• only Ergänzungsmodul: oral exam (see website for more information: https://www.uni-bamberg.de/amerikanistik/studium/ergaenzungsmodul-ba/ )

3. FlexNow-Registration (ATTENTION: The course enrollment period is shortened due to the early start of the class!):

• Course (de)enrollment: March 1st - April 16, 2021
• ECTS (de)registration: June 1st - July 1st, 2021

Students enrolled for this class will be registered in the VC class by the instructor in the first week of the semester!

Guest auditors: please contact lecturer via e-mail.

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

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

Inhalt:

This interdisciplinary course has been designed especially for North-American exchange students and German students, inviting them to study each other's cultures together. Readings and classroom discussion will be both in English and German.

African American literature and culture are vibrant and important parts of the larger literary and cultural landscape of the United States. Similarly, works by Afro German authors and artists are becoming an important part of German literature and are increasingly attracting scholarly scrutiny. In this German-American seminar, we will analyze different literary and cultural products by African American and Afro German authors and artists that deal with issues of race and national belonging in their respective countries. We will compare which narrative and artistic strategies these authors use to represent, emphasize, and contextualize the experiences of African Americans and Afro Germans in nations that still imagine themselves as primarily white.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Please make sure to read these texts BEFORE the start of the course!

• Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)
• Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi, Destined to Witness/Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger (1999)
• Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)
• SchwarzRund, Biskaya (2020)

Films

• Harriet (2020)
• Moonlight (2016)

Further readings will be made available through the VC course.

PS Growing up in America

Dozent/in:

Simone Linz

Angaben:

Proseminar, 2 SWS, benoteter Schein, ECTS: 6

Termine:

Einzeltermin am 19.6.2021, Einzeltermin am 20.6.2021, Einzeltermin am 10.7.2021, Einzeltermin am 11.7.2021, 10:00 - 17:30, MG1/02.05
Der Kurs findet zunächst online statt. Im Falle einer Verbesserung der Inzidenz kann dieser evtl. auch in Präsenz stattfinden.

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Modulzuordnung und Zugangsvoraussetzung / Part of modules resp. courses of study:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS;
Aufbaumodul Britische und Amerikanische Kultur: Seminar Britische Kultur 6 ECTS;
Ergänzungsmodul (ab WS 2014/15; je nach Belegung des Faches 6, 4 oder 3 ECTS)

BA Berufliche Bildung:
Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft/Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

LA GS/MS/RS/BS:
Aufbaumodul Englische und Amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

LA GY:
Aufbaumodul Englische und Amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
Aufbaumodul Landeskunde/Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 5 ECTS

Erasmus and other visiting students:
Seminar (6 ECTS)

Voraussetzungen für Punktevergabe / Prerequisites for obtaining credit points:
active participation
presentation (30 minutes)
term paper in English, 3.000-4.000 words

An- und Abmeldung Lehrveranstaltung / Enrollment:
March 22 until April 16, 2021

via FlexNow "Professur für Anglistische und Amerikanistische Kulturwissenschaft" (Students without access to FlexNow (Erasmus) 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:

What is it like to grow up in America? In this seminar, we will explore topics such as American youth culture, childhood traditions, and the educational system. We will read and discuss autobiographical texts from different generations and analyze the extent to which childhood and adolescence differ, especially in terms of race, gender, and social background.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Please read the following books before the start of the course! Further readings will be made available through the VC course.
Bill Bryson, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006) J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy (2016)

PS Remembering and Forgetting in the Twenty-First Century

Dozent/in:

Lina Strempel

Angaben:

Proseminar, 2 SWS, benoteter Schein, ECTS: 6

Termine:

Do, 14:00 - 16:00, OK8/02.04

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Modulzuordnung und Zugangsvoraussetzung / Part of modules resp. courses of study:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Britische und Amerikanische Kultur: Seminar Britische Kultur 6 ECTS;
Ergänzungsmodul (ab WS 2014/15; je nach Belegung des Faches 6, 4 oder 3 ECTS)

BA Berufliche Bildung:
Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

LA GY:
Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 5 ECTS

Erasmus and other visiting students:
Seminar (6 ECTS)

Voraussetzungen für Punktevergabe / Prerequisites for obtaining credit points:
active participation
presentation (30 minutes)
term paper in English, 3.000-4.000 words

An- und Abmeldung Lehrveranstaltung / Enrollment:
March 22 until April 16, 2021

via FlexNow "Professur für Anglistische und Amerikanistische Kulturwissenschaft" (Students without access to FlexNow (Erasmus) 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:

During the so-termed “memory boom” of the late twentieth century the then emerging multidisciplinary field of memory studies was mainly concerned with the representation and remembrance of past events. Archives, museums, and memorials as sites of collective memory, as well as personal, particularly traumatic, memories were the most prevalent areas of interest. In recent years, a shift of emphasis onto new aspects, conceptualisations, and forms of remembering and an increasing focus on the role of memory for our collective and individual futures can be observed within the field. Twenty-first century developments like digitalisation, advances in neuroscience, our aging Western societies, and the various crises of our time have effected fundamental changes in the way remembering and forgetting are practiced and thought about. In particular, forgetting, “the default mode of humans and societies” (A. Assmann), has been reassessed as an essential part of both collective and personal memory. From sociology to neuroscience, research on different forms, processes, and effects of forgetting is conducted with a specific focus on the potential of directed forgetting to help societies as well as individuals overcome conflicts and to promote peace and prosperity in the future.

The first part of this course provides a brief introduction to memory studies. By discussing key theoretical texts, we will identify the main concepts, concerns, and controversies with a particular focus on the most recent developments within the field. In the second part, we will focus on the implications of twenty-first century technological and scientific advancements, as well as other changes and crises of our age on collective and individual practices of remembering and forgetting. As part of these discussions on e.g. the role of the internet as an archive, we will devote much time to the study of representations of remembering and forgetting in examples of contemporary literature, film, art, and popular culture in general. Please purchase or borrow a copy of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant (2015); all other course readings/ materials will be provided to you on the VC.

PS Scandalisation, Sexualisation, and Stereotyping: Tabloid Journalism in Britain, 1920-2020

Dozent/in:

Mario Ebest

Angaben:

Proseminar, 2 SWS, benoteter Schein, ECTS: 6

Termine:

Einzeltermin am 18.6.2021, Einzeltermin am 25.6.2021, Einzeltermin am 2.7.2021, Einzeltermin am 9.7.2021, 10:00 - 17:00, Online-Meeting
Die Veranstaltung findet als Blockseminar und online statt.

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Modulzuordnung und Zugangsvoraussetzung / Part of modules resp. courses of study:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Britische und Amerikanische Kultur: Seminar Britische Kultur 6 ECTS;
Ergänzungsmodul (ab WS 2014/15; je nach Belegung des Faches 6, 4 oder 3 ECTS)

BA Berufliche Bildung:
Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

LA GY:
Aufbaumodul Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 5 ECTS

Erasmus and other visiting students:
Seminar (6 ECTS)

Voraussetzungen für Punktevergabe / Prerequisites for obtaining credit points:
active participation
presentation (30 minutes)
term paper in English, 3.000-4.000 words

An- und Abmeldung Lehrveranstaltung / Enrollment:
March 22 until April 16, 2021

via FlexNow "Professur für Anglistische und Amerikanistische Kulturwissenschaft" (Students without access to FlexNow (Erasmus) 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:

In this online seminar, we will be looking into the characteristics of British newspaper texts published by, among others, the Daily Express, Daily Mail, and Daily Mirror. In so doing, we are going to consider and compare the application of tabloid-journalistic tools such as sensationalism and extreme dramatisation of news. All of this will be done against the background of the news coverage of four major historic events: the General Strike (1926), the Good Friday Agreement (1998), Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War (2003), and the Brexit referendum (2016). The concept of the Culture Industry as developed by Adorno and Horkheimer (1947) will be utilised as a theoretical starting point. In order to obtain access to the seminar texts, you will have to create a VPN connection on your computer.