British Novels of the Long Eighteenth Century

Dozent/in:

Katrin Röder

Termine:

Di, 16:00 - 17:30, U5/01.22

Inhalt:

This lecture offers a survey of the most important developments pertaining to the British novel as a literary genre that evolved in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It introduces important precursors and influences, the political and social framework of and conditions for the development of the genre as well as narrative modes and subgenres (e. g. realist, sentimental, picaresque, comic, speculative, utopian, early feminist, Jacobin, Anti-Jacobin, Gothic, epistolary, historical novels). In addition, the lecture discusses central subjects and motifs in the novels of the period (e. g. liberty/liberalism, nation state, empire, colonialism, subjectivity, sensibility, happiness) as well as important narrative styles (e. g. satire and parody). It explains the relevance of the representation of literary characters’ and narrators’ class backgrounds, national, ethnic and gender identities and sexual orientations for the formation of the genre. In the course of the lecture, close readings of influential novels from the period will be provided.

Empfohlene Literatur:

tba

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Dozent/in:

Beatrix Hesse

Termine:

Di, 16:00 - 18:00, Online-Webinar
Einzeltermin am 7.2.2023, 16:00 - 18:00, U2/01.30

From Moby-Dick to the Green New Deal: A Literary and Cultural History of American Energy

Dozent/in:

Georgiana Banita

Termine:

Di, 18:00 - 20:00, MG1/00.04
Einzeltermin am 8.2.2023, 14:00 - 16:00, U9/01.11

Inhalt:

The shift from coal, oil, and natural gas to solar and wind energy is one of the defining events of our time. But it is not the first energy transition. Replacing the elemental power harnessed through windmills and the biomass energy of wood and whale oil with fossil fuels marked the earliest energetic transformation of society, not least in heavily carbonized America. The lecture charts the history of U.S. literature and culture around energy regimes to uncover connections between resources and cultural forms and to shed light on the evolution of aesthetic genres from the mid-19th century to the present.

We begin with the Romantic Period (Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman) and the tensions it staged between the celebration of nature and excitement about subsoil resources, growth, and new technology like the railroad and the steam engine. The full scope of the social change engendered by the fossil fuel economy didn t come fully into view until the Age of Realism (William Dean Howells) and Naturalism (Frank Norris, Upton Sinclair, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck) as the rise of Big Business (and Standard Oil) began to take a toll on the value of the land and the individual. To explore echoes of energy in Modernism and after, we will read poems by Carl Sandburg and Elizabeth Bishop, reinterpret The Great Gatsby through the prism of environment and resources, and read post-OPEC-crisis postmodern novels (John Updike s The Rabbit Trilogy, Cormac McCarthy s The Road) as fictions of exhaustion in an era of Peak Oil, petro-melancholia (Stephanie LeMenager) and macro- as well as micro-economic downsizing.

Much of U.S. oil literature is place-bound, so it makes sense to explore it through the works of regionalist authors, too. The selection includes fictions by Texas writers (William Goyen, Larry McMurtry, Winifred Sanford) and Tom Cooper s The Marauders, set in post-BP-oil-spill Louisiana. For insights into racial, indigenous, and gendered perspectives on petroleum economies, we discuss Linda Hogan s novel Mean Spirit about the murders on the oil-rich Osage Reservation in the 1910s 1930s and learn about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 against the backdrop of the Oklahoma Oil Rush through Rilla Askew's novel Fire in Beulah, before concluding with the recent How Beautiful We Were (2021), a novel about the ravages wrought by a U.S. oil company in Africa, by Cameroonian-American writer Imbolo Mbue.

In the second part of the lecture, we survey classics of American cinema that screen the elation, drama, and downfall of what historian Lewis Mumford called carboniferous capitalism from Robert J. Flaherty s Louisiana Story (1948) and Douglas Sirk s melodrama Written on the Wind (1956) to George Stevens Western Giant (also 1956) and Paul Thomas Anderson s Neo-Western There Will Be Blood (2007). The final sessions are dedicated to iconic painters and photographers of American petro-landscapes, including Thomas Hart Benton (1889 1975), Ed Ruscha (1937 ), and Richard Misrach (1949 ). The closing session revolves around the politics and culture of decarbonization, more specifically the arts and letters of the post-carbon era, from wind power photography to science fiction of the post-oil age.

Reading American Short Forms

Dozent/in:

Yildiz Asar

Termine:

Einzeltermin am 25.11.2022, 13:00 - 20:00, U5/01.17
Einzeltermin am 26.11.2022, 9:00 - 16:00, U5/01.17
Einzeltermin am 20.1.2023, 13:00 - 20:00, U5/01.17
Einzeltermin am 21.1.2023, 9:00 - 16:00, U5/01.17

Inhalt:

This course offers a survey of key American short texts from diverse literary forms, periods, genres, and authors, selected from our own reading list of American literature at the Professur für Amerikanistik. In our close readings and critical analyses of these short texts, we will pay attention to how form and content come together as well as how issues of gender, race, class, age, species and environment are depicted in a condensed form. In this way, this course is meant to encourage you to interact with the American short form and the reading list, which will guide you throughout your studies.

Empfohlene Literatur:

All required readings will be selected from the Reading List of American Literature. Therefore please familiarize yourself with the list well before the semester starts: https://www.uni-bamberg.de/amerikanistik/studium/leseliste/

All required and further readings will be available on the Virtual Campus (VC).

Since most of the stories, poems and essays in the reading list can be found in the Heath or Norton Anthologies of American Literature, it is highly recommended that you buy one of these anthologies. As a cutting-edge collection of primary texts and scholarly introductions, such an anthology will serve as an invaluable resource throughout your studies and beyond.

“The Heart of a Woman” - Female Modernist Writers in the U.S.

Dozent/in:

Susen Halank

Termine:

Do, 10:00 - 12:00, U5/02.22
The following session will take place ONLINE: Thursday, November 17.

Inhalt:

This course examines the highly influential and variable works of American women modernists who played an active part in the literary scene, and participated in literary discussions, contributing to a new literary culture in the early 20th century. Women writers provided an imaginative expression of women’s lives in general and in relation to important factors such as work, religion, or politics in particular. In this course we will first discuss the historical developments that shaped modernism in the US and Europe, and address overall literary developments, for instance, the influence of psychoanalysis and feminism on American literature and culture at the time.

We will then focus on major texts by leading women authors and discuss their shaping role in literary modernism – including modernist movements such as Imagism and the Harlem Renaissance, the salon culture led by female authors, and women’s contributions to literary criticism and theory. In particular, we will read poetry, drama, short stories, and novels by Marianne Moore, Gertrud Stein, H.D., Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Nella Larsen and others.

Empfohlene Literatur:

The final reading list of this course will be discussed and possibly altered together with the participants in the first week of the semester. Therefore, I invite you to read as much as you can throughout the summer break and contribute your reading suggestions in the first session. While the poetry, short stories, and one of the dramas will be made available on the VC along with secondary literature, please make sure to purchase and read the following works until the start of the semester:

• Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (1936)
• Nella Larsen, Passing (1929)
• Sophie Treadwell, Machinal (1928)