Toni Morrison

Dozent/in:

Christine Gerhardt

Angaben:

Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8, Gaststudierendenverzeichnis, Gender und Diversität

Termine:

Mo, 18:00 - 21:00, U5/00.24
bi-weekly: April 25, May 09, May 16, May 30, June 13, June 27, July 11 + Guest Lecture (date tba)

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:

All modules including a specialization level seminar (Seminar im Vertiefungsmodul und Masterlevel) for LITERARY studies:

• BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (Seminar 8 ECTS)
• LA GY (Seminar 8 ECTS)
• MA English and American Studies (Seminar 4, 5, 6, or 8 ECTS)
• Erweiterungsbereich English and American Studies (Seminar 8 ECTS)
• Erasmus and other visiting students (Seminar 6 or 8 ECTS)

>> Open for Consolidation Module and Master Thesis Module (Oberseminar) LITERARY studies!

2. Prerequisites for obtaining credit points:

• completion of the advanced level (Aufbaumodul)
• active participation (individual tasks and group work)
• term paper in English (following the Style Sheet)
• only Consolidation module: oral exam (see website for more information: https://www.uni-bamberg.de/amerikanistik/studium/consolidation-module-ma/ )

3. FlexNow-Registration:

• Course Participation (de)enrollment: March 15 – May 01, 2022
• ECTS/Exam (de)registration: June 01 – July 01, 2022

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:

As one of the most significant American authors of the twentieth century, Pulitzer- and Nobel-Prize laureate Toni Morrison was both a supreme stylist and a storyteller deeply committed to African American cultures past and present. In her eleven novels, she developed a new literary idiom that enables multifaceted insights into some of the most conflicted chapters of American history, the vagaries of interpersonal relationships, and the powers of a transgressive imagination.

In this course, we will read four of Morrison’s novels to explore their main thematic and artistic concerns, including the legacies of slavery; the links between individual, family, and community, desire and violence, economy and ecology; and the relationship between literature and memory, aesthetics and politics. We will also discuss some of Morrison’s literary and cultural criticism, especially Playing in the Dark (1992) and “Mourning for Whiteness” (2016), flanked by several interviews.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Required Readings:

• The Bluest Eye (1970)
• Song of Solomon (1977)
• Beloved (1987)
• A Mercy (2008)

Students interested in this seminar are required to have read the first two novels BEFORE the semester start.