Bangladeshi Writing in English

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Übung, 2 SWS, ECTS: 4, Studium Generale, Gender und Diversität, Erweiterungsbereich, Modulstudium

Termine:

Mi, 12:00 - 14:00, Raum n.V.

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:
all modules including an obligatory/optional reading tutorial (Übung) for literature 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 Literature (Übung)
NOT open for Ergänzungsmodul Literature

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 06.09.2021, 10:00 - 31.10.2021, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

“Bangladeshi Writing in English” refers to a corpus of work of writers from Bangladesh and Bangladeshi diaspora who write in English but whose mother tongue is Bengali. This new corpus of writing, in recent times, has gained a renewed attention because of the significant success of writers of the Bangladeshi diaspora. Writers like Adib Khan (Australian-Bangladeshi) or that of Monica Ali (British-Bangladeshi) have come out as inspiration for many more to come in the scene of “Bangladeshi Writing in English.” However, one can trace the history of this particular corpus of writing back to the mid-19th century in then British India. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Rajmohan’s Wife (1864) or Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s feminist utopia Sultana’s Dream (1905) are only a few examples of early Bengali (now Bangladesh) writing in English.

This class will do a historical survey of “Bangladeshi Writing in English” from the mid-19th century until today. A specific focus will be given to the most recent trends of writers between the early and late 2000s from both Bangladesh and Bangladeshi diasporas. It will examine the literary dynamics of the “Bangladeshi Writing in English” as manifested in selective poems, novels and short stories, in conversation with themes of identity, sexuality, nation-building, exile and migration. The course also touches on critical issues relevant to the birth of a new nation called Bangladesh at the backdrop of the 1952 language movement.

Students will be provided with a list of texts from which they have to choose which texts they would like to discuss during the semester in the first class. However, there will be 2-3 set texts that will be announced on the same day that students should get hold of as soon as possible. As we will talk about a new text at least every other week, students should be prepared to do a considerable amount of reading during the term.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Suggested Reading:

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, Sultana’s Dream (1905)

Rabindranath Tagore, selected poems from Song Offerings (1913)

Monica Ali, Brick Lane (2003)

Rekha Waheed, The A-Z Guide to Arranged Marriage (2005)

Tahmima Anam, The Bones of Grace (2016)

Farah Guaznavi. Ed. Lifelines: New writings from Bangladesh (2019)

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

Exile and Creativity: Identity in Aleksandar Hemon

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Seminar/Proseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 6, Studium Generale

Termine:

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

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft / freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
Ergänzungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar max. 6 ECTS
LA Gym: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
BA Berufliche Bildung: Basis/Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
LA GS/HS/MS/RS: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

NOT open for Consolidation Module Literature
open for Ergänzungsmodule Literaturwissenschaft

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 06.09.2021, 10:00 - 31.10.2021, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

In one of his seminal essays, “Exile and Creativity,” the Czech born Brazilian philosopher Vilem Flusser view the condition of exile as a challenge to creativity. In his hypothesis, Flusser has argued that “… exile is unliveable. One must transform the information whizzing around into meaningful messages, to make it liveable. One must ‘process’ the data. It is a question of survival: if one fails to transform the data, one is engulfed by the waves of exile. Data transformation is a synonym for creation.” Therefore, according to Flusser, to live up to the life of an exile, one has to be creative; and arguably, a dialogue between the experience of being exiled and finding one’s voice becomes possible. This finding a voice resulted in constructing a new (im-)migrant identity, which in retrospect problematises the foundational understanding of ‘Exile Writers.’ In a foundational sense, an exile writer holds a privileged status as in-betweens, as a mediator between two cultures, thus become an agent of interpretation, who constructs a binary between an alienating “here” and a romanticised “homeland.” However, many of the current writers with an exile background rejected this notion and accepted the status of an (im-)migrant. Writers like Salman Rushdie or Caryl Phillips, for example, have adopted the term “(im-)migrant” to describe their literary production and their personal experience of transculturation. This shift from an exile to (im-)migration does not emphasise a specific point of departure and a point of arrival; instead, it prioritises movement, rootlessness, and mixing cultures, races, and language. It creates a world that does not create a binary inhibition of “here” and “there.” Instead, it celebrates the displacement and its apparent effect on the (im-)migrant’s identity, which alter the self-perception and often result in ambivalence both to the old and new ‘self.’ This new (im-)migrant identity no longer ordinarily or even nostalgically remember the past as a fixed and comforting anchor to life, since its contours move with the present rather than in opposition to it. Therefore, an (im-)migrant’s identity is no longer to do with being but with becoming.

To understand all these matters of being in exile and its relation to creativity and creating a new (im-)migrant identity, non-other than Aleksandar Hemon is the most acutely fitting contemporary writer to read. Aleksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American writer who teaches creative writing at the University of Princeton currently. Lewis Centre for the Arts at the University of Princeton writes about him: “Born in Sarajevo, Hemon graduated from the University of Sarajevo with a degree in literature and visited Chicago in 1992 as a part of a journalism exchange program, intending to stay for just a few months. However, he could not return home because of the Bosnian War and graduated from Northwestern University with his master’s degree, simultaneously working a series of jobs while continuing to learn English. He wrote his first story in English in 1995.” Since then, Aleksandar Hemon has written seven books: two non-fiction, two short story collections, and three novels. He also has written a few screenplays, and the most recent one is the fourth Matrix movie in cooperation with the British writer David Mitchel. He also edited Best European Fiction between 2010 and 2013.

This seminar will read, analyse, and discuss Aleksandar Hemon’s writing in light of Vilem Flusser’s hypothesis on being an exile and creative and a new (im-)migrant identity. In particular, it will investigate the link between exile and creativity, immigrant experiences and literature, immigrant narrative and nostalgia. The discussion will focus on trans-cultural identities, reception and criticism of migrant identity, the complex experience of immigrant characters living in between two or more languages, societies and cultures.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Reading List:
The Question of Bruno (2000)
Nowhere Man (2002)
The Lazarus Project (2008)
Love and Obstacles (2009)
The Book of My Lives (2013)
The Making of Zombie Wars (2015)
My Parents: An Introduction (2019)

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

Just Write

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Sonstige Lehrveranstaltung, This course is an extracurricular course and does not offer any ECTS credits.

Termine:

Zeit/Ort n.V.

Inhalt:

Just Write! is a literary magazine publishing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry with a focus on writers who produce creative texts in English. Not only is Just Write! a publication, but it also acts as a platform where the University of Bamberg’s students with creative minds can come together and share their works with fellow students.

Interested to know more, then get in touch by simply writing an email to justwrite.bamberg(at)gmail.com

Key Texts in Literary Theory

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Übung, 1 SWS, ECTS: 1, Studium Generale

Termine:

jede 2. Woche Mi, 20:00 - 22:00, U9/01.11
ab 3.11.2021

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:

• BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (ab Studienbeginn zum WS 14/15): Ergänzungsmodul Methoden und Theorien der Englischen und Amerikanischen Literaturwissenschaft (alle Haupt- und Nebenfächer) (1 ECTS)

• BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik (ab Studienbeginn zum SoSe 2009): Ergänzungsmodul Methoden und Theorien (1 ECTS, ab Studienbeginn zum SoSe 2012 unbenotet)

• alle alten Studiengänge: Übung (1 ECTS)

NOT open for Consolidation Module

2. (De)Registration:

in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 06.09.2021, 10:00 - 31.10.2021, 23:59

guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

In this class we will study trends and schools in literary theory since the 1950s. We may discuss key texts by thinkers identified with formalism and structuralism, deconstruction and poststructuralism, gender studies and queer theory, psychoanalytical criticism, (Neo)Marxism and Cultural Materialism, New Historicism, postcolonial criticism and reader-response theory.
Depending on the participants personal interests, we may also consider more recent approaches like ecocriticism and possible-worlds theory or less "canonized" theories (e.g. systems theory).

The course is intended to assist students in both finding own approaches towards primary texts and in identifying mind-sets and methods applied in the secondary sources they read in their other seminars: "What theory demonstrates [...] is that there is no position free of theory, not even the one called common sense" (V. B. Leitch).

Empfohlene Literatur:

A course reader will be made available for download at our VC group once the schedule has been agreed upon.

Nachholtermine EngLit

Dozentinnen/Dozenten:

Christoph Houswitschka, Igor Almeida Ferreira Baldoino, Kerstin-Anja Münderlein, Susan Brähler, Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

Seminar

Termine:

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

Narratives of Pain: Literary and Cultural Perspectives

Dozent/in:

Touhid Chowdhury

Angaben:

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

Termine:

Do, 16:00 - 18:00, Raum n.V.

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

1. Module Allocation:

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft/ Kulturwissenschaft / freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
Ergänzungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar max. 6 ECTS
LA Gym: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft/Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
BA Berufliche Bildung: Basis/Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
LA GS/HS/MS/RS: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS

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

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 06.09.2021, 10:00 - 31.10.2021, 23:59 guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

What does the word pain resonate with? Is the word pain only relevant for medical science and treatment? How do people make sense of pain? How are bodily and psychological forms of pain intertwined? How do people express pain in words? Are pain and suffering inexplicable? What languages do we use in describing pain, how do we read or even inherit the pain and suffering of others? How does contemporary literature and culture represent the pain and suffering of others?

This seminar will draw attention to the study of pain and suffering from a multidisciplinary approach in dialogue with literature, culture, and media. We will begin the semester with an overview of the concept of pain from medical science and psychoanalytic studies perspectives to the most recent focus on representation and literary theoretical works on pain. Subsequently, we will discuss more recent developments in the study of pain, looking at the ways in which they are relevant for today’s worldview.

Each session will start with a short student presentation followed by discussions of significant texts. For the success of this class, it is paramount that all of the assigned texts be read and prepared carefully.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Reading List:
Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain (1985)
David B. Morris, The Culture of Pain (1991)
Susan Sonntag, Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)
David Biro, The Language of Pain: Finding Words, Compassion, and Relief (2010)
Martin Modlinger and Philipp Sonntag (Ed), Other People’s Pain: Narratives of Trauma and the Question of Ethics (2011)
Susannah B. Mintz, Hurt and Pain: Literature and the Suffering Body (2013)
A more detailed syllabus will be announced in the first session of the class.