Borders in Exile, Migration and War

Dozent/in:

Christoph Houswitschka

Angaben:

Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8, Erweiterungsbereich

Termine:

Mi, 18:00 - 20:00, U9/01.11, LU19/00.13
Einzeltermin am 17.12.2019, 20:00 - 22:00, U2/00.26

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

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

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

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

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

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

2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 01.09.2019, 10:00 - 01.12.2019, 23:59 guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

De Bernières has one of his protagonists say "For birds with wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders and their quarrels are very small."

Nothing seems as fluid as borders. In the period of nationhood, wars were fought to define and protect national or ideological borders. Ethnic cleansings and relocations of entire ethnicities or religious groups became official policy to create homogenous nations. In the late twentieth century and in our time, walls were removed and built to protect and define national identities. The attacks of 9/11 and the asymmetrical wars and refugee movements that followed introduced new concepts of borders. Border dynamics include concepts of debordering and rebordering. Traditional topographies disappear and are re-created as symbolic and functional spaces that are defined by mobile borders and networks. This also redefines the relation between literature and the nation-state and between the stability of printed books and the sovereignty of national borders, a connection studied since Benedict Anderson published Imagined Communities (1983).

Writers we will discuss in these contexts include Salman Rushdie, Louis de Bernières, Kapka Kassabova, Mirsolav Penkov, Johnathan Safran Foer, Michael Ondaatje, Seamus Deane, Howard Brenton, Caryl Phillips, Bernardine Evaristo, Hugo Hamilton, and others.
On 17 December, an extra appointment will be held in U2/00.26 (8 p.m.). On this day, Eva Thüne will give a lecture on Kindertransporte, the sending of Jewish children into Britain during WWII to save them from the Nazi regime - a very pertinent topic for (crossing) borders. This lecture is part of the class programme and should be attended by all students fluent in German.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Texts will be made available in the seminar.

Final Frontiers: Exploring, Discovering, Conquering in the Age of Enlightenment (LAPASEC Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference)

Dozentinnen/Dozenten:

Christoph Houswitschka, Kerstin-Anja Münderlein

Angaben:

Oberseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8

Termine:

Blockveranstaltung 27.9.2019-29.9.2019 Mo-Fr, Sa, So

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

Module allocation
To take part, students need to register via e-mail until 20 September, 2019: lapasec2019.englit(at)uni-bamberg.de

BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik: Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft / Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 8 ECTS OR Übung 2 ECTS
LA GY: Vertiefungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft / Kulturwissenschaft: Seminar 8 ECTS OR Übung 2 ECTS
MA English and American Studies: Master Module Literature /Culture : Seminar 8 ECTS OR Übung 2 ECTS
Profile Module I-III Literature / Culture: Seminar 8 ECTS OR Übung 2 ECTS

Inhalt:

This conference also serves as an Oberseminar specifically for students intending to pursue an academic career after their current course of studies.
With the eighteenth century, the so-called Age of Discovery, or Age of Exploration, in European history reached its fulminant peak. Apart from professional geographic exploration, such as the travels around the world of James Cook and Louis Antoine de Bougainville, travelling to Continental Europe (e.g. the Grand Tour) and further abroad had become fashionable for many people of independent means. The literature of the time is thus replete with travel writing, ranging from scientific reports following exploration tours, via observations of countries and their people, such as Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s letters, to satiric “travel reports” such as Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. (British) people had taken to roaming the earth and sharing their adventures and opinions by publishing their experiences. As Book III of Gulliver’s Travels and Robert Paltock's Peter Wilkins suggest, the eighteenth century saw a lot of speculation (in scientific, pseudo-scientific and fictional writing) on technical innovation, travels into outer space, and trans-human development. While Swift drew on previous and contemporary speculation that was to culminate in Science Fiction, Paltock exploited (among other sources) the serious discussion in Mathematical Magick of John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, of the question whether man could acquire the art of flying. Yet, the eighteenth century was also an Age of Discovery within. Doctors and scientists rendered the fields of surgery, obstetrics and pathology socially acceptable and the development within medicine gained much momentum. Exploring what lies underneath or within through medicine or early psychology widened the scope of human understanding and changed the perception of the human being within the world. Exploring and discovering is thus a core motivation of professional and non-professional persons in the long eighteenth century. The conference aims at bringing together a variety of approaches and results addressing the following questions: How was exploration motivated? How did scientific, medical or other discoveries change human understanding? Which effects did spatial or medical discoveries have on politics and society? Or quite basically, how was exploration made possible? Who ordered explorative voyages or anatomical studies? Who wrote about discoveries and to what purpose? These questions are certainly only a fraction of the plethora of questions scholars could ask about this Age of Discoveries.

Financed by Deutsch-Französische Hochschule / Unversité Franco-Allemande

Metaphysical Poetry

Dozent/in:

Christoph Houswitschka

Angaben:

Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8

Termine:

Do, 16:00 - 18:00, MG2/01.02, U9/01.11

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): 01.09.2019, 10:00 - 01.12.2019, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

Metaphysical is the name that was given to seventeenth-century English poetry by Samuel Johnson, a literary critic and neo-classicist of the Augustan Age who despised the overwhelmingly rich and elaborate imagery of these poets. They did not belong to a specific group or school of poets, but shared an imagery collectively rejected by poets of both the Renaissance and Neo-classicism. In Germany, this period is associated with a term taken from art history, Barock. The writers in both countries have in common the experience of war and the vanity of all earthly ambitions in a time of instability and violence.

Metaphysical poets were forgotten for a long time. Although the first traces of a recovery go back to the nineteenth century, their revival is certainly associated with T.S. Eliot, the modernist poet of the "Waste Land" (1922) who praised their sensibility lost in the work of John Milton and brought back to the English reader by Herbert Grierson's famous anthology of Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of the Seventeenth Century (1921). Like the period after the First World War, the so-called Age of Revolution, the period of rapid and cruel changes, of regicide and Restoration developed a new spirituality and a new sense of the materiality of the world. John Donne described this age in the following words: "The new philosophy calls all in doubt, / The element of fire is quite put out;/ The sun is lost and the earth, and no man's wit/ Can well direct him where to look for it./ And freely men confess that this world's spent,/ When in the planets and the firmament/ They seek so many new; they see that this / Is crumbled out again to his atomies."

In the seminar we will read a variety of secular and religious poetry, discuss its language and talk about the context of metaphysical poetry.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Colin Burrow, ed. Metaphysical Poetry (Penguin Classics) (2006)

Writing Lives - Literature and Biography

Dozent/in:

Beatrix Hesse

Angaben:

Seminar, ECTS: 8

Termine:

Fr, 12:00 - 14:00, U5/02.17
Einzeltermin am 16.1.2020, 20:00 - 22:00, U9/01.11

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): 01.09.2019, 10:00 - 01.12.2019, 23:59

guest auditors: please contact lecturer

Inhalt:

Novels describing the lives of writers are so numerous that they have received a generic label of their own, the Künstlerroman . It is, however, not the Künstlerroman itself that we are going to study in this course. Rather, we will discuss a number of literary texts from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries that focus on the attempts of literary biographers to capture the elusive lives of genius writers and thereby, possibly, the secret of literary creativity itself.

The first text we are going to read is Henry James s novella The Aspern Papers that created a kind of blueprint for the following works: A nameless first-person narrator makes the attempt to acquire the long lost letters of the fictional Romantic poet Jeffrey Aspern, presumably modelled on Percy Bysshe Shelley. The next text we will discuss is the short story Wireless by Rudyard Kipling, in which an equally nameless first-person narrator has the opportunity of witnessing the birth of the poem The Eve of St. Agnes by another Romantic poet, John Keats. Moving away from the influence of the Romantic poets, our third text, Vladimir Nabokov s novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, describes the attempt of yet another nameless narrator to retrace the life of his deceased half-brother, the novelist Sebastian Knight, who is arguably modelled on Nabokov himself. Structurally, the novel by Nabokov seems to some extent indebted to James s seminal novella. Finally, we are going to examine a play, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, which returns to the field of Romantic poetry. In this drama, we witness two competing literary scholars who are trying to discover yet another lost letter, supposedly written by yet another Romantic poet, George Gordon Lord Byron. In terms of method, we will focus on close readings of selected passages since a seminar on biographical readings of modernist literature that I conducted last winter term has proved that this is a practice both useful and pleasurable. However, this approach requires that all students are thoroughly familiar with all of the texts, which, albeit not particularly long, make somewhat difficult reading. Students will also be required to deliver a brief presentation (no longer than 15 minutes) on a topic relating to one of the four texts, since one of the minor goals of this class is to introduce the participants to four major poets of the Romantic period. Finally, it is hoped that this seminar will encourage students to reflect on their professional self-image as literary scholars.

Empfohlene Literatur:

Students must read the following primary texts: The Aspern Papers by Henry James, Wireless by Rudyard Kipling, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight by Vladimir Nabokov and Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. The text of Wireless will be made accessible in class, for the other texts, any edition can be used. Please note that you must have finished reading The Aspern Papers by the second session. A detailed term plan giving the dates by which you must have finished reading The Real Life of Sebastian Knight and Arcadia will be distributed in the first session. A selection of appropriate secondary texts will be presented on a reserve shelf in the library.

Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick; or, The Whale"

Dozent/in:

Christine Gerhardt

Angaben:

Hauptseminar, 2 SWS, ECTS: 8, Kultur und Bildung

Termine:

Di, 18:00 - 21:00, U9/01.11
Class takes place on the following Tuesdays: Oct 15; Oct 29; Nov 12; Nov 26; Dec 10; Jan 07; Jan 28; Feb 04

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

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

CULTURAL STUDIES - also open for the consolidation module!

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)

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

LITERARY STUDIES - also open for the consolidation module!

• 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
• M.A. English and American Studies / Joint Degree: Compulsory Subjects and Restricted Electives (Master Module English and American Literature); Restricted Electives (Profile Module English and American Literature I-VI: Seminar)
• 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): 01. August – 18. Oktober 2019
• An-/Abmeldung zur Prüfung (ECTS/ToR registration): 102. Dezember 2019 – 17. Januar 2020

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:

In this course, we will read Herman Melville's classic American novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale (1851) from a variety of perspectives such as transnational American studies and critical race theory, post-humanist theory, ecocriticism, and animal studies, gender studies and queer theory. Based on close readings of Moby-Dick and readings of essays on current literary and cultural theory, we will move through the novel slowly, chapter by chapter, discussing its complex aesthetic achievements (or "wickedness") while looking at the ways in which the narrative puts pressure on some of the core issues of its cultural moment, including national identity, slavery, immigration, and cultural contact, the natural environment and ecology, gender and sexuality. The main objective of the course is to be able to combine theoretically informed close reading skills (textual analysis) with an understanding of the issues that shaped American culture in tension or contact with other cultures.

Please purchase a copy of Moby-Dick (a critical edition with footnotes, such as Norton Critical Edition, 2nd ed. ISBN 978-0393972832) before our first session, and start reading asap – ideally, read the entire novel during the semester break.