Summer term 2016
Prof. Dr. Mark U Stein 'Remember the Ship in Citizenship': Migration, displacement, exile This lecture focuses on literary and cultural products which reflect on migration, displacement, and exile. After engaging with these and related terms on a conceptual level, we will engage with anglophone texts from a range of backgrounds. The aim is to generate a historical perspective on migration literature; to compare texts from different historical periods and cultural backgrounds; and to engage with political and cultural functions wielded by these cultural texts. Write to be heard: Refugee and migrant writing "The story of mass migrations (voluntary and forced) is hardly a new feature of human history. But when it is juxtaposed with the rapid flow of mass-mediated images, scripts, and sensations, we have a new order of instability in the production of modern subjectvities." (Okwui Enwezor, 'Mega-Exhibitions') This is “the age of migration”, as Stephen Castles put it, and the large-scale movement of people within and beyond nation states can be observed around the globe. The formation of translocations and of diasporic communities constitute not only specific forms of social organisation. They also entail the construction of hybrid cultural space, and attendant cultural and literary products. This seminar focuses on texts by refugees and migrants, texts which emerge in diasporic and translocal communities. Our aim is to ascertain the cultural and political functions such writing performs and the aesthetic and formal qualities which mark it. Students are expected to read two novels before the first session in which a short quiz on these books will take place. This postgraduate class is designed to assist 4th-semester students of the M.A. National & Transnational Studies programme with regard to their individual MA thesis projects. It provides feedback and advice, both thematic and organizational. Focusing on the participants’ questions, problems, and needs it provides a collaborative forum for the critical reflection of research questions and hypotheses, theoretical and methodological concepts, as well as first results. Diese Veranstaltung ist auf die Bedürfnisse von Studierenden zugeschnitten, die sich bei mir zum Examen anmelden möchten oder angemeldet haben, oder die bei mir eine Modulabschlussprüfung absolvieren. Die Veranstaltung befasst sich - in getrennten Sitzungen - mit allen Prüfungstypen; es geht um Modulabschlussprüfungen (mündlich, schriftlich), Klausuren, mündliche Abschlussprüfungen (Staatsexamen/Magister), sowie um die Planung und Begleitung von schriftlichen Hausarbeiten bzw. B.A.- und M.A.-Arbeiten. Spezifische Probleme und Strategien der Prüfungsvorbereitung werden besprochen; Prüfungssimulationen können durchgeführt werden. Culture of Homelessness: Literature of Migrancy and Nomadic Criticism in the 20th and 21st Centuries ''It is part of morality not to be at home in one's home'' Without overstating a metaphoric understanding of exile that ignores the socio-historical dimensions of the exilic condition, this seminar focuses on migration and exile as key impulses for contemporary cultural production. It starts from the premise that exilic works, by cultivating an oppositional stance toward nationalist or racist identifications, can open the possibility for both, a new politics of literary interpretation and a worldly commitment for transnational solidarity. Selectively exploring literature and criticism written by and about exiles the course aims at demonstrating that although 20th and 21st centuries global migrations were seldom the matter of free choice and can rarely be seen as a privilege, exilic thinking and migratory representations provide important correctives to the dominant mass culture of national(list) belonging. In class we will read literary representations of exile and/or fictional woks triggered by the experience of migration and discuss various theoretical approaches in which the exilic and nomadic functions as a model for literary and cultural criticism. Tracing the predicaments and effects of modern migrations on the individual and the collective level the course approaches exilic, migratory and diasporic imaginaries as equally aesthetic and theoretical subject matters. Drawing on selected literary representations ranging from Joseph Conrad’s novella Amy Foster (1901) to Rabih Alameddine’s novel The Hakawati (2008), it introduces into key concepts and interpretive tools for studying outlandish or nomadic cultural articulations from a decisively transnational and postcolonial perspective. The seminar thus takes up the dominant understanding of home in terms of its very opposite, homelessness to introduce radically decentered models of cultural critique. It is particularly designed to encourage students to develop a critical relationship with their own subject position as readers of Anglophone literatures and cultures in the age of post-colonial migrations. How can we trace a particular poetics of non-arrival in 20th and 21st century writings? Can such poetics serve a respective ethics of not being at home? How (not) to place the texts we are reading into the established taxonomies of national literatures and geographic location? Is it legitimate to speak of the pleasures or even the sublime beauty of exile? Does the literary embracement of such pleasures seriously grasp the being in the world of today’s refugees, their alienated suffering and anonymous border deaths? Can we make use of the nomadic criticism of the past for a critique of current immigration policies? Can a nomadic identity politics help strengthening refugee agency or even to lead exiled people out of exile? Course participants should acquaint themselves with Joseph Conrad's Amy Foster (no preferred edition) before the first session. In addition they are expected to read Edward Said’s seminal 1984 essay “Reflections on Exile” as an introductory text. Joseph Conrad. Amy Foster (1901) In the summer semester, part two of the course focuses on literature. It provides an overview of literary genres and discusses methods and tools for textual analysis and interpretation. Reading American, British, and postcolonial texts, students are introduced to the practice of literary and cultural studies. Building on the knowledge acquired in the winter term, they learn how to combine specific critical and theoretical perspectives with detailed exploration of three set texts. William Shakespeare. Hamlet. c. 1599. Ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Arden, 2006. Print. Walt Whitman. “Leaves of Grass.” 1855. In: Whitman. Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. Ed. Michael Moon. New York: W.W. Norton 2002. Print. Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions. Banbury: Ayebia Clarke Publishing, Ltd., 2004. Students need to purchase a copy of each of these and must have read all three texts by the beginning of the summer semester. Nature: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism This seminar engages critically with notions of ‘nature’ from Romanticism to Ecocriticism, across the centuries. This means we will explore how ‘nature’ – as a forceful socio-cultural notion – has served as a legitimator of identities (e.g. of Romantic authorship), as a vehicle of discrimination (through the notion of the ‘unnatural’), as a vehicle of empowerment (notions of ‘queer ecology’ or ‘ecofeminism’), and as an object of desire (nature as idyll) or dread (gothic capacity). We will further engage with concepts of planetarity and posthumanism, and critiques of environmental exploitation, such as biopiracy, and pollution. Our overall goal will thus be threefold: to learn more about the continuities in our conception of what counts as ‘nature’ or ‘natural;’ the political function of these notions; and current debates about the present state, and future, of our environment. We will discuss: - Romantic poetry and art (will be provided during the semester) - Colonial travel writing (see above) - Tourism adverts (see above) - Amitav Gosh’s The Hungry Tide (HarperCollins; 2005) - Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (Vintage; 2007) - Sarah J. Hall’s The Carhullan Army (2008) - The movie “The Revenant” (2016) Participants are required to read the novels in advance. In this seminar, we will deal with two classic Victorian novels (19th century) and two of their current ‘neo-Victorian’ counterparts, as well as selected short stories. Victorian literature is a cornerstone of the British literary imagination and has been a powerful source of identity for the British canon. Whilst often challenging the social conventions of their time, from today’s perspective, these Victorian texts are not without problems. Whilst, for example, the Brontë sisters can be seen as subscribing to an early feminism, and Charles Dickens promotes a holistic perspective of English society and incorporates a perspective of the working class, these texts are now often viewed as insufficient in their acknowledgment of colonialism and/or as re-inscribing problematic conventions of gender and sexuality. Neo-Victorian novels grapple with these problems and offer a captivating and highly productive adaptation of Victorian texts. In this course, then, we will consider how these texts speak to one another, illuminating literature’s transhistorical capacity to negotiate the question of what it means to be human. This will include a systematic approach to adaptation, where, in this case, one genre is the adaptation of another. Course materials: - Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1846) - Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861) - Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargassso Sea (1966) - Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith (2002) - Selected short stories (will be provided during the semester) There will be a short quiz at the beginning of the semester to make sure that you have done the reading. Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies is a two-semester course concluding with a written exam at the end of the summer term. William Shakespeare. Hamlet. c. 1599. Ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Arden, 2006. Print. Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. 1855. In: Whitman. Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. Ed. Michael Moon. New York: W.W. Norton 2002. Print. Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions. Banbury: Ayebia Clarke Publishing, Ltd., 2004. Students need to purchase a copy of each of these and must have read all three texts by the beginning of the summer semester. Participants need to have attended Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies I. Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies is a two-semester course concluding with a written exam at the end of the summer term. William Shakespeare. Hamlet. c. 1599. Ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Arden, 2006. Print. Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. 1855. In: Whitman. Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. Ed. Michael Moon. New York: W.W. Norton 2002. Print. Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions. Banbury: Ayebia Clarke Publishing, Ltd., 2004. Adaptations and Storyworlds: Transmedia Storytelling As Henry Jenkins observed in his 2006 book Convergence Culture, popular fiction is increasingly not just narrated through one medium such as a single film or novel, but through a variety of different media that all contribute to one shared fictional universe, a storyworld. In franchises such as The Matrix, Star Wars, and recently Marvel's Avengers universe, storylines are dispersed across novels, films, TV- and web series, comic books, videogames, websites and wikis. Thus transmedia storytelling poses the question "[w]hat can medium y do in terms of storyworld creation (or representation) that medium x cannot?" (Marie Laure Ryan and Jan-Noël Thon). Drawing on adaptation theory this class will include examples from popular culture and literary classics in order to understand different media-specific narrative techniques. The first part will focus on various adaptations of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, among them several TV- and cinema versions, Seth Grahame Smith's novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the web series The Lizzy Bennett Diaries. (Selected chapters/clips will be made available at the end of the registration period.) The main part of the seminar will be dedicated to the literary analysis of the Wachowskys' Matrix-Trilogy and its adjacent media installments (mainly animated short films and video games), the Marvel Avengers and the Star Wars storyworlds, but also the recent expansions of TV-series into different entertainment media, as seen in AMC's The Walking Dead and HBO's Game of Thrones. At the beginning of the semester students are expected to - have read and watched all secondary texts, excerpts, and clips made available on Pride and Prejudice and its adaptations - be familiar with the three Matrix films, preferably also the Enter the Matrix video game and the various online short films of the franchise - have watched at least three films set in the Marvel Avengers universe Mental Illness in British Fiction (caution: updated title!) Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies is a two-semester course concluding with a written exam at the end of the summer term. William Shakespeare. Hamlet. c. 1599. Ed. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Arden, 2006. Print. Walt Whitman. Leaves of Grass. 1855. In: Whitman. Leaves of Grass and Other Writings. Ed. Michael Moon. New York: W.W. Norton 2002. Print. Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions. Banbury: Ayebia Clarke Publishing, Ltd., 2004. Students need to purchase a copy of each of these and must have read all three texts by the beginning of the summer semester. Participants need to have attended Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies I. Introduction to Contemporary Anglophone African Literature Comprising of over 50 countries and a population of over a billion, it is almost impossible to provide a comprehensive account of the literature of an area as vast as the African continent in a single course. Rather, this course aims to introduce students to the major discourses that have shaped and continue to shape contemporary Anglophone African literature. Cognizant that discourses of contemporary Anglophone African literature are performed and contested beyond the literary text, this course will also explore other forms of media such as mainstream news coverage, films and TED Talks, to determine how they interact with the literary text. Students participating in this course are expected to purchase and read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) and Noviolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names (2014) by the first day of class. Among other things, we will also in this class engage with the film adaptation of Half of a yellow Sun (Director, Biyi Bandelehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZHM8OKNU_U) and Adichie’s TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg). All students are expected to ACTIVELY participate in class discussions and each student will also be required to give an oral class presentation. Literary and Cultural Studies: Narratives of Migration This seminar supplements Prof. Mark Stein’s lecture on migration. The focus of the seminar is to explore literary representations of migration, including how texts negotiate various narratives of migration. We shall read the following books in this seminar: Uwem Akpan’s short story collection, Say You’re One of Them (2008), Emmanuel Dongala’s (Trans. Maria Louise Ascher) Johnny Mad Dog (2005), and John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Buy and read these texts by the first day of class. The seminar is a reading class and its success depends on students completing all assigned readings. The seminar will take the format of active class discussions. Various group activities will also be assigned from time to time and each student will be expected to actively participate in these activities. Academic Skills II: Group VI This course builds up on skills learnt in Academic Skills I. Focus in this course will be on conducting oral presentations and improving critical reading skills. Students will be expected to actively participate in class and give an oral presentation on a topic of their choice. Academic Skills II: Group XI This course builds up on skills learnt in Academic Skills I. Focus in this course will be on conducting oral presentations and improving critical reading skills. Students will be expected to actively participate in class and give an oral presentation on a topic of their choice.
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
Dr. Silke Stroh
Caroline Kögler
Felipe Espinoza Garrido
Deborah NyanguluProf. Dr. Mark U Stein
094787 | Lecture | Tue 10-12 | room: AudiMax | 2 SWS
094787 | MA seminar | Thu 10-12 | room: ES 226 | 2 SWS
The reading list also comprises a selection of shorter texts. All students will receive the reading list by email once enrolment has finished.
Postgraduate Class (Literary Studies)
094856 | Kolloquium | Research module II | Wed 14:30-16 s.t. | room: ES 2 | 2 SWS
In addition there will be the chance to discuss students’ career plans for the time after their M.A. graduation. Advice will be given on both academic and non-academic options. Those planning academic careers will also have the opportunity to discuss provisional ideas for prospective PhD projects and funding applications, and receive advice on other aspects of academic career-building.
Students are expected to give an oral presentation on their individual project and contribute regularly to discussions in class.
The postgraduate class is organized as a combination of in-class discussions and individual supervision outside the classroom. Details will be discussed during the first class meeting.
Betreuungsseminar Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft (BA, MA, alle Studiengänge)
094868 | Seminar | Thu 14:30-16 s.t. | room: t.b.a. | 2 SWS
TeilnehmerInnen besuchen ausgewählte, für sie relevante, Sitzungen. Für Studierende, deren BA-, MA-, MAed-Arbeit durch mich betreut werden, findet 14-tägig ein Examenskolloquium statt. Hier werden Projekte vorgestellt und diskutiert. Details können dem Syllabus entnommen werden (s. Aushang).
Eine persönliche Anmeldung ist nicht erforderlich, sie erfolgt in der ersten Sitzung, aber die elektronische Anmeldung in HISLSF ist erforderlich, wenn ihr Studiengang ein Betreuungsseminar erfordert.
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
094852 | Seminar | Wed 16-18 | room: ES 333 | 2 SWS
Theodor W. Adorno
The 20th century was the age of the refugee, the displaced person, and of mass immigration. To this day vast scale human migration in the wake of neo-imperialism, wars, economic and political revolutions and ethnic cleansing continue to re-shape the global condition. While, for many, these experiences have been and still are experiences of mutilation and loss, they have been transformed by some into a potent motive of modern culture. In Theodor W. Adorno’s ethics of exile just like in the works of numerous 20th century émigré intellectuals before and after him (i.e. Georg Lukács or Edward W. Said) we find a particular exilic mode of thinking and narrating that aims at turning the traumatic experience of dispossession, forced migration, unhappy dislocation or lonely suffering in isolation into a poetic and critical motive. These works demonstrate that the experience of exile and transnational migration contains ample bases for new modes of literary writing and resistant criticism across the learned boundaries of national emplotments and ethnic belonging.
Edward W. Said. “Reflections on Exile” (1984)
First class meeting: 20.04.2016
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies II (Group VII)
092844 | Seminar | Thu 14-16 | room: ES 130 | 2 SWS
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies is a two-semester course concluding with a written exam at the end of the summer term.
Part I of the course took place in the winter semester and covered both literary and non-literary cultural representations.
Caroline Kögler
094793 | BA Seminar | Wed 10-12 | room: ES 130 | 2 SWS
Victorian and Neo-Victorian Literature
094752 | BA Seminar | Wed 8-10 | room: ES 3 | 2 SWS
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies II (Group V)
094723 | Thu 10-12 | room: ES 130 | 2 SWS
Part I of the course took place in the winter semester and covered both literary and non-literary cultural representations.
In the summer semester, part two of the course focuses on literature. It provides an overview of literary genres and discusses methods and tools for textual analysis and interpretation. Reading American, British, and postcolonial texts, students are introduced to the practice of literary and cultural studies. Building on the knowledge acquired in the winter term, they learn how to combine specific critical and theoretical perspectives with detailed exploration of three set texts.
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies II (Group VI)
094723 | Thu 12-14 | room: ES 130 | 2 SWS
Part I of the course took place in the winter semester and covered both literary and non-literary cultural representations.
In the summer semester, part two of the course focuses on literature. It provides an overview of literary genres and discusses methods and tools for textual analysis and interpretation. Reading American, British, and postcolonial texts, students are introduced to the practice of literary and cultural studies. Building on the knowledge acquired in the winter term, they learn how to combine specific critical and theoretical perspectives with detailed exploration of three set texts.
Felipe Espinoza Garrido
094754 | BA Seminar | Mo 16-18 | room: ES 3 | 2 SWS
094844 | MEd seminar | Tue 12-14 | room: Aegidiistr. 3 - AE 11 | 2 SWS
Course description: t.b.a.
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies II (Group I)
094719 | Mo 12-14 | room: ES 130 | 2 SWS
Part I of the course took place in the winter semester and covered both literary and non-literary cultural representations.
In the summer semester, part two of the course focuses on literature. It provides an overview of literary genres and discusses methods and tools for textual analysis and interpretation. Reading American, British, and postcolonial texts, students are introduced to the practice of literary and cultural studies. Building on the knowledge acquired in the winter term, they learn how to combine specific critical and theoretical perspectives with detailed exploration of three set texts.
Deborah Nyangulu
094755| BA Seminar | Tue 8-10 | room: ES 3 | 2 SWS
094851| MA Seminar NTS | Fri 10-12 | room: ES 130 | 2 SWS
094736 | Thu 10-12 | room: ES 3 | 2 SWS
094741| Thu 12-14 | room: ES 24 | 2 SWS