Winter term 2012/2013
Below you will find all classes taught by staff members associated with the English, Postcolonial and Media Studies in winter term 2012/2013
Prof. Dr. Mark Stein
Dr. Silke Stroh
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
Caroline Kögler
Jeyapriya Srieaswaranathan
Prof. Dr. Mark Stein
Betreuungsseminar
096943 | Colloquium | 1 SWS | Wed 09-10 |ES 333
Diese Veranstaltung ist auf die Bedürfnisse von Studierenden zugeschnitten, die sich bei mir zum Examen angemeldet haben, die bei mir eine Modulabschlussprüfung absolvieren, oder denen ich vom Prüfungsamt als Prüfer zugewiesen wurde.
Die Veranstaltung befasst sich - in getrennten Sitzungen - mit allen Prüfungstypen; es geht es um schriftliche Prüfungen (Klausuren), mündliche Abschlussprüfungen (Staatsexamen/Magister), Modulabschlussprüfungen (mündlich, schriftlich) sowie um die Anfertigung von schriftlichen Hausarbeiten bzw. Examensarbeiten. Spezifische Probleme und Strategien der Prüfungsvorbereitung werden besprochen; Prüfungssimulationen können durchgeführt werden.
Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies
096924 | Colloquium | 1 SWS | ES 126
This is a postgraduate colloquium on postcolonial, transnational and transcultural studies (ptts).
If you are interested in participating, pls send an email to m.stein@wwu.de
Dr. Silke Stroh
Academic Skills, Group III
095714| Übung | 2 SWS | Mon 10-12 | ES 226
This course will introduce students to the necessary reading, research and writing skills required for their academic careers. Students will look at the various research tools available and gain experience in employing these effectively. Subsequently, students will learn how to incorporate this research into their own work by focusing on how to plan, structure and carry out academic written assignments.
Nation, Nationalism, Transnationalism: Historical and theoretical foundations
096615| M.A. seminar | 2 SWS | Mon 12-14 | ES 3
This course explores a wide variety of texts, issues and concepts which are central to the study of nationhood, nationalism and transnationalism. This is done from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing especially on the fields of history, the social sciences, as well as literary and cultural theory. Topics include: pre-modern political and cultural (as well as national?) constructs of community; modernity and the nation state; the nation as ‘imagined community’; nation(alism) and colonialism/anti-colonialism/postcolonialism; nation and language; the role of minorities; regionalism; stateless nations; heterogeneity in terms of class and gender; as well as recent transnational developments in the fields of supra-national cooperation (for instance on EU or UN level), economic and cultural globalisation, migration and diasporas. We explore these general topics by focusing on a number of national/regional case studies from different parts of the world, including the British Isles, America and Africa.
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
Contested Geographies: The Spatial in Postcolonial Literature and Theory
096357 | Hauptseminar (M.A./M.Ed. Seminar) | 2 SWS | Tue 16-18 | ES 3
"Underlying social space are territories, lands, geographical domains, the actual geographical underpinnings of the imperial, and also the cultural contest." (Edward W. Said)
Although the importance of an imperial literary text’s spatial metaphors and tropes is well known many scholars of colonial and postcolonial literatures either have considered space in abstract terms such as 'centre and periphery' or have moved it off their agenda by privileging temporality. Recent epistemic shifts within human geography not only have led to an increased interest in questions of urban topographies, the politics of transnational space, or the identity-conflicts of territorial representations but also have triggered new approaches to space in Postcolonial Studies.
This course starts from the premise that postcolonialism and geography are linked through the spatiality of colonial discourse as well as the coloniality of spatial knowledge. Arguing that the imperial struggle over territory necessarily involves the production of narrative spaces it invites students to explore how postcolonial representations (literary and non-literary) are related to the production and revision of meaning, concepts and consciousness of space, place and location. It particularly seeks to explore here and there as spatial concepts confined by the strategies of othering and selving.
Drawing on selected theoretical and fictional works [ranging from Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (1974) to Edward W. Soja’s Thirdspace (1996) and from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) to Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands / La Frontera(1987)] the course provides an introduction to both, spatial theory and (post-)colonial spatial representations. Covering a wide range of scholarly areas and subjects it aims at guiding students through the complex debate with a particular emphasis on the relevance of the so-called 'spatial turn' in cultural and literary studies for our understanding of postcolonialism. At the same time it provides ways into understanding and using key concepts such as narrative mapping, imaginative geography, topography and spatial identity, border space, transnational space, or translocation.
Introductory Reading:
Sara Blair. "Cultural Geography and the Place of the Literary," in American Literary History, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Autumn, 1998), 544-567.
Edward W. Said. "Narrative and Social Space," in Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage, 1994): 62-80.
First class meeting: 16.10.2012
Contact: markus.schmitz@wwu.de
Betreuungsseminar
096668 | Postgraduate Class: MA NTS (Research Module I) | 2 SWS | Wed 16-18 | ES 333
This is the first of a two-semester postgraduate class for students of National & Transnational Studues. It is designed to assist students in defining individual fields of interest, topics, and approaches that are appropriate for independent study and that may lead to (or are ultimately relevant for) their final Master theses. The class is organized as a combination of presentations and in-class discussions and individual supervision outside the classroom. Focusing on the participants’ needs for their own projects within the MA curriculum it provides a collaborative forum for the critical reflection of provisional research conceptions and first results. Students are expected to give an oral presentation on a subject of their choice and contribute regularly to discussions in class. In addition each student will perform at least one writing assignment. Details will be discussed in the first class meeting.
Caroline Kögler
'The Exotic' – a critical perspective: From colonial travel writing to postcolonial cultural production
096008 | BA-Seminar (Level 1) | 2 SWS | Wed 16-18 | ES 3
In this seminar, we will engage with representations of the Exotic and systematise some of its different functions. Who or what is considered to be exotic? Which role do context and reception play? How, in other words, can the Exotic be ‘unpacked’? Engaging with colonial and postcolonial travel reports, novels, and marketing strategies, we will try to understand the cultural (and economic) functions of exoticising practices and, also, how exoticising practices can be employed strategically in subversive ways. The seminar proceeds chronologically, first investigating forms of colonial cultural production before moving on to examples from the 20th and 21st centuries. The main thematic focus will be on travel and tourism. However, towards the end of the winter term, we will also consider how some authors’ diasporic relationships to their home countries (e.g. Salman Rushdie’s) inform the ways in which these authors are marketed, or market themselves, as exotic.
Please read and prepare the following key literary texts:
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness [Penguin Edition, 2011]
Talib Shalih’s Season of Migration to the North [Penguin Edition, 2003]
Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea [Penguin Edition 2012]
[It is expected of students to also know Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre which many will have read during their first or second semester.]
Communicating Texts and Theories (Gruppe III)
096070 | Übung | 2 SWS | Wed 08-10 | ES 226
In dieser Übung werden die im Grundlagenmodul erworbenen Grundkenntnisse und Fähigkeiten in Spezialisierungsgebieten differenziert und gefestigt. Die detaillierten methodischen Kenntnisse werden zur Anwendung gebracht, indem sie auf historisch oder systematisch definierte Themen aus den Bereichen British, American und/oder Postcolonial Studies bezogen werden. Somit sollen die Studierenden lernen, eigene Forschungsfragen über britische, amerikanische und postkoloniale Literatur- und Kulturphänomene zu formulieren.
Die Übung Nr. 096070 hat den Schwerpunkt Postcolonial Studies.
Lektüre: J.M. Coetzee's Foe (Penguin Edition, available on Amazon.de)
Studienleistung: regelmäßige Anwesenheit, individuelle Kurzpräsentation und Lektüre.
Jeyapriya Srieaswaranathan
South Asian Disporic Literature and Films
096122 | Seminar | 2 SWS | Mon 16-18 | ES 2
This seminar discusses literary, filmic and musical expressions of the South Asian diaspora in historical, postcolonial and transnational contexts. Topics include hybrid & hyphenated identities, kala pani narratives, burfi & bastards, spice & subjectivity, performing race, nation & sexuality in “ethnic comedy & music” and ‘a survival guide’ for the brown & queer (as in funny & flying nations or fire & desire). Considering concepts and theories of postcolonial and diaspora studies, this class combines narrative and scholarly writing covering primary texts from Europe, Canada and the Caribbean.
Literary texts
Rohinton Mistry, “Lend Me Your Light”
Sam Selvon, “Cane Is Bitter”
Olive Senior, “Arrival of the Snake Woman”
Shani Mottoo, “Out on Main Street”
Jhumpa Lahiri, “Mrs Sen’s”
Shyam Selvadurai, “Pigs Can’t Fly”
Films
Deepa Mehta, Fire
Mira Nair, Monsoon Wedding
Gurinder Chadha, Bride and Prejudice
Stand-up comedy & comedy shows
Russell Peters, Vijai Nathan
Goodness Gracious Me, The Kumars at No. 42
Music
MIA, Asian Dub Foundation
Communicating Texts and Theories (Group IV)
096084 | Übung| 2 SWS | Tue 16-18 | ES 131
In dieser Übung werden die im Grundlagenmodul erworbenen Grundkenntnisse und Fähigkeiten in Spezialisierungsgebieten differenziert und gefestigt. Die detaillierten methodischen Kenntnisse werden zur Anwendung gebracht, indem sie auf historisch oder systematisch definierte Themen aus den Bereichen British, American und/oder Postcolonial Studies bezogen werden. Somit sollen die Studierenden lernen, eigene Forschungsfragen über britische, amerikanische und postkoloniale Literatur- und Kulturphänomene zu formulieren.
Die Übung Nr. 096084 hat den Schwerpunkt Postcolonial Studies.
Set texts: Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Salman Rushdie [primary readings] as well as Sigmund Freud, Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, Hélène Cixous [excerpts].
Studienleistung: regelmäßige Anwesenheit, individuelle Kurzpräsentation und Lektüre.