Winter term 2016/2017
Below you will find all classes taught by staff members associated with the English, Postcolonial and Media Studies in winter term 2016/17.
Prof. Dr. Mark U Stein
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
Felipe Espinoza Garrido
Deborah Nyangulu
Prof. Dr. Mark U Stein
Master-level seminar "Nation, Nationalism, Transnationalism": Historical and Theoretical Foundations
096830 | Tue 10-12 | ES 226 | Thue 10-12 | ES 130 | 4 SWS
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 will 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.
While the focus is on historical, political and theoretical issues, we will also do some case studies of short literary texts and other cultural products (e.g. songs or pictures) in order to see how these wider social phenomena are negotiated in cultural representations.
Betreungsseminar
096853 | Thu 14.00-16.00 s.t. | ES 333 | 2 SWS
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 es 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.
TeilnehmerInnen besuchen ausgewählte, für sie relevante, Sitzungen. Für Studierende, deren BA-, MA-, MAed-Arbeit durch mich betreut werden, findet 14-tägig ein Examenskolloquium (Fr., 12-14h) 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.
Kolloquium "Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies"
096851 | Oberseminar | Wed 18-20 | fortnightly
This is a research colloquium on Postcolonial, Transnational, and Transcultural Studies (PTTS) mainly for PhD-students and postdocs. Each semester we discuss a range of topical essays as well as work in progress of participants. If you are interested in the colloquium, get in touch via email.
Postgraduate Class (Literary Studies)
096837 | Kolloquium | Research module II | Wed 14:00-16 s.t. | ES 333 | 2 SWS
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.
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.
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
Hi-Stories from the Margins: Subaltern Narratives and the Re-Making of History
096794 | Seminar | Wed 16-18 | ES 226 | 2 SWS
First in-class meeting: 26.10.2016 !!!; introductory reading: t.b.a.
The notion of the subaltern (the economically and politically marginalized) has been coined by the Italian Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci in the late 1920s. Inspired by the historian Ranajit Guha (b.1923) the Subaltern Studies group since 1982 embarked on a project of ‘recovering’ the agency of subalterns in anti-colonial resistance movements in India. While this project began as a specific and focused intervention in the academic discipline of (Indian) history, it has now a global presence as a field of studies practiced by scholars of diverse disciplinary backgrounds that goes well beyond India or South Asia. Today subaltern studies are often seen as a close relative of postcolonialism, an area of studies whose principal home has been in literature departments; one that is particularly concerned with the (neo)colonial power dynamics of representational subalternization and the ongoing (cultural) resistance against it.
This class sets focus on the relationship between postcolonial writing and subaltern historiography. Introducing seminal theoreticians and key concepts (thus tracing origin, development, and emancipatory potential of subaltern criticism) it selectively explores fictional re-visions and creative re-makings of hegemonic historical narratives in postcolonial literature and conceptual art.
The reading list will include selections from Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks (1929-35), key essays from diverse Subaltern Studies volumes (1982-), reflections and commentaries on the project by postcolonial critics like Dipesh Chakrabarty, Gayatri Spivak, or Edward Said as well as selected literary writings and artistic works ranging from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart (1958) and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981) to Walid Raad’s Hostage: The Bachar Tapes (2001) and Emily Jacir’s Material for a Film (2005-ongoing).
Felipe Espinoza Garrido
British Modernism (students-for-students)
096824 | MEd seminar | Mon 14-16 | ES 2 | 2 SWS
Course description: t.b.a.
Deborah Nyangulu
Character and the Grotesque in post-Independence African Novels
096732 | Wed 10-12 | ES 24 | 2 SWS
information t.b.a.
Academic Skills I: Group V
096715 | Wed 14-16 | ES 130 | 2 SWS