Winter term 2017/2018
Below you will find all classes taught by staff members associated with the Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies during the winter term 2017/2018.
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
Felipe Espinoza Garrido
Deborah Nyangulu
Julian Wacker
Theresa Krampe
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
Caribbean Diaspora Writing
090747 | Seminar | Thu. 10-12 | ES 130 | 2SWS
This seminar starts from the premise that the literatures of the Caribbean diaspora can neither be located within a clearly demarcated geographical space within the sea and at the shores that we call the Caribbean nor can they be restricted to writings by Caribbean immigrants living and working in the Western metropoles. While Caribbean cultural production of course emerges from very specific socio-historic moments they regularly derive from, reflect on and promote connections between various real or imagined cultural origins and present locations within and without the Caribbean. Instead of speaking for an original or essential Caribbean culture they do regularly write across cultures.
Students are invited to explore a decisively diasporic outlook of a Caribbean cultural sphere that equally exists in Jamaica, Cuba, or Haiti and Europe, North America or Africa. Using a relational diasporic studies approach we will read works of literature and theory that mediate between disparate social and cultural groups, between distinct historical moments and between multiple departures and arrivals. Closely looking at intertextual, creolizing and counter-discursive/counter-
Texts to be explored in class try to make sense of the continuing experience of (forced-) migrational frictions (such as the Middle passage) and cohabitations across various cultural sites against the historical backdrop of cross-cultural flows from and to the Caribbean. Beyond the primary sites of these texts’ enunciation our readings shall offer radical queries of our understanding of colonial and postcolonial Anglophone representations, dominant notions authenticity, cross-cultural translation or inter-subjectivity. They thus highlight the fraught and ambivalent predicaments of a truly decolonized conviviality under the condition of global capitalism.
First in-class meeting: 19 October!
Primary texts and additional readings will be announced by the beginning of the term.
Please refer to your program’s module description for further details on your particular course requirements!
Literatures and Cultures of the Caribbean Diaspora
090658 | Lecture course: | Tue. 4 – 6 | Johannisstr. 4 - JO 1 | 2SWS
Going beyond the conventional focus on works of literature in Caribbean studies this lecture course explores a range of diasporic Caribbean representations of the 20th and 21st centuries (including works of theory and cultural criticism as well as works of art, film and music) produced at and in-between several locations, including the Caribbean itself, the UK, Europe, North America, and Africa. Based on selected readings it provides a decisively relational diasporic studies perspective (rather than a strictly regional Caribbean studies or British/American immigrant studies perspective). Stressing the interconnectedness of disparate Caribbean cultural geographies it transcends linguistic, ethnic or nation-state analytical frameworks prevalent in regional studies and ethnic immigrant studies approaches alike. The lecture focuses on the multi-directional diasporic binds of an overarching Caribbean cultural practice. Its dialogic and necessarily interdisciplinary approach locates Caribbean cultural discourse in relation to different national and transnational directions of critical and creative practices related to anti-colonialism, anti-racism, pan-Africanism, the Harlem Renaissance, or Black feminism. At the same time the lecture explores the importance of Caribbean diasporic thought for the development of epistemological concepts that disentangle the conventional separation of regions and cultural realms, such as transculturation, the Black Atlantic or creolization and underlines its impact on the formation of academic movements in literary and cultural studies like Postcolonialism, Diaspora Studies, or Critical Race Studies.
First session: 17 October!
Selected readings will be announced by the beginning of the term.
Please refer to your program’s module description for further details on your particular course requirements!
Master-level seminar "Nation, Nationalism, Transnationalism": Historical and Theoretical Foundations
090764 | Master Seminar | Tue. 12-14 | ES 227 | Thu. 14-16 | DPL 23/426 (Domplatz 23) | 4 SWS
The so-called transnational turn marks one of the most recent epistemological shifts in the humanities and social sciences. It has profoundly challenged traditional assumptions on what scholarly practice is supposed to be on a truly global and transdisciplinary level. This course explores a wide variety of texts, issues and concepts which are central to the study of nationhood, nationalism and transnationalism. It sets particular focus on tensions between competing national and cultural concepts as well as on epistemological differences between national and transnational approaches for the study of culture and society.
Our in-class discussions will draw on a wide range of shared readings. The selection of texts will invite class participants to an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing especially on the fields of history, the social sciences, as well as literary and cultural theory. Topics to be discussed include: pre-modern notions of political and cultural community; the historical formation of modern national identifications; the transformation of national(ist) discourses in different socio-historical and/or cultural contexts such as anti- and post-colonial nation building; the tension between pedagogical and performative dynamics in the ambivalent construction of the nation and the ongoing re-making of national belonging; critical strategies of questioning the nation’s imagined cohesion and the essentialist claim of people and home; (critical) cosmopolitanism; gendered aspects, racialized identifications, and class dimensions of and in national(ist) discourses; gender and sexuality in cross-cultural (mis-)representations; racism; ethnic nationalism, anti-colonial struggle, national liberation and the question of violence; nation(alism) and language policy; minorities; regionalism; stateless nations; civil wars and the refugee regime; transnational developments in the fields of supra-national cooperation; global capitalism, neo-colonialism and cultural globalization; (trans-)migration and diasporic identifications, eco-critical perspectives on the world society in the epoch of the anthropocene.
In class we will explore these and related topics by reading and critically discussing a number of theoretical texts and case studies from different parts of the world, including the British Isles, the Americas; South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. While the focus is on historical, political and theoretical issues, we will also include short literary representations and other cultural representations (e.g. audio-visual works) to see how wider socio-political phenomena are negotiated in the spheres of literature, music, film or the arts.
Class-participants will get access to an electronic course folder with all set texts. In addition an extended reading list will be provided.
First in-class meeting: 17. October
Oberseminar (Examenskolloquium)
090711 | Wed. 10-11.30 s.t. | 14täg. | ES 333 | 1 SWS
Dieses Oberseminar ist ausschließlich für Studierende offen, deren B.A.-, M.A.-, M.Ed.-Arbeiten durch mich erstbetreut werden. Es ist als 14tägig Examenskolloquium konzipert. Hier können individuelle Projekte vorgestellt und diskutiert werden.
Es ist eine persönliche Anmeldung via E_mail erforderlich!
This colloquium is designed to assist B.A.-, M.A.-, and M.Ed.-students currently working on their individual thesis project under my supervision. It provides a collaborative forum for feedback and advice.
Individual registration via e_mail required!
Felipe Espinoza Garrido
Detective Fictions in Literature and Film (with Julian Wacker)
090661 | Bachelor seminar | Mon 14-16 | ES 226| 2 SWS
This class will deal with three different approaches to detective fiction, in particular the structuralist notion of detective fiction as a game played between the author/criminal and reader/detective (Todorov) and the more recent conception of metaphysical detective fiction that subverts this genre (cf. Merivale and Sweeney). Moreover, we will engage with the increasing body of literature that is often subsumed under the notion of transnational and transcultural crime fiction, i.e. texts that interrogate the genre through postcolonial frameworks.
Mandatory readings will be announced shortly.
Deborah Nyangulu
Communicating Texts and Theories (Group V)
098676 | Tue 10-12 | ES3 | 2 SWS
This exercise course (Übung) requires active class participation from students. We will explore how various theories can be used to interpret a literary text as well as how various contexts (historical, political, social, etc) come to bear on the production of a specific literary text. Please buy and read the following books before the first day of class: Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899) and Ayi Kwei Armah's The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (originally 1968, republished 1969). Each student will be expected to give an oral class presentation to pass the course. A course folder will be made available on Learnweb. First day of class will be 16.10.2017. To all students enrolled in this course: please check your university email once the winter term starts as I will email you further course information.
Julian Wacker
Academic Skills I: Group III
090647 | Thu 12-14 | room: tba | 2 SWS
This course will introduce students to the necessary research and writing skills required for their academic careers. Students will look at the various research tools available and where to find material for their academic assignments 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 write academic written assignments.
Students requiring accreditation will be expected to submit a final written assignment in the form of an introduction to and outline for a seminar paper. The grade for this final assignment constitutes 20% of the final grade for this module.
Regular attendance and active participation are expected from all participants.
Detective Fictions in Literature and Film (with Felipe Espinoza)
090661 | Bachelor seminar | Mon 14-16 | ES 226| 2 SWS
This class will deal with three different approaches to detective fiction, in particular the structuralist notion of detective fiction as a game played between the author/criminal and reader/detective (Todorov) and the more recent conception of metaphysical detective fiction that subverts this genre (cf. Merivale and Sweeney). Moreover, we will engage with the increasing body of literature that is often subsumed under the notion of transnational and transcultural crime fiction, i.e. texts that interrogate the genre through postcolonial frameworks.
Mandatory readings will be announced shortly.
Theresa Krampe
Communicating Texts and Theories (Group IV)
090674 | Thu 12-14 | ES333 | 2 SWS
This exercise course (Übung) requires active class participation from students. We will explore how various theories can be used to interpret a literary text as well as how various contexts (historical, political, social, etc) come to bear on the production of a specific literary text. Each student will be expected to give an oral class presentation to pass the course. A course folder will be made available on Learnweb. First day of class will be 16.10.2017. To all students enrolled in this course: please check your university email once the winter term starts as I will email you further course information. Please buy and read the following books before the first day of class: Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) and Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899).
Communicating Texts and Theories (Group V)
090675 | Tue 10-12 | ES3 | 2 SWS
This exercise course (Übung) requires active class participation from students. We will explore how various theories can be used to interpret a literary text as well as how various contexts (historical, political, social, etc) come to bear on the production of a specific literary text. Each student will be expected to give an oral class presentation to pass the course. A course folder will be made available on Learnweb. First day of class will be 16.10.2017. To all students enrolled in this course: please check your university email once the winter term starts as I will email you further course information. Please buy and read the following books before the first day of class: Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) and Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899).