Winter Term 2021/22

Here are the classes taught by staff members of the Chair of English, Postcolonial and Media Studies during the winter semester 2021/2022.

Prof. Dr. Mark U Stein
AOR Dr. Silke Stroh
AR Felipe Espinoza Garrido
Deborah Nyangulu
Can Çakır
Rita Maricocchi
Peri Sipahi


Prof. Dr. Mark U Stein

Caribbean Literature
096851 | Seminar | Thu 10-12

Colloquium: Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies
096893 | Advanced Seminar

Postcolonial Studies
096755 | Lecture | Tue 12-14

Postgraduate Class (Literary Studies)
096872 | Colloquium | Wed 10-12

Diaspora and Literature
096756 | Seminar | Wed 08.30-10

Please note that in order to take part in this course you need to have passed the foundations module.

 

AOR Dr. Silke Stroh

Übung Theory and Literature (Group VI)
096768 | Practice | Wed 12-14

Übung Theory and Literature (Group VII)
096900 | Practice | Wed 16-18

Übung Theory and Literature (Group VIII)
096901 | Practice | Thu 12-14

In these courses, students will have the chance to consolidate their theoretical and methodological knowledge from the foundational courses “Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies” I and II. We will combine close readings of two famous interrelated novels (Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre from 1847 and Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea from 1966) and one or two film adaptations with theoretical discussions informed by a range of approaches, such as feminism, Marxism, postcolonialism, eco­criticism and several others. By applying these various approaches to the novels and film/s, we will explore how different theoretical lenses as well as literary and social history shape our understanding of texts. The course will help you develop your analytical skills and practise talking and writing about literature.

All students should get a copy of our two novels. They are available in a range of different editions; I do not wish to prescribe single one for the whole class since some of you might already have a copy (e.g. because you read one of them for your Grundkurs Reading List) and should not be compelled to buy a second one. However, if you are newly buying your copy, I suggest the following (reliable, with helpful introductions and notes, as well as affordable):

•    Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847). Repr., ed. Margaret Smith , Oxford World's Classics series, Oxford et al.: Oxford University Press 2019.
•    Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). Repr., ed. Angela Smith, Penguin Modern Classics series, London et al.: Penguin 2000.

Please start with Jane Eyre and postpone Wide Sargasso Sea until afterwards. Try to finish reading both books as soon as possible. Ideally, you should have finished Jane Eyre by week 2 of the term.

The precise choice of film/s will be finalised later.

All shorter set texts (such as our main theoretical texts) as well as course information, handouts etc. will be made available via a Learnweb folder. All registered students have been added by now; i.e. if you've been admitted to this class and log on to Learnweb, this class should already come up on your course list).

 

AR Felipe Espinoza Garrido

Postgraduate Class (Literary Studies)
096875 | Colloquium | Wed 08.30-10

Colloquium for PhD Students
097316 | Colloquium | Wed 10-12

 

Deborah Nyangulu

Nation, Nationalism and Transnationalism: Historical and Theoretical Foundations
096868 | Seminar | Tue 10-12, Thu 10-12

This MA level seminar offers a transdisciplinary take on the study of nationhood, nationalism, and transnationalism and engages with various conceptualizations of these notions in both the humanities and the social sciences. Using Benedict Anderson’s influential idea of Imagined Communities as one of its departure points, the course takes seriously the idea of the social constructedness of the nation and tries to situate nations in their historical and geopolitical contexts. It questions how the nation came to be considered as culturally given and why it is regarded as the most potent unit of political organization and expressing sovereignty. In keeping in tune with this interrogation of how the idea of the nation and nationalism came to be, the seminar also engages with countervailing trends (such as transnationalism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism) which undercut the resilience of nationalism. The course also explores how related notions of gender, race, class, citizenship, imperialism, decolonization, and migration feature in the (de)construction and reproduction of nations. The main course aims include:

  • Placing contemporary theoretical debates into a wider historical context and considering earlier theorizations and discussions on the ‘origins’ of nations
  • Providing an overview of key theoretical approaches to nationalism and considering some of the main criticisms levelled against them in a comparative perspective
  • Considering how alternative forms of knowledge including ideas of decolonization challenge dominant Euro-American conceptualizations of nationhood and nationalism
  • Examining the ways in which cultural products such as novels, art, music, media, film, language, etc participate in both entrenching and undermining the idea of the nation, as well as transcending it. Students are particularly encouraged to engage with diverse forms of cultural artifacts such as fashion, gaming, sport, celebrity, media, TV to understand ideas of nation, nationalism and transnationalism.

Course readings will be made available in a course folder on Learnweb. A separate introductory reading list for independent study will also be made available. This is a reading-intensive course and students are encouraged to complete all their readings in readiness for class discussions. To pass this course, students will be expected to complete and pass a final exam.

 

Can Çakır

Narratives of Resistance and Liberation
096757 | Seminar | Wed 12-14

 

Rita Maricocchi

Übung Theory and Literature (Group III) – Multilingualism and Translation in Anglophone Texts
096765 | Practice | Tue 16-18

With the motto “There is no such thing as a multilingual text!”, taken from Till Dembeck’s provocative 2017 article promoting a multilingual philology, this course intends to explore different ways that anglophone texts can be multilingual and the impact this has on how they are read and understood from an academic perspective. Through engagement with a wide variety of primary texts consisting of full length novels (Jhumpa Lahiri In Other Words, Ocean Vuong On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous), novel excerpts (Xialou Guo A Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart), essays (Alicia Elliott “A Mind Spread Out on the Ground”), poetry (Ocean Vuong Night Sky With Exit Wounds), and several activist projects (Weiterschreiben.jetzt, macht.sprache), course participants will craft readings of the texts that attend to their multilingual form and content and are informed by a variety of theoretical approaches, including postmonolingualism, postcolonialism, diaspora studies, and translation studies. In doing so, the course will engage with discourses that challenge notions of “the mother tongue”, national literary canons, and translatability, asking time and again whether and how it matters to read a text as “multilingual.”

Peri Sipahi

Übung Theory and Literature (Group IV) – Ecocriticism, Gender and Postcolonial Theory in Contemporary Literature
096766 | Practice | Tue 14-16