Current Courses: Summer Semester 2024
Prof. Dr. Cecile Sandten
Content
This lecture course provides an overview of literary history primarily in Great Britain. It covers literary movements such as Romanticism, Victorianism, Edwardianism, Modernism, Postmodernism, and Postcolonialism. The lecture course will focus on selected texts that represent each historical period and the literary movement associated with this time period. In addition, the course will introduce students to the governing principles of English literature that shaped its literary heritage and history.
Objectives
Prior to introducing the key figures of the literary movements, each period will be situated in its historical and cultural contexts. As such, the lectures will move beyond mere factual introductions in order to both contextualise and characterise the socio-political predicaments of the respective literary figures and genres.
Prerequisites
Students have to successfully accomplished the lecture “History of Literature in English: From the Renaissance to Romanticism”.
Requirements for credits/Type of module exam
As part of the credit points, regular participation is strongly recommended. In addition, students are expected to read the assigned texts for the lecture course. For the successful completion of this course, students have to write one essay at the end of the teaching period (PL: BA_AA_2; ERASMUS). SELAEn6 students have to write three lecture minutes from three lectures of their choice (processing time: three weeks after the end of the lecture period).
Required Textbook
Poplawski, Paul (ed.) (2017): English Literature in Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
A reader with primary texts will be made available at the beginning of the semester in a reader (via OPAL).
Content
Storytelling is an ancient form of entertainment and education – from the epics by the Greek poet Homer, the medieval sagas of gods and heroes to orally transmitted folk tales in a broad range of countries. For more than 100 years cinema has been the continuation of this tradition – on celluloid. Therefore, an educational program for children and young adults does not only include the studying of texts, but also films. Since 1996, the International Film Festival "SCHLINGEL" has provided a great forum for this task. It offers young viewers the opportunity to watch international, often independent films that would otherwise be unknown to a German audience. The films, whose heroes are primarily children and young adults, tell exciting stories and convey profound messages that are both universal, and conversely, culturally specific. More than 160 films from a broad range of countries will be screened during the festival week. In addition, international guests (e.g. film directors, young actors) as well as international juries will be present throughout the festival.
Objectives
In this seminar, students will first be provided with theoretical texts related to children’s films as well as hands-on material with regard to film analysis techniques that will help them to deepen their understanding of films and support them in the creation of educational material for children. Secondly, students of this seminar will learn how to translate the subtitles of a film and be introduced to tasks that are required for the active participation in the film festival. Since the Chair of English Literatures cooperates with the "SCHLINGEL" Film Festival, students of this seminar will be requested to participate actively in support of the festival (25/09 – 03/10/24).
Prerequisites
None.
Requirements for credit
Active participation in every session of the class is expected. A presentation (partner or group work) is also expected as part of the general course work. A long and short film description as well as a pedagogical materials hand-out or, alternatively, a film subtitle translation is required for the course exam (SELAEn6 and other participants). Ideally, students participate in actively in the SCHLINGEL Film Festival.
Set texts/Required Reading
A reader with seminal material will be made available in the OPAL.
Content
Refugee Tales, edited by David Herd and Anna Pincus, convey a critique of the inhuman side of asylum seeking, refugeeism and indefinite detention, including the aesthetic terms. The critical tone of the tales’ voices, told either by well-known writers after their interviews and conversations with refugees, detainees and asylees, or by the refugees and detainees themselves, is even more remarkable in the context in which they have been written: the tales go against the grain of the dominant discourse of flight, refugeeism and asylum seeking, as they employ a form of telling, walking and writing back to a centre that has ruthlessly enforced its boundaries. It is called “indefinite detention.” Thus, the tales enact a means of political intervention against the inhuman and unjust practice of indefinite detention in Great Britain.
Objectives
Since the Refugee Tales project was inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in this seminar, students will first read a few tales from Chaucer's tales to get engaged in the stories’ ideas: story-telling, pilgrimage, kaleidoscopic view on society. In a second step they will then embark on the four collections of Refugee Tales and read selected tales. Accordingly, students will address issues such as transnational migration, mobility, and the pre-flight and flight experiences of asylum seekers, detainees and refugees. In doing so, they will explore in which ways the experiences of adults and (un)accompanied minors are depicted in these textual narratives. In addition to the close readings of texts, students will gain insights into various theories on citizenship, and social and political approaches to asylum, refugeeism, as well as indefinite detention through hands-on materials. Furthermore, they will learn the conceptual distinctions between literary genres such as the short story, life-writing and epic poem. Students will have to organize excursions to museums/exhibitions, refugee supporting/migration institutions and a solidarity walk as part of their practical skills acquistion.
Prerequisites
None.
Requirements for credits
Active participation in every session of the class is expected. A final term paper (15-18 pages) are required for the module exam.
Set texts/Required Reading
Chaucer, Geoffrey, The Canterbury Tales. Transl. into modern English by Nevill Coghill. London: Penguin 2003.
Herd, David and Anna Pincus. Eds. Refugee Tales. Manchester: Comma Press, 2016.
Herd, David and Anna Pincus. Eds. Refugee Tales II. Manchester: Comma Press, 2017.
Herd, David and Anna Pincus. Eds. Refugee Tales III. Manchester: Comma Press, 2019.
Herd, David and Anna Pincus. Eds. Refugee Tales IV. Manchester: Comma Press, 2021.
A reader with seminal material will be provided at the beginning of the semester (OPAL).
Content
The Research Colloquium is open to students who are preparing for their final oral and written exams. It is intended to give students a platform to present their projects and to raise questions and/or difficulties they may be facing at an early stage of their research. Further, students are encouraged to engage in critical discussions, and gain feedback from their peers concerning their research projects. We will also discuss a wide range of general topics and individual topics required for final exams.
Requirements for credits
The format of this seminar consists of a close reading of theoretical and primary texts, of discussions and presentations of students’ own writings (e.g. title, abstract, introduction). Each student will present an oral report about their thesis (approx. 15 minutes).
Set texts/required reading
A reader with seminal material will be made available in due course.
Content
This course aims to provide support for post-graduate students who are developing their dissertation ideas and first draft outlines. The focus of this seminar will be on research in English Literature (including close readings of secondary theoretical texts and primary texts, but also the students’ own written work). Post-graduate candidates who engage in interdisciplinary approaches and topics beyond English Literature are most welcome to participate to enhance the group’s interdisciplinary awareness.
Objectives
This seminar will also offer special supervision through individual counseling. Moreover, the seminar will support doctoral and post-doctoral candidates on a professional level, especially with regard to topics such as scholarly writing for publication, pedagogic issues of teaching at university level, as well as information on how to apply for positions in the job market. In addition, support to present their work at (international) conferences will be given, as well as information on careers and funding support for scholarship applications and opportunities for gaining key supplementary qualifications (in cooperation with the Zentrum für den Wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs at TUC).
Prerequisites
Participants must have completed a Master thesis graded at least 2,0.
Dr. Mandy Beck
Content
Despite of being one of the oldest genres in literary history, the fascination with fairy tales seems to be unbroken still today. The readership of fairy tales also goes far beyond children and young readers only, to which contemporary rewrites and recent film adaptations attest (e.g. Angela Carter’s story collection The Bloody Chamber, films like Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013) or Red Riding Hood (2011)). Basically, everyone knows fairy tales since their childhood and yet it is hard to define what their essential characteristics really are: Do they have to include a prince or hero, a typical damsel in distress, an evil godmother, talking animals and some magical fairies? Do they have to take place in some far-away place in the past and are therefore entirely detached from the present problems of globalisation, environmental destruction, social inequalities, or climate change? Do fairy tales even have to be in some way educational (i.e. appeal to morality and benevolence) in order to serve their purpose?
In order to illuminate these questions and discuss many other aspects surrounding the genre, we will look at the origins of fairy tales (e.g. oral tradition, folktales), their dissemination internationally, their characteristics, which (country-specific) variations occur as well as which role they play today (e.g. in form of rewrites, adaptions, etc.). Accordingly, this seminar offers a survey of basic and well-known fairy tales alongside lesser known examples to discuss genre-specific features and the evolution of a European fairy tale culture, in addition to different strands in fairy tale research and modern, digital methods to examine them.
Objectives
Students will explore the manifold forms of appearance of fairy tales via a range of texts. They will also be made familiar with different theoretical/critical approaches, such as structuralism, psychoanalysis, gender studies, etc., to analyse the texts further with regard to various issues. Apart from this, students will also be encouraged to choose a specific fairy tale to work on over the course of the seminar as an individual project to more deeply engage with its respective genesis, transmission, translation and modifications, as well as its reception and relevance in the fairy tale canon.
Prerequisites
In order to participate, students need to have completed the lecture course “Introduction to the Study of Literatures in English” successfully (does not apply to ERASMUS or international students).
Requirements for credits
The format of this seminar will consist of close readings, discussions and contributions.
For the PVL, each student can either do an oral presentation (approx. 20 minutes) or complete a written task (1500-2000 words), and write a substantial seminar paper (10-12 pages) for the PL.
Set Texts
Texts will be made available via OPAL.
Content
“Genre” is a collective term for a sort of texts that have specific characteristics in common with regard to form, content, style, or even function. Apart from the major genres of poetry, fiction and drama, there are numerous subgenres (e.g. sonnets, short stories, comedies, etc.) or in-between genres (e.g. epic, dramatic monologue, novel in verse, dialogue novel, closet drama, etc.), but also other variations that escape clear-cut categories, because they challenge or reflect on generic conventions. The ambiguities of certain literary texts, especially from the twentieth century, are furthermore indicated by categories such as “metatheatre” (Lionel Abel) and “metafiction” (Linda Hutcheon), or self-reflexive literature in form of the “anti-novel”, the “anti-play” and experimental poetry. Therefore, this seminar deals with literary genres beyond the conventional classifications, in order to discuss the wide scope of literature’s reinvention in the twentieth century.
In addition to a survey of the main genres and their core features, we will focus on texts that deviate from them, as Samuel Beckett's shorter plays Act Without Words I & II, What Where, Angela Carter's longer fiction, or poetry by Edwin Morgan, Stevie Smith and others. These readings will be enhanced by relevant theoretical texts on different genres, narratology, postmodern writings, experimentalism, gender and more.
Objectives
This seminar seeks to re-evaluate the reliability of generic features of literary texts for a categorisation and analysis, thereby making students aware of the texts' playful engagement with common expectations towards genres. On top of that, various issues will be explored on the basis of theoretical/critical material, such as self-reflexiveness, experimental and subversive strategies.
Prerequisites
In order to participate, students of English and American Studies need to have completed the
Kernmodul 2.3 English Literatures and Cultures I and 2.4 English Literatures and Cultures II successfully.
Requirements for credits
Close readings of primary, theoretical as well as secondary texts, discussions and oral presentations. For the PVL, each student can either do an oral presentation (approx. 20 minutes) or complete a written task (1500-2000 words).
The module 5.2 will be completed with an oral exam of 30 minutes (one topic from this seminar and one topic from the research colloquium).
Set texts
Texts will be made available via OPAL.
Dr. Indrani Karmakar
Content
This course provides an accessible introduction to the theories and methods in literary studies and its four pillars: author, text, reader, and context. We will engage in critical investigations of five influential theoretical approaches in our field: Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Gender and Queer Theory, New Criticism and Formalism, and Postcolonial Studies. For each of these five areas, there will be a discussion of a seminal theoretical text in the first week, followed by a hands-on session in the second week, in which we will use the theoretical/methodological framework to analyse a given literary text (a poem or a short story). In addition, the seminar will provide students with useful tools and methods to analyse literary texts.
Objectives
Like all scientists, scholars of literature need methods in order to engage with their objects of study (i.e. literary texts). The methods and theories presented in this seminar will enable students to study literature from different perspectives and with greater precision than before. In other words, we will put the “Wissenschaft” into “Literaturwissenschaft”.
Prerequisites
Successful completion of the lecture Introduction to the Study of Literatures in English. You are required to carefully study alternately a complex theoretical text and a short literary text (a poem, a collection of poems, a short story) from week to week.
Requirements for credits
Active participation in every session of the class is expected (there will be regular in class
reading quizzes). PL (for B_AA__2): Term paper (10-12 pages) (see Studienordnung, p. 1349) PL (for SELAEn6, B_Pä__4)
Set texts
A reader with seminal material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
Content
Motherhood remains a constitutive element of gender in most cultures and a divisive issue, precipitating a gamut of contradictory ideas from glorification to self-effacement. As cultural production, literary fiction has long grappled with maternity, responding to and engaging with dominant discourses of motherhood and its related concerns at specific locations and cultures or intersections of cultures (as in the context of migration and diaspora in our increasingly globalised world). This course inquires into the literary representation of motherhood in contemporary Anglophone literature, paying particular attention to what can be termed as “non-normative” forms of the maternal. Locating the texts within the larger socio-cultural contexts they emanate from, the course explores how literature grapples with motherhood’s intersection with such identity constituents as race, class, gender and sexuality, and maternity’s intimate connection with concepts of otherness, liminality, subversion, among others.
Objectives
Students will be introduced to a corpus of contemporary Anglophone literature as well as theoretical texts related to gender and maternal, transnational feminism, postcolonialism and world literature. Students will be able to contextualise the literary representations and build on the ideas of ‘writing back’ and ‘counter- narratives’ they learnt from the previous course. Finally, students will be able to examine how motherhood is narrativised: how the literary aesthetics and formal aspects contribute to the writers’ representation and refiguring of the maternal.
Prerequisites
Completion of the seminar “Postcolonial Shakespeare Rewrites”.
Requirements for credits
Active participation in every session of the class is expected and a final term paper (15-18 pages) is required for credits.
Set texts
Texts will be made available via OPAL.