Archived Courses
Winter Term 2021/2022
Prof. Dr. Cecile Sandten
Content:
This lecture course provides an overview of literary history 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 it. 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:
None
Requirements for credits:
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_1 and PVL: BA_AA_3; ERASMUS). SELAEn5 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.) (2007): English Literature in Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
A reader with primary texts will be available at Copyshop Dietze (Reichenhainer Str. 55) at the beginning of the semester
Registration: Please register via e-mail (lisa-marie.poehland@phil.tu.chemnitz.de) with your name, study programme and semester by 4 October 2021.
Content:
"To be, or not to be: that is the question". Another question is whether Hamlet is a self-righteous brooding type, a depressive melancholic, a mummy's boy or a rebel and social revolutionary. Or is he, according to Laurence Olivier, even the "first real pacifist"? During the course of the seminar, students will not only read and discuss Hamlet but will also be introduced to the highly complex relationship between a literary text and its adaptations to film. To this end, we will watch and analyse Laurence Olivier's 1947s Hamlet-adaptation, Franco Zeffirelli's (1991) stripped-down, two-hour version of Shakespeare's play which stars Mel Gibson as a rather robust version of the ambivalent Danish prince, and Michael Almereyda's 1999 adaptation which is set in New York in the year 2000. A surprise film will await eager students of Hamlet-adaptations.
Objectives:
Besides analysing the play and a selection of its different cinematic adaptations, students will also engage with theoretical concepts pertaining to the field of drama theories, adaptation theories and theories of media change. They will evaluate the representations of Hamlet on the Internet and work with audio versions of the play. Thus, they will be encouraged to explore the aesthetic literary, filmic, cultural, and historical milieus of Hamlet in order to share their ideas with the other students in the class through discussions and/or group work.
Prerequisites:
Successful completion of modules 2.3 and 2.4 (does not apply to Erasmus)
Requirements for credits:
A close reading of the primary text, historical, theoretical, as well as secondary texts are part of the allocation of the Credit Points. Each student will give an oral presentation (approx. 15 minutes), write a response paper or prepare questions for discussion (PVL), and write a substantial seminar paper (12-15 pages) (PL).
Set texts:
Shakespeare, William (1983 [1601]): Hamlet. Harold Jenkins (ed.) Walton-on-Thames, Surrey: Arden.
Suggested secondary reading:
A bibliography with relevant secondary texts will be made available in the first session of the seminar. A visit to a theatre performance as part of an excursion will be on the agenda and announced in due course.
Registration:
Please register via e-mail (lisa-marie.poehland@phil.tu-chemnitz.de) with your name, study programme and semester by 4 October 2021.
Content:
Due to its colonial legacy, British society is characterized by complex social, cultural and racial encounters. By introducing students to the works of Black and Asian writers in Britain, this seminar offers historically informed literary and cultural contexts for an understanding of contemporary British multi-ethnic society. Dealing with literary representations of diasporic identities, students will engage with the questions of belonging, the search for identity, the concept of 'home' and the hybrid notion of living 'in-between' two cultures.
Objectives:
Focusing on Britain's diverse cultural heritage, students will explore a wide spectrum of literary and theoretical texts from a postcolonial perspective, ranging from Sam Selvon's novel The Lonely Londoners (1956), Buchi Emecheta's semi-autobiographical text Second-Class Citizen (1974), Hanif Kureishi's filmscript (and film) My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Meera Syal's novel Anita and Me (1996), and sit coms, short stories, poems and critical essays by selected authors. Thus, students will get an in-depth knowledge of the literary, cultural and socio-historical contexts in and against which Black and Asian British literature is written and read.
Prerequisites:
A completed BA in English.
Requirements for credits:
Active participation in every session of the class is expected. A presentation or partner or group presentation of 15 minutes (PVL) as well as an oral exam of 15 minutes (during the exam period) are required for the module exam.
Set texts:
Emecheta, Buchi (1974): Second-Class Citizen. Allison & Busby,London
Kureishi, Hanif (1985): My Beautiful Laundrette. Filmscript.
Selvon, Sam (1956): The Lonely Londoners. Longman
Syal, Meera (1996): Anita and Me. Flamingo.
A reader with selected poems, short stories and theoretical texts will be available at Copyshop Dietze (Reichenhainer Str. 55) during the first week of the teaching period.
Registration:
Please register via e-mail (lisa-marie.poehland@phil.tu-chemnitz.de) with your name, study programme and semester by 4 October 2021.
Content:
The Examenskolloquium/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 texts, discussions and thesis presentations (abstract, outline, or single chapters). Each student will present an oral report (approx. 15 minutes), chair a session or prepare questions for a discussion (PVL).
Set Texts/Required Reading:
A reader with seminal material will be provided at the beginning of the semester.
Registration:
Please register via e-mail (lisa-marie.poehland@phil.tu-chemnitz.de) with your name, study programme and semester by 4 October 2021.
Dr. Eike Kronshage
Content:
The First Folio of 1623, published seven years after Shakespeare’s death, includes 36 Shakespeare plays, 14 of which are listed as “Comedies,” among them plays that seem to resist such easy generic classification, like the rather bleak plays The Merchant of Venice, Measure for Measure, or The Tempest. What then is a comedy in the early modern period, why are some plays more easily classified as comedies than others, and why did the time’s most famous playwright, Shakespeare, never directly engage in writing what was one of the time’s most famous comedic genres, the city comedy? We will be answering some of these questions by looking at four comedies from the eventful 50 years between 1592 and 1642.
Objectives:
Students will learn how to analyse early modern drama. They will also gain a deeper insight into Elizabethan and Jacobean drama by studying four canonical comedies. Whenever possible, we will use recordings of stage and film productions to see the plays performed (and practice performance analysis).
Prerequisites:
Students must have successfully completed the Introduction to the Study of Literatures in English and the Kernmodul 2.3 English Literatures and Cultures I (does not apply to visiting students).
Requirements for credits:
PVL: Oral presentation (30 minutes)
PL: Term paper (10-12 pages)
Set texts:
A reader with additional material will be provided at the beginning of the seminar.
Please use the ISBN numbers to make sure you obtain the correct editions of the plays listed below. It is very important that we all use the same editions!
• Shakespeare, Comedy of Errors (Arden Shakespeare; 978-1904271246)
• Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (Arden Shakespeare; 978-1904271437)
• Middleton, The Roaring Girl (Oxford World’s Classics; 978-0199540105)
• Brome, A Jovial Crew (Online edition available at https://www.dhi.ac.uk/brome/)
Registration:
Please register via e-mail (eike.kronshage@phil.tu-chemnitz.de) with your name, study program and semester by 4 October 2021.
Dr. Mandy Beck
Content:
Conducting literary studies at university level, this lecture course will provide an accessible introduction to the fundamentals of literary analyses, such as terms, concepts and methods. A number of texts of different genres (i.e. poetry, drama and narrative fiction including examples from the so-called New English Literatures), covering a period from the 17th to 21st century, have been selected. Discussions in class and short assignments will emphasize close reading skills and the development of effective strategies for critical and analytical thinking. The lecture will be accompanied by a weekly tutorial (details will be announced at the beginning of the course).
Objectives:
Students will learn how to analyse early modern drama. They will also gain a deeper insight into Elizabethan and Jacobean drama by studying four canonical comedies. Whenever possible, we will use recordings of stage and film productions to see the plays performed (and practice performance analysis).
Prerequisites:
None.
Requirements for credits:
For the successful completion of the course there will be a 90-minute written exam at the end of the semester. Please note: Instead of the written exam, LAGS students are required to attend at least 10 online sessions and write a portfolio in order to complete the course.
Set texts:
Ansgar und Vera Nünning (latest edition): Introduction to the Study of English and American Literature. Klett Verlag. In addition, a reader with primary texts for reading and exercises will be available at Copyshop Dietze (Reichenhainer Str. 55).
Registration:
Please register via email (mandy.beck@phil.tu-chemnitz.de) with your name, study programme and semester by 4 October 2021. You will then receive further information.
Content:
The early twentieth century is often perceived as the era of Modernism – an era which in literature is characterised by a new approach to writing, which ultimately challenged conventions, literary genres, previous canonical writers (especially from the Victorian period), writing styles or self-conceptions of authors. It thus made a selected minority very well-known, e.g. poets like Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, H.D. and novelists like James Joyce, or Virginia Woolf. However, not all writers of the 1920s and 1930s can be considered modernist, although they also reacted to the rapid changes and crucial events of the new century (e.g. economic growth, trade unionism, urbanism, Irish Home Rule, female suffrage, the Great War, etc.) in their own and often idiosyncratic ways. For this reason, this seminar seeks to explore the changes of the period along with the literature that lies beyond modernism. Students will be exposed to a range of writers and genres that had a lasting effect on subsequent generations, such as Elizabeth Bowen, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Edith Sitwell, Patrick Hamilton, and more.
Objectives:
Students will engage with different texts from the early twentieth century that were written by authors who have not been canonised despite being both influential and successful during their lifetime. At the same time, these texts exemplify narrative strategies, genres, literary experiments or thematic issues that cannot be related to the mainstream forms of Modernism which pervaded the period.
Prerequisite:
M_AA_1 need to have successfully completed their BA in English. M_AA_3 need to have completed the seminars for Reading the Canon and Beyond and Postcolonial Theories and
Literatures.
Requirements for credit:
PVL: Oral presentation (25 minutes)
PL Reading the Canon and Beyond [M_AA_1]: Term paper, 15-18 pages.
PL Intertextuality in Intercultural Perspective [M_AA_3]: Oral exam (15 minutes)
Set Texts/Required Reading:
Bowen, Elizabeth (2000 [1929]): The Last September. New York: Anchor.
Hamilton, Patrick (2005 [1938]): Gas Light. London: Samuel French.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend (2009 [1936]): Summer Will Show. New York: New York Review Books.
In addition, a reader with primary and secondary texts will be available at Copyshop Dietze (Reichenhainer Str. 55).
Registration:
Please register via email (mandy.beck@phil.tu-chemnitz.de) with your name, study programme and semester by 4 October 2021. You will then receive further information.