Teaching WS 05/06

"North American Literatures and Cultures from the Early 17th to the Late 19th Century"

Thursday, 15:00-17:00, 303 (K222)

The course is intended to offer an introduction to literary and cultural documents produced in North America from the first British settlements in the early 17th century to the closing of the frontier in the U.S.A. and the opening of the Canadian Prairies for settlement. A historical survey will provide a framework for a reading of selected texts from the colonial period and the development of a national culture in the U.S.A. in the 19th century and the beginnings of a sense of collective identity in the Dominion of Canada after 1867. Some attention will be paid to texts reflecting the Puritan heritage and the emergence of distinct regional cultures in the U.S.A.
Excerpts of texts to be discussed will be taken from vols. i and ii of the MacMillan Anthology of American Literature, ed. George McMichael, and other collections. Among the authors to be considered will be John Smith and William Bradford, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne. A mastercopy containing all the texts and including also excerpts from early settlements in Canada, (e. g. texts by Catherine Parr Traill and poems by C. G. D. Roberts) will be provided.

"Introduction to Cultural and Regional Studies"

Friday,10:00-12:00, in block form, every second week, VO, 401

The introductory course is to explore a number of problem areas especially relevant to students interested in getting intimately acquainted with other national cultures and ready to prepare themselves for the roles of mediators between members of different language communities. The course will deal with general questions concerning conceptions of culture, and will address the complex issue of the tension between globalization and regionalization apparent in the last decades of the 20th century. It will introduce key issues and terms, describe some methods of inquiry practiced in the multidisciplinary field of Cultural Studies and will approach relevant issues, especially from the angle of Imagology. It will analyze the construction of collective identities and deal with the related concepts of center and periphery. The texts and phenomena to be studied are primarily taken from North America, with the American South and Canada supplying examples for a debate on topics such as ethnicity, regionalism, post-Colonialism and gender construction. A reader containing essays and excerpts from relevant studies will be available.
These and similar issues will also be dealt with in guided workshops, in which a detailed discussion of issues and concepts introduced in the lecture course will be conducted.
Beginn: Oktober 7.

"Introduction to Cultural and Regional Studies"

Friday,10:00-12:00, in block form, every second week, VK, 402

Literary Seminar: "Literature of the Early Republic Towards a National Culture and Its Transatlantic Contexts"

Tuesday, 16:00-18:00, 322/821; (K 521, 522)

In the late 18th and early 19th century American writers continued to regard the works of British authors as their models in the various literary sub-genres. The inclusion of native settings and of autochthonous fauna and flora gradually paved the way for the emergence of an independent national literature. While the attempts of Charles Brockden Brown to live by his pen did not meet with success, Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper were the first to establish themselves as American writers who were also recognized and translated abroad. But it was only in the 1830s and 40s that the claims for independence in the cultural sphere found memorable expression in Emerson, and the writings of other Transcendentalists, while the emergence of an autochthonous group of painters indicated that American culture approached maturity.
Texts to be jointly analyzed:
Ch. B. Brown, Wieland; James Fenimore Cooper, The Prairie; short texts by W. Irving and J. K. Paulding; poems by W. C. Bryant; texts by R. W. Emerson; Margaret Fuller, Summer on the Lakes. A reader will be provided containing the poems and the short texts chosen for discussion in class.

"Specialized Seminar for M.A. and Ph. D. Candidates"

Monday, 16:15 (822; K 522) (K 701)

Special Seminar to be jointly taught by Fulbright Visiting Professor Nancy Hargrove and Waldemar Zacharasiewicz.
This course is intended to serve as a forum for students working on a diploma thesis or a doctoral dissertation. Participants will be expected to report on work in progress and to deal with the methodological and technical aspects of their research.
A short reading list will be posted.

Impressum