Teaching WS 06/07

"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 Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau , Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain. A mastercopy containing all the excerpts from the texts chosen will be provided.
Texts to be purchased:
Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (Penguin Classics 0-14-243726-3)
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Penguin Classics 0-14-143964-5)

"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.
Beginn: Oktober 6.

"Introduction to Cultural and Regional Studies"

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

Beginn: Oktober 13.

A Cultural History of American Fiction, 1890-1940

Wednesday 10:00-12:00, Unterrichtsraum, (K 524/K 531/K 532)

The lecture course for advanced students is intended to put major works of fiction from the five decades till the eve of World War II into their literary, cultural, social and political contexts. The texts will be read as contributions to the development of American fiction from "Realism to Modernism". The course will also illustrate the emergence of the urban novel and the beginnings of ethnic literature, especially by Jewish American and African American authors.
Texts to be considered:
William Dean Howells, A Hazard of New Fortunes (excerpts); Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie; Gertrude Stein, Three Lives (excerpt); Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio (selection); Charles Chesnutt, "The Goophered Grapevine"; Abraham Cahan, The Rise of David Levinsky, (excerpts); Henry Roth, Call It Sleep (excerpt); John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer; Ernest Hemingway (short stories from Men Without Women); F. Scott Fitzgerald (short fiction); William Faulkner, Light in August; Richard Wright, Uncle Tom's Children (selection).

Texts to be purchased:
· Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, (Penguin Modern Classics Ed., 0-14-018828-2)
· John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, (Penguin Modern Classics Ed., 0-141-18448-5)
· William Faulkner, Light in August, (Vintage 0-099-28315-8)
A reader with additional material will be provided.
Requirement: final examination.

Literary Seminar: "Transatlantic Perceptions of Central Europe in Travelogues and Fiction"

Tuesday, 16:00-18:00, Room 5, 322/821; (K 521, 522)

The North American perception of Europe as reflected in travelogues and fiction has been shaped by an awareness of common roots and shared values but also by a sense of contrast and difference. There have also been significant changes in the images of continental and Central Europe disseminated through American literature and the media since the middle of the 19th century.
The seminar will analyze some texts mirroring the shifting images of Germany (and of other German-speaking regions) and examine them in the light of concepts and insights provided by imagology and current studies of travel literature. It will thus relate the texts also to the construction of a collective American identity in periods of rapid change, transition and crisis while taking into account generic aspects, literary traditions and the genesis of the individual texts.
Texts to be jointly analyzed:
- Mark Twain: A Tramp Abroad (Penguin Classics Edition, 0-14-043608-1)
- Walter Abish: How German Is It (Penguin Modern Classics Edition, 0-141-018806-5)
A reader with additional material on Sinclair Lewis: Dodsworth, Henry W. Longfellow, Henry James and Bret Harte will be provided.

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

Monday 17.00-19:00, Room 5 (822; K 522) (K 701)

This is an informal seminar, jointly taught by Franz Wöhrer and Waldemar Zacharasiewicz, intended to serve as a forum for students who are currently working on an M.A. thesis or a Ph.D. dissertation or who will embark on such a project during the WS of 2006/07. It will offer practical advice and give students the opportunity to discuss the progress of their work and to obtain some critical feedback.
Requirements: Each participant will be expected to offer a fairly detailed report on the progress of his/her work and to deal with the methodological and technical aspects of his/her research.
Registration: Any time prior to Oct. 1st, by e-mail to franz-karl.woehrer@univie.ac.at.

Impressum