Courses
Courses - Winter Term 2009/2010
Prof. Dr. Cecile Sandten
Course Description
Content:
Britain possesses a great literary heritage. This lecture course (the first part in a twopart sequence) will offer the richness, diversity, and continuity of that tradition. Thus, the history of English literature from the Renaissance to the Romantic period will be covered. Apart from conveying the pleasure and exhilaration of literature, this lecture will provide a concise outline of schools and periods of writing: Renaissance and Reformation: Literature 1510-1620, Revolution and Restoration: Literature 1620-1690, Eighteenth-Century Literature: 1690-1780, to The Literature of the Romantic Period 1780-1830. At the heart of the lecture towers the figure of Shakespeare, who has a special session devoted entirely to himself. In addition, the lecture offers detailed treatments of other major writers such as Donne, Milton, Behn, Defoe, Blake or Wordsworth and their texts.
Objectives:
More than a mere chronology, the lecture provides a basic core of information and material, including suggestions for further reading, maps, a chronological table of dates, and details regarding birth and death dates of individuals. It will also move beyond these facts and events to characterise the broad sweep of ideas and the main concerns of British writers of the periods mentioned above. A detailed course schedule will be available at the beginning of the semester.
Prerequisites:
The students must be able to attend lectures in English and to read and intelligently discuss the assigned literary texts.
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
Apart from regular attendance, active participation will be expected. For the successful completion of this course there will be a 90-minute written exam at the end of the semester.
Registration:
Students do not need to register. Please attend the first meeting of the lecture course.
Set Texts:
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The History of King Lear (1605-1606)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Tempest (1611)
In addition, a reader with seminal material will be provided at the beginning of the semester.
Prof. Dr. Cecile Sandten
As stipulated in the Studienablaufplan, this seminar is intended as a fourthsemester course. However, students wishing to reduce their workload in their fourth semester are free to attend this course in their third semester already. For details see the Kommentiertes Vorlesungsverzeichnis, p. 17.
Content:
Margaret Atwood is often called the most eminent Canadian writer. Though best known for her novels, she also writes poetry, criticism and short stories. In her work she focuses on human relationships, mostly between men and women. The Observer even called her "an outstanding correspondent on the war between the sexes".
Objectives:
In this course students will analyse the way Atwood constructs male and particularly female characters and their interaction. Students will find out how she enforces or undermines stereotypes. Of special interest will be Atwood's much praised use of language applied to her poetry, short stories and prose fiction. By looking at a selection of her poetry, short stories as well as one novel, namely The Handmaid's Tale (1985), as an example of both her writing and utopian fiction in Canada, students will get an in-depth knowledge of Atwood's literary work. Since her dystopian novel depicts a totalitarian regime in which, along with other degrading laws, women are not allowed to write or read, it also raises crucial questions about the power of discourse in both political and professional life. Films on Canada as well as Volker Schlöndorff's award winning adaptation of the novel will round up this seminar.
Prerequisites:
In order to participate, students of Anglistik/Amerikanistik need to have successfully completed the lecture course "Introduction to the Study of Literature".
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
The format of this seminar will consist of oral reports and discussions. Each student will present an oral report (approx. 15 minutes), chair a session or prepare questions for a discussion and write a substantial seminar paper (15-18 pages).
Registration:
There will be a list at the door of my office (Rh 29, Zi 214). Please register there.
Set Texts:
Atwood, Margaret (1998). Wilderness Tips. London: Virago
Atwood, Margaret (1987, 1985). The Handmaid's Tale. London: Virago.
In addition, a reader with poems will be provided.
Prof. Dr. Cecile Sandten
Content:
Lagos, Nigeria, under military rule was the most dangerous city in the world. In this seminar we will explore the importance of this African metropolis as a political and cultural centre and as a social microcosm reflecting the state of its transcultural society due to its colonial past and its postcolonial effects. We will investigate the political, social, cultural and architectural history with a special focus on Lagos, especially through the study of written, oral and visual representations (paintings, photographs, films, literary and academic texts/presentations).
Objectives:
In an interdisciplinary and comparative mode, by looking at neighbouring disciplines such as gender studies, arts, music, film, sociology, or urban studies, we will get an in-depth knowledge of some of the main issues of postcolonialism (diaspora, migration, dislocation, hybridity) and become familiar with aspects related to earlier (flaneur) and contemporary metropolises (spacial-semantic layering).
Prerequisites:
Magister-students need to have successfully passed the intermediate exams (Zwischenprüfung); Master-students need to have successfully completed their BA in English.
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
Regular attendance will be required. To successfully complete the course, Magisterstudents will have to give an oral presentation and to write a substantial seminar
paper (15-20 pages). Students enrolled for the new Master program will have to give an oral presentation (20-30 minutes = Prüfungsvorleistung) and to write a substantial seminar paper (15-20 pages = Prüfungsleistung)
Registration:
There will be a list at the door of my office (Rh 29, Zi 214). Please register there.
Set Texts:
Abani, Chris (2005): Graceland: A Novel. London: Picador
Atta, Sefi (2005): Everything Good Will Come. Northampton: Interlink.
Habila, Helon (2002): Waiting for an Angel. London/New York: Norton.
In addition, a reader with seminal material on post colonialism and the metropolis will be provided at the beginning of the semester.
Prof. Dr. Cecile Sandten, Birte Heidemann, M.A.
Content:
Rewritings have proved to be a rather popular genre during the second half of the 20th century. What at first sight might seem to be the same story simply from a different perspective, often turns out to be of more depth. As the omissions in the original texts can reveal motivations, political thinking, values, or social restrictions of the author, so can the inclusion of particular perspectives in the rewritings direct the readers’ attention towards these issues. Thus, the term ‘rewriting’ can be defined as a double strategy of literary repetition and resistance.
Objectives:
In this seminar, students will look at the techniques with which this is achieved as well as the connection between rewritings and the development of theoretical discourses such as postcolonial theory and feminist critique. There are a number of major English classics which have repeatedly been subject to postcolonial rewriting. One of these works is Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847). Students will read and analyse both Brontë’s novel and Jean Rhys’ rewrite Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), a subtle modernist response to the Victorian female classic. In addition to the two texts, cinematic adaptations of both novels will round up the seminar. Students will also actively deal with the subject of rewriting through creative writing assessments.
Prerequisites:
Magister-students need to have successfully passed the intermediate exams (Zwischenprüfung); Master-students need to have successfully completed their BA in English.
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
Regular attendance will be required. To successfully complete the course, Magisterstudents will have to give an oral presentation and to write a substantial seminar
paper (15-20 pages). Students enrolled for the new Master program will have to give an oral presentation (20-30 minutes = Prüfungsvorleistung) and to write a substantial seminar paper (15-20 pages = Prüfungsleistung)
Suggested secondary reading:
A bibliography with relevant secondary texts will be made available in the first session of the course. Besides, a reader with seminal material will be provided at the beginning of the semester.
Registration:
There will be a list at the door of my office (Rh 39, Zi. 213). Please register there.
Set Texts:
Brontë, Charlotte (2006 [1847]): Jane Eyre. London: Penguin.
Rhys, Jean (2000 [1966]): Wide Sargasso Sea. London: Penguin.
Prof. Dr. Cecile Sandten
Content:
The Forschungskolloquium/Examenskolloquium is open to students preparing for their final and for their intermediate oral and written exams. It is intended to give students the opportunity to present their research projects and to raise specific questions and/or difficulties at an early stage. Further, students are encouraged to engage in critical debates over approaches and topics with their peers. We will also revise general and specific topics required for intermediate and final exams and discuss required reading lists.
Registration:
There will be a list at the door of my office (Rh 29, Zi 214). Please register there.
Dr. Ines Detmers
Content/Objectives:
Conducting literary studies at the 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. Moreover, this lecture will be paying attention to working and research techniques. To that end, you will all be exposed to the essential library and reference tools for serious literary research. You will also learn how to access and evaluate electronic resources. The lecture will be accompanied by a weekly tutorial (details will be announced at the beginning of the course).
Prerequisites:
Attendance will be taken every class. Students will be allowed only one unexcused absence for the semester; it goes without saying that it is your responsibility to catch up on the material and assignments from classes you miss!
Requirements for credits/Type of module exam:
Apart from regular attendance, active participation will be expected: as this lecture class also is a community, you are all asked to support that community. For the successful completion of the course there will be a 90-minute written exam at the end of the term.
Required textbooks:
Ansgar und Vera Nünning, Introduction to the Study of English and American Literature. Klett Verlag. (neueste Auflage). In addition, a reader will be provided at the beginning of the semester.
Registration:
Students do not need to register. Please attend the first meeting of the lecture course.
Dr. Ines Detmers
Content/Objectives:
Canada: in area the second largest country in the world, stretching over some 5,500 kilometres from east to west and extending almost 5,000 kilometres from north to south, its population only runs up to less than half that of Great Britain. Moreover, Canada is a highly multicultural nation with two official languages, English and French, and many unofficial spoken by its native peoples, Indians and Inuits. It was as late as 1867 that the country came to form a stable political unit, the so called Dominion of Canada or the 'Confederation', originally made up of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec. The nation’s present boundaries, however, were established as recently as 1949.
Canada’s geographical, natural and socio-political histories are also conspicuous in the histories of its Anglophone literature(s). This course attempts to provide an accessible overview of major topics, cultural trends and aesthetic tendencies. Texts of different genres (i.e. poetry, music, drama, narrative fiction) have been selected from the second half of the 20th century to the present. These include, for instance, poetry as different as that by Robert Kroetsch or Cyril Dabydeen, as well as Leonard Cohen’s lyrics and songs. We will also read Ann-Marie MacDonald’s play Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet (1998) based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Othello. To round up the program, apart from Alice Munro’s short stories, we will have a look at two novels: Michael Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion (1987) and Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Waters (1994).
Prerequisites:
Magister-students need to have successfully passed the intermediate exams (Zwischenprüfung); Master-students need to have successfully completed their BA in English.
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
Regular attendance will be required. To successfully complete the course, Magisterstudents will have to give an oral presentation and to write a substantial seminar paper (15-20 pages). Students enrolled for the new Master program will have to give an oral presentation (20-30 minutes = Prüfungsvorleistung) and to write a substantial seminar paper (15-20 pages = Prüfungsleistung)
Please note: Students, who participate in this seminar and fulfill all the requirements, may either receive credits for English Literatures, i.e. Hauptseminar Anglistische Literaturwissenschaft or for American Studies, i.e. Hauptseminar Amerikanistik.
Set Texts:
Ann-Marie MacDonald Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet (1998)
Thomas King Green Grass, Running Waters (1994)
Michael Ondaatje In the Skin of a Lion (1987)
In addition, a reader will be available at the beginning of the semester.
Birte Heidemann, M.A.
As stipulated in the Studienablaufplan, this seminar is intended as a fourthsemester course. However, students wishing to reduce their workload in their fourth semester are free to attend this course in their third semester already. For details see the Kommentiertes Vorlesungsverzeichnis, p. 17.
Content:
Northern Ireland: For over 30 years, the rest of the world has been witness to a gruesome conflict, which was euphemistically dismissed as the Troubles. Images of bonfires and street riots sparked a hegemonic narrative of strife between two conflicted communities separated by ethnic and religious identity. The theatre has played its part in generating and repeating such images. However, the ‘new generation’ of Northern Irish playwrights approach the conflict from different perspectives and thus shed a new light on post-ceasefire Northern Ireland. Tim Loane’s complementary satires, Caught Red Handed (2002) and To be Sure (2007), established a new voice in 21st-century Northern Irish drama, a voice remarkable for its fearlessness in highlighting the hypocrisies and rigid binary structures of Ulster’s ‘green and orange’ politics. Abbie Spallen’s Pumpgirl (2006) is a turbo charged race through the diesel fumes and country music of the Armagh badlands.
Objectives:
In this seminar, students will look at the relationship between theatre and the turbulent political and social context of Northern Ireland since 1969 with a special focus on the ‘new generation’ of Northern Irish playwrights. In the course of the semester, students will analyse the above-mentioned plays by Loane and Spallen in order to get an in-depth knowledge of different stage presentations of the conflict. The focus of the course is to consider the ways in which the circumstances of the crisis have been mediated in theatrical representation and to what extent the notion of performance is of particular importance when dealing with the Troubles. In order to understand this convoluted conflict up in the North of Ireland, a historical framework will be provided in the first sessions of the seminar.
Prerequisites:
In order to participate students of Anglistik/Amerikanistik need to have completed the lecture course “Introduction to the Study of Literatures in English” successfully. Attendance will be taken every class. Students will be allowed two unexcused absences for the semester.
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
Apart from regular attendance, active participation will be expected. For the successful completion of the course you are required to give an oral presentation and hand in a substantial term paper.
Suggested secondary reading:
A bibliography with relevant secondary texts will be made available in the first session of the course. Besides, a reader with seminal material will be provided at the beginning of the semester.
Registration:
There will be a list at the door of my office (Rh 39, Zi. 213). Please register there.
Set Texts:
Loane, Tim (2008): Comedy of Terrors. Caught Red Handed and To Be Sure.
Belfast: Lagan Press.
Spallen, Abbie (2006): Pumpgirl. London: Faber and Faber.
Birte Heidemann, M.A.
As stipulated in the Studienablaufplan, this seminar is intended as a fourthsemester course. However, students wishing to reduce their workload in their fourth semester are free to attend this course in their third semester already. For details see the Kommentiertes Vorlesungsverzeichnis, p. 17.
Content:
Among both Australia’s and Canada’s indigenous peoples there is the need for selfdetermination, the need to reclaim Aboriginal voices in literatures – written and oral – to restore Aboriginal sensibility, and the need to consolidate and gain recognition for their contributions to writing and story-telling in Aboriginal languages and in the dominant languages (here English). Often, indigenous people do not have access to their own cultures and their own communities because of colonisation, adoption into non Aboriginal families, foster homes, assimilation, and lack of status. In particular, members of the so-called ‘Stolen Generations’ of Australian Aboriginal descent were taken from their parents in order to be educated ‘white’ and, as a consequence, taught to reject their Aboriginal heritage. They were literally stolen – not only from their families but simultaneously from their culture, their language and their history. Nonetheless, by writing one’s life history, many Australian and Canadian Aboriginal peoples have found a way out of their seemingly hopeless life situation as it helped to write themselves into existence and, thereby, to search for their lost identity.
Objectives:
Therefore, this seminar will look at a selection of Aboriginal Australian and Canadian life histories. These stories will introduce students to the history, society, cultures, politics and institutions of both Australia and Canada as seen through the eyes and told through the words of indigenous peoples. Further, students will examine the genre of (auto) biography as well as the notion of story-telling and oral tradition. In this context, Jane Harrison’s dramatic text Stolen (1998) will be considered as a fictional life history. In addition, Phillip Noyce’s film Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) on Australia’s ‘Stolen Generations’ will round up the seminar.
Prerequisites:
In order to participate students of Anglistik/Amerikanistik need to have completed the lecture course “Introduction to the Study of Literatures in English” successfully. Attendance will be taken every class. Students will be allowed two unexcused absences for the semester.
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
Apart from regular attendance, active participation will be expected. For the successful completion of the course you are required to give an oral presentation and hand in a substantial term paper.
Suggested secondary reading:
A bibliography with relevant secondary texts will be made available in the first session of the course. Besides, a reader with seminal material will be provided at the beginning of the semester.
Registration:
There will be a list at the door of my office (Rh 39, Zi. 213). Please register there.
Set Texts:
Campbell, Maria (1973): Halfbreed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Culleton, Beatrice (1983): In Search of April Raintree. Winnipeg: Pemmican
Publishers.
Harrison, Jane (2000 [1998]): Stolen. Strawberry Hills: Currency Press.
Kartinyeri, Doris E. (2000): Kick the Tin. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.
Dr. Hans-Joachim Hermes
Content/Objectives:
In this course we will study Christopher Marlowe’s famous tragedy The Jew of Malta which was first performed in the limits of 1589-1590 in London. Subjects of interest will be plot overview, analysis of major characters, themes, motifs, and symbols. Among the themes will be those of racial tension, religious conflict, and political intrigue. Marlowe's tone is amusingly ironic; "good" Christian characters appear hypocritical and moralistic. Marlowe's play is a true specimen of Elizabethan drama.
Set Texts:
Text of The Jew of Malta in any scholarly English edition, e.g. the annotated edition prepared by Gary R. Young in the Project Gutenberg Public Domain Etexts: http://www.gutenberg.net/etext97/jmlta10.zip
Prerequisites:
Magister-students need to have successfully passed the intermediate exams (Zwischenprüfung); Master-students need to have successfully completed their BA in English.
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
Regular attendance will be required. To successfully complete the course, Magisterstudents will have to give an oral presentation and to write a substantial seminar
paper (15-20 pages). Students enrolled for the new Master program will have to give an oral presentation (20-30 minutes = Prüfungsvorleistung) and to write a substantial seminar paper (15-20 pages = Prüfungsleistung)
Registration:
Via e-mail to hans-joachim.hermes@phil.tu-chemnitz.de. Please give your name,
semester standing, and subjects.
Nora Gomringer
Content/Objectives:
Work in Progess - poetry/writing workshop with Nora Gomringer. Together with the German-Swiss poet, publishing poetry and prose in German and English, this class leaves time for the creative part of English literature studies: writing! No matter whether you have been hamstering pages in your desk or whether writing has always intrigued you but never been your mode of expression, this Blockseminar will help putting your thoughts in black and white. Through exercises, games and basic assignments, a handful of presentable texts by each author will be prepared for a public reading. We will also pay special attention to the works of Mark Strand, Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, Vachel Lindsay, Marc Kelly Smith, Cortney Love and Marylin Manson. Bring a poem (or short text) you love (by an author you like) and be prepared to read it to us in the first session. For more information please see www.noragomringer.de
Prerequisites:
Magister-students need to have successfully passed the intermediate exams (Zwischenprüfung); Master-students need to have successfully completed their BA in English.
Requirements for credits/Type of Module Exam:
Regular attendance will be required. To successfully complete the course, Magisterstudents will have to give an oral presentation and to write a substantial seminar paper (15-20 pages). Students enrolled for the new Master program will have to give an oral presentation (20-30 minutes = Prüfungsvorleistung) as part of the creative writing assignments and to write a substantial seminar paper (15-20 pages = Prüfungsleistung).
Please note: Students, who participate in this seminar and fulfill all the requirements, may either receive credits for English Literatures, i.e. Hauptseminar Anglistische Literaturwissenschaft or for American Studies, i.e. Hauptseminar Amerikanistik.
Mandy Beck
Content:
The tutorial will provide a forum to discuss the reading materials required for the lecture course.
Objectives:
Students will have to read a number of assigned texts. A reader will be available.
Prerequisites:
The students must be able to read and intelligently discuss the assigned texts.
Type of module exam:
There will be no exam in the tutorials. |
Department