Teaching Winter Term 2009/2010
This term I am teaching English Literature at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Winter 2009/2010
"And then the horror overcame me": The Gothic Tradition
A passion for ruins, tombs, dark secrets, persecuted maidens, evil villains, supernatural occurences and all forms of horror and terror characterise gothic literature which understood itself as counter-movement to the rationalism and formalism of the enlightened 18th century.
While reading and discussing what is considered to be the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764) and Lewis’s highly scandalous The Monk (1796) we will explore the social, political and spiritual contexts in which gothic emerged and analyse gothic horror, style, settings and psychology.
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1798-99) then offers us a fine and illuminating parody of the gothic, mocking the conventions of the genre in a very entertaining and satiric fashion.
The last novel to be discussed will be Mary Shelley’s famous Frankenstein (1818) which takes gothic and develops it further to pose serious questions about what it means to be human, humane, responsible and how we relate to nature and technology.
At the end of the semester we will look at what gothic means today, why it is so immensely popular still (or again?) and in what other media besides literature we come across it.
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Shakespeare on Stage an on Screen
Whether a Shakespearean play is performed on stage or adapted for the screen, the output will always be an interpretation of the original text. Apart from Shakespeare‘s words (of which some may be omitted or rearranged) a series of codes which manipulate our reaction to the source story come into play: language codes (such as accents), visual codes (such as dress and colour), non-linguisitc codes (such as music or background noise), cultural codes (such as historical or national signifiers) and, in the case of film, cinematic codes (such as camera angle, fade in/fade out, cuts).
By comparing films, original texts and a stage performance we can reveal assumptions about 'Shakespeare' and also how these assumptions are created, perpetuated or challenged on stage and on screen. Issues of race, sexuality and gender will be explored along with the meaning of 'Shakespeare' for our - and particularly British – culture.
We will read the following plays (please make sure to get the editions listed here!):
Richard III (c. 1593). The New Cambridge Shakespeare, 2009. ISBN 9780521735568.
Romeo and Juliet (1595). The New Cambridge Shakespeare, 2003. ISBN 978-0521532532.
Much Ado About Nothing (1598/99). The New Cambridge Shakespeare, 2003. ISBN 978-0521532501.
All other material will be made available in a reader at the beginning of the semester (copyshop Skript & Kopie, Wolfsgangstr.)
We will watch the following films:
Romeo and Juliet (Zeffirelli, 1968)
Romeo + Juliet (Luhman, 1996)
Much Ado About Nothing (Branagh, 1993)
And there will be an excursion to a performance of Richard III at the Staatstheater Mainz in February.
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Boundaries, Desires and the Limits of Self: Jeanette Winterson's Writings
Winterson is currently one of the most important and prominent authors of the British Isles. Experimental in style and theme, she repeatedly explores issues of identity, the importance of story-telling and the meaning of ‘history’, the interrelation of sexuality and gender, love, desire and erotic bodies, and the boundaries of the real, of the self, of the world...
We will start with her first, semi-autobiographical novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985) which is a rewriting of the classic Bildungsroman in its retelling of young Jeanette’s upbringing in a christian fundamentalist household and her struggles of finding her own way after she discovers her homosexuality.
Gut Symmetries (1997), about a triangular relationship between a man and two women, explores a wide range of postmodern ideas, focusing especially on time, identity and desire. Written on the Body (1992) is a wonderful, erotic and lyrical story about a love affair between a married woman, Louise, and a narrator whose sex is never revealed. Weight (2005) is Winterson’s retelling of the myth of Atlas, the Titan, who bears the world on his shoulders, and it explores again themes of desire and love, and of responsibility and destiny.
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Einführung in die englische Literaturwissenschaft
Dieser Kurs bietet Ihnen einen Überblick über das Fach Anglistik. Sie werden lernen wie man Referate hält und Hausarbeiten schreibt, was die drei Gattungen der anglo-amerikanischen Textwissenschaft ausmacht (Drama, Lyrik und Prosa) und wie man ein Theaterstück, ein Gedicht, einen Roman analysiert und interpretiert. Sie bekommen einen Überblick über die Epochen der englischen Literatur und einen ersten Einblick in die wichtigsten Werkzeuge der Literaturwisschaftlerin, die theoretischen Ansätze: vom Strukturalismus, über New Historicism, Postkolonialismus, Feminismus, bis hin zu lesbian/gay/queer studies.
Die Unterrichtssprache ist sowohl deutsch als auch englisch.
Folgende Bücher brauchen Sie unbedingt:
Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (1993)
Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985)
Michael Meyer, English and American Literatures (3. Auflage, 2008)
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