Summer term 2013
Below you will find all classes taught by staff members associated with the English, Postcolonial and Media Studies in summer term 2013
Prof. Dr. Mark Stein
Dr. Silke Stroh
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
Caroline Kögler
Jeyapriya Srieaswaranathan
Prof. Dr. Mark Stein
Literatures and Cultures of the Caribbean Diaspora
096006| Vorlesung | 2 SWS | Mon 12-14 | AudiMax
A large proportion of Caribbean writers and artists practice in diaspora. Their location outside the Caribbean, in the UK, Canada, the USA, Australia and elsewhere, has an impact on the work they produce. After exploring the term diaspora itself, and the historical, economic, and cultural reasons for diaspora formation, this lecture provides an overview of the cultural production of the English-speaking Caribbean diaspora, with writers such as Derek Walcott, Jamaica Kincaid, Caryl Phillips, VS Naipaul, David Dabydeen, Olive Senior, Lillian Allen, Dionne Brand, Ralph de Boissière and others. Twentieth and twenty-first century literature as well as (to a lesser degree) film and fine arts are examined with respect to its diasporic qualities. Of interest too are the interrelationships between diaspora and home culture on one hand and between diaspora and host culture on the other.
There is a learnweb-section for students enrolled in this course.
Caribbean Voices
096666| Seminar | 2 SWS | Thu 10-12 | ES 227 | with Prof. Dr. Dagmar Deuber
This seminar on the anglophone Caribbean focuses on language varieties and literary and cultural forms. Proceeding from a linguistic and a literary studies perspective, our readings and analyses will be marked by interdisciplinarity. After a general introduction into the historical context and the development of language and literature in the region, we will turn to specific varieties (Jamaican and Trinidadian) and then to examples from film, prose and poetry. The assigned reading for each session will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies (fortnightly)
096814| Kolloquium | Wed 10-12 | ES 126
This is a research colloquium on Postcolonial, Transnational and Transcultural Studies. Participation is by invitation only.
Betreuungsseminar
096867| Colloquium | 2 SWS | Thu 14-16 |ES 2
Diese Veranstaltung ist auf die Bedürfnisse von Studierenden zugeschnitten, die sich bei mir zum Examen anmelden möchten oder angemeldet haben, oder die bei mir eine Modulabschlussprüfung absolvieren.
Die Veranstaltung befasst sich - in getrennten Sitzungen - mit allen Prüfungstypen; es geht es um Modulabschlussprüfungen (mündlich, schriftlich), Klausuren, mündliche Abschlussprüfungen (Staatsexamen/Magister), sowie um die Planung und Begleitung von schriftlichen Hausarbeiten bzw. B.A.- und M.A.-Arbeiten. Spezifische Probleme und Strategien der Prüfungsvorbereitung werden besprochen; Prüfungssimulationen können durchgeführt werden.
TeilnehmerInnen besuchen ausgewählte, für sie relevante, Sitzungen. Für Studierende, deren BA-, MA-, MAed-Arbeit durch mich betreut werden, findet 14-tägig ein Examenskolloquium (Do, 14-16h) statt. Hier werden Projekte vorgestellt und diskutiert. Details können dem Syllabus entnommen werden (s. Aushang).
Eine persönliche Anmeldung ist nicht erforderlich, sie erfolgt in der ersten Sitzung, aber die elektronische Anmeldung in HISLSF ist erforderlich, wenn ihr Studiengang ein Betreuungsseminar erfordert.
Dr. Silke Stroh
Postgraduate Class
096890 | NTS Research Module II | 2 SWS | Wed 14-16 | ES 333
This postgraduate class for 4th-semester M.A. students assists and supervises students’ independent study programme within their research modules, with regard to their self-compiled reading lists and their M.A. theses. Students will present their projects, hypotheses and results, and receive feedback and advice, both thematic and organisational. We will also discuss students’ career plans for the time after their M.A. graduation; advice will be given on both academic and non-academic options. Those planning academic careers will also have the opportunity to discuss ideas for their planned PhD projects, and receive advice on other aspects of academic career-building. The class will be a combination of in-class discussions and presentations and individual supervision.
Academic Skills II (group III)
095799 | Übung | 2 SWS | Mon 10-12 | ES 226
Academic Skills II will follow up all of the questions and issues raised in Academic Skills I. A special focus will be on secondary literature: students will learn how to deal with other scholars' opinions and incorporate them critically into their own work.
AOR Dr. habil. Markus Schmitz
"Lies of Our Own Making": Counter-Discursive Strategies and Critical Correlation in Postcolonial Writing
096690 | Hauptseminar (M.A./M.Ed. Seminar) | 2 SWS | Wed 16-18 | ES 2
Discrepant but intertwined experiences usually have more than one history – they can trigger more than one truth, and even many more lies. This course starts from the premise that colonial and postcolonial narratives are linked through both Eurocentric neglect of non-European experiences and non-European critical re-visions of that very neglect. It argues that postcolonial literary counter-representations of colonial histories and present day realities are characterized by a particular decentering quality. They can remake the many worlds that we live in simultaneously from within and against each other. Forming itself against the dominant colonial-racist split vision of us versus them and using that which has not yet been said in (neo-)colonial narratives, these works have the potential to blur mutually excluding essentialist constructions of histories and identities, thus allowing for what the writer and critic Elias Khoury calls “identification through correlation.”
Drawing on selected theoretical and fictional works this course covers a wide range of scholarly positions and literary topics. It sets particular emphasis on the relevance of the dialectics between hegemonic Western discourses and emancipatory subaltern counter-discourses for our understanding of postcolonialism as a strategy of critical re-reading. Providing key concepts and interpretive tools (such as discourse/counter-discourse, archive/counter-archive, contrapuntal reading, worldliness, voyage in, writing back, or polyphony) for studying the overlapping histories of imperialism and resistance to imperialism it aims at guiding students through the complex debates revolving around postcolonial writing.
Introductory Reading:
Edward W. Said. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage, 1993.
The introductory text must be read before the beginning of the semester.
First class meeting: 09.04.2013
Contact: markus.schmitz@wwu.de
Postgraduate Class
096668 | Postgraduate Class: MA NTS (Research Module I) | 2 SWS | Tue 18-20 | ES 333
This is the second of a two-semester postgraduate class for students of National & Transnational Studies. Designed to assist students in independent studies that may lead to their final Master theses it is organized as a combination of presentations, in-class discussions and individual supervision outside the classroom. Providing a collaborative forum for the critical reflection of provisional research conceptions and first results it aims at guiding through the often difficult process of finding a topic, conceptualizing its exploration, and composing a first draft of an expose. Participants are expected to present their projects, hypotheses, theoretical references, methods and preliminary results and to perform at least one writing assignment. They will receive feedback and advice, both thematic and organisational. Details will be discussed in the first class meeting.
First class meeting: 08.04.2013
Master BAPS - Systematic Perspectives, Literature
096719 | Übung | Thu 12-14 | 2SWS | ES 130
This class is designed to assist students of British, American & Postcolonial Studies in specializing and deepening their knowledge of selected literary works, theories, genres, or writers addressed in the two Systematic Perspectives seminars. Focusing on the participants’ individual needs for their own projects within the MA curriculum it provides a forum for the critical reflection and mutual discussion of a subject of their choice.
Students are expected to contribute regularly to discussions in class. In addition each student will perform at least one writing assignment (such as a review). Details will be discussed in the first class meeting.
First class meeting: 18.04.2013
Caroline Kögler
Imagining Globalization: the global trajectories of cultural production and reception
096078 | BA-Seminar (Level 2) | 2 SWS | Tue 10-12 | ES 333
What does it mean when novels and films from India or Pakistan are read, or watched, in a location like Germany? How come we are even aware of these cultural products, and how can we engage meaningful with them? In this seminar we approach these questions by focussing on some of the global trajectories of cultural production and consumption. Doing so we will tackle in particular our own intuitive approaches, assumptions, and perceptions when engaging with Arundati Roy’s The God of Small Things, Mohsin Hamid’s Moth Smoke, and the two films Fire and Slumdog Millionaire. Cultural products such as these do not stand alone, but we encounter them in specific contexts and narratives. What narratives underlie, for example, the marketing of Roy’s novel in Europe, India, and the United States? How do these narratives frame perception? In addition, how are narratives of a globalised world, as well as cultural and sexual identities constructed in the novels and films themselves, and what interrelations do emerge in this context? Discussing seminal essays on these topics by literary and cultural theorists, we will explore the relevance of the concept of globalisation for literary and cultural studies as well as for our own approaches to postcolonial cultural production.
For the novels, please read the following editions which are available on Amazon.de:
- for Roy the edition from 1997
- for Hamid the edition from 2011
There will be a short quiz on the novels and films in the first session, the 16th of April 2013.
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies II (Gruppe II)
095746 | Grundkurs | 2 SWS | Tue 12-14 | ES 131
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies is a two-part course running over two semesters and concluding with a written exam at the end of the summer term. The second part of this course provides an overview of literary genres and discusses tools and methods for their analysis and interpretation. By reference to texts from British, American and post-colonial contexts, students are introduced to the practice of literary and cultural studies. Building on the knowledge acquired in the winter term, they will learn how to combine broader theoretical and literary historical perspectives with the art of 'close reading.'
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Eds. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Arden, 2006. Print.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998. Print.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition. Ed. Malcolm Cowley. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.
Jeyapriya Srieaswaranathan
Literatures of the Caribbean Diaspora
096097 | 2 SWS
This seminar discusses literary expressions of the Caribbean diaspora in historical, postcolonial and transnational contexts. Topics include cultural identity & the "'doubleness' of similarity and difference"; indenture, cane & witch narratives; one's "own portion of earth" & advertising the very same (post)colonial space as well as spectres of diasporic imaginary. Considering concepts and theories of postcolonial and diaspora studies, this class combines narrative and scholarly writing.
Set texts:
V.S. Naipaul, A House For Mr Biswas
Derek Walcott, Pantomime
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies II (Gruppe V)
095750 | Grundkurs | 2 SWS | Mon 16-18 | ES 131
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies is a two-part course running over two semesters and concluding with a written exam at the end of the summer term. The second part of this course provides an overview of literary genres and discusses tools and methods for their analysis and interpretation. By reference to texts from British, American and post-colonial contexts, students are introduced to the practice of literary and cultural studies. Building on the knowledge acquired in the winter term, they will learn how to combine broader theoretical and literary historical perspectives with the art of 'close reading.'
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Eds. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. London: Arden, 2006. Print.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. New York: Harper Perennial, 1998. Print.
Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition. Ed. Malcolm Cowley. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.