Medienkulturwissenschaft Kommentiertes Vorlesungsverzeichnis ...

Bad Dreams? British Utopianism from Thomas More to the Present
Proseminar
Benjamin Kohlmann: benjamin.kohlmann@anglistik.uni-freiburg.de
Di. 14:00 bis 16:00, KG I - HS 1142
ECTS: 6
INHALT
Utopia acquired a bad name in the twentieth century. This course asks if (and under what historical
conditions) there is something inherently “totalitarian” about utopian dreaming; if there
are utopian elements in dystopia (and vice versa); if it is possible to distinguish between utopian
fictions and programmes for political change; and to what degree utopian fictions are selfreflexive.
The course considers the spatial and temporal dimensions of utopianism by exploring a
wide range of literary texts, visual artworks, architectural designs, and films. A special focus will
be on nineteenth- and twentieth-century utopianism. Starting with Thomas More’s genre-defining
Utopia (1516), we will examine works by the seventeenth-century “Diggers”, Jonathan Swift,
Samuel Johnson, William Morris, Edward Bellamy, H.G. Wells, exponents of the “International
Style”, Virginia Woolf, and Iain Sinclair.
Utopianism, in the twentieth century at least, is inseparable from extra-literary theorizations
about utopia. We will examine a number of critical ideas about utopia(nism), including texts by
Ernst Bloch, Fredric Jameson, Ruth Levitas, Louis Marin, David Pinder, Slavoj Zizek.
Leistungsnachweis
Active participation; short oral presentation; final paper
Literatur
Buy copies of the following books
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward; William Morris, News from Nowhere; H.G. Wells, The Time
Machine.
Additional materials will be made available online during term.
Immortality Bites – The Vampire in Literature and Film
Proseminar
Aviva Köberlein
Blockveranstaltung
Fr. 4.5., 16:00 bis 20:00, Sa. 5.5., 10:00 bis 14:00
Fr. 8.6., 16:00 bis 20:00, Sa. 9.6., 10:00 bis 14:00
Fr. 20.7., 16:00 bis 20:00, Sa. 21.7., 10:00 bis 14:00
Raum steht noch nicht fest.
ECTS: 6
INHALT
Representing one of the most complex and enduring fictional figures of monstrosity, the
vampire encodes and condenses multiple and multiplying anxieties about the transgression of the
constitutive boundaries of human thought. A disruptive icon of liminality, this nightmarish and
simultaneously fascinating creature undermines human identity that is based on binary
categorisation. For the vampire confuses the essential distinctions between death and life, human
and non-human, male and female, self and other, fear and desire and therefore negotiates and
epitomises the horror of the unconceivable.
In this seminar, we will examine representations of the vampire in fiction and film from the 19 th
century to the present, discuss which specific meanings are inscribed on this figure and how these
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