Wintersemester 2011/12 - Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik ...

A Reader with texts about the history of education will be provided in the copyshop Ulmenstraße. Students
enrolling in this course must be prepared to attend film shows in addition to regular classes.
70175
Wallat
Proseminar
Do. 9:15-10:45
AB8023
The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was the most important movement in African American cultural history. Its key figures
include W. E. B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes. The
movement laid the groundwork for later African American literature, fine art and music, and had an enormous
impact on later black culture. This course will discuss the historical contexts of the Harlem Renaissance, both
national and international; present original discussions of a wide array of authors and texts/documents; and
finally assess the reputation of the movement in later years.
Participants are asked to buy George Hutchinson's The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance and
W. E. B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk. Additional material will be made available on Stud.IP.
Hutchinson, George (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to the Harlem Renaissance. Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007. (ISBN-10: 052167368)
W. E. B. Du Bois (1903) The Souls of Black Folk (Dover Thrift Editions) Verlag: Dover Pubn Inc; Auflage: New
edition 1994). (ISBN-10: 0486280411 / ISBN-13: 978-0486280417)
On order at "Thalia" bookstore.
70172
Zittlau
Proseminar
Mi. 13:15-14:45
U-H2-210
Land of Desire. Consumerism and Culture in the United States
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the United States transformed rapidly into a nation of consumers.
Inventive merchants like John Wanamaker turned department stores with their display of goods into temples of
desire that enticed customers with the promise of happiness. This class will explore American consumerism
critically from various critical perspectives. For one, we will look at its cultural history concerned with
capitalism and its impact on American society. Furthermore, we will consider how objects shape people, how
they are embedded in narratives and thus eventually contribute to the creation of individual personality. And last
but not least, we will observe how important goods are in a process of both collective and cultural memory and
their communication.
Students are required to read:
Leach, William. Land of Desire. Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. New York:
Vintage Books, 1993.
Stewart, Susan. On Longing. Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Durham:
Duke University Press, 1993.
Sturken, Marita. Tourists of History. Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
70174
Rossow
Proseminar
Di. 11:15-12:45
U-H3-421
The Importance of Not Being English
This course concentrates on Ireland (Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), Wales and Scotland. Topics and
themes include the historical and current dimensions of nationalism and nationality, the concepts of cultural and
national identity, and relations between England and the aforementioned countries. All participants are required
to read specific texts on a week-to-week basis. Students who want to acquire a Leistungsnachweis have (in
groups of two or three) to prepare oral presentations of the topics chosen from the list of term papers. Both the
general readings and the oral presentations are discussed in depth in the seminar.
A Reader with a selected bibliography and the list of topics for term papers will be provided at the beginning of
the course.
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