Wintersemester 2012/13 - Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik ...

wide variety of perspectives, particularly through historical contextualisation and narratological as
well as genre theoretical approaches. We will also engage with adaptation theory and watch at least
one film version of Great Expectations. Students will then be asked to either adapt a scene or explore
some of the issues raised by the novel further through photography. The seminar will reconvene for
two afternoons on 14 and 15 February 2013 to present and discuss the groups' photographs and the
ways in which creative engagement with the novel's themes may or may not have altered participants'
perceptions of the novel itself.
Please buy the Oxford World's Classics edition (ISBN 978-0-19-921976-6) and read it by the
beginning of the semester. Additional material will be made available on Stud.IP at the beginning of
the semester.
Schmitt-Kilb James Joyce, Ulysses Hauptseminar
Di. 11.15-12.45, AB8028 70153
James Joyce's Ulysses (1922) is arguably the least read canonical novel written in the 20th century.
The primary aim of the course is to tackle a text which is important for an understanding of 20 th
century British (and World) Literature and "difficult" in equal measure – and which is in consequence
more often talked about than read. On the basis of close reading and detailed discussion, we will
approach the text from various theoretical and critical angles. We will also interpret it against the
backdrop of its cultural, historical, literary and political contexts. Course requirements: openmindedness
and curiosity!
(As Joyce is a very economical author who recycles many of his themes, characters and plots
throughout his work, knowing Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the best
introduction to Ulysses. Harry Blamires's The New Bloomsday Book is a good guide for the
newcomer.) Please buy and read the Oxford World's Classics Edition: ISBN-13: 978-0199535675,
approx. 10 €.
Wallat
Nineteenth-Century American Literary
Naturalism
Hauptseminar
Fr. 11.15-12.45, AB8028 70154
Although its beginnings were basically European, naturalism was an important movement in
American literature from the 1890s until the 1920s. While it is strongly associated with realism, in the
joint emphasis on depicting surface reality, naturalism is more than a literary technique, involving as it
does the idea of determinism.
This course will introduce students to the most prominent early practitioners of naturalist writing and
discuss a selection of novels with respect to the alleged function of scrutinizing the ills of society:
Frank Norris (1870-1902), Stephen Crane (1871-1900), Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) and Jack
London (1876-1916).
Participants are asked to buy & read:
Norris, Frank (1899). McTeague. Signet Classics. ISBN-10: 0451528913
Crane, Stephen (1899). Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Reclam. ISBN-10: 3150092892
Dreiser, Theodore (1900). Sister Carrie. Penguin Classics. ISBN-10: 0140188282
London, Jack (1903). The Call of the Wild and Selected Stories. Signet Classics. ISBN-10:
0451531345
Rudlof Shakespeare's Tragedies Hauptseminar
Blockseminar
Vorbesprechung: Mi. 24.10., 19.00-20.30
AB8023, danach freitags 11.1.2013, 18.1., 25.1., jeweils 13.00-20.00,
AB8023 und AB8028
70139
Up to the present day, Shakespeare's plays have succeeded to intrigue audiences and readers, eliciting
quite different responses and interpretations. Fascinatingly ambiguous protagonists, such as Hamlet,
Lear and Macbeth, and their predicaments give modern readers insights into life at court, characterized
by power struggle and intrigue. The dramatic worlds depicted in Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth are
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