Check LSF for details on individual times/classes.

Courses Summer 2025

In the summer term 2025 NamLitCult is offering the following classes:

For additional information and detailed descriptions, look up the summer term course pages. All departmental courses are also listed in the course directory (LSF) maintained by the university.

 BA/MA/STEX Colloquium 

Due to Prof. Fellner’s sabbatical, there will be no BA/MA colloquium. Instead, Prof. Fellner will hold regular Office hours.  

There will be a “Blockkolloquium” in April for those students who will participate in the oral state exam (Lehramt). All topics can be presented and discussed. Please bring handouts for your brief presentations. This “Blockkolloquium” will take place on April 22, 2025. 

Please sign up via email by April 14, 2025 (amerikanistik[at]mx.uni-saarland.de).

Dr. Svitlana Kot / Prof. Dr. Astrid M. Fellner 

Advanced Module C 2: Border Cultures im Master “Border Studies” 

HS Advanced Topics im Kernfachmaster “American Studies / British Studies / English Linguistics” 

Lateinamerika MA 

Summer School in May 6 to May 9, 2025, 9-18h 

Witnessing B/orders in Flux: War, Migration, Media 

This seminar, which will be taught in the form of a summer school, explores the cultural responses to border reconfigurations in North America and Europe within the broader context of geopolitical instability and shifting border dynamics. We will analyze how territorial changes are witnessed, represented, and narrated through various cultural artifacts such as literature, film, digital folklore, and art. Students will examine how these representations mediate collective memory, identity, and affective responses to border shifts and rifts, contributing to the broader discourse on migration, displacement, and the human experience of geopolitical transformation. The course will also engage with the theoretical frameworks of bordertexturing to understand the material and immaterial dimensions of cultural production on borders in response to spatial reconfigurations. 

In this summer school, students from the MA Border Studies and the MA American Studies at Saarland University will meet students from the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv and Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University in Mykolaiv. 

Course requirements: oral presentation, term paper. 

Course texts and other materials will be made available on Teams. 

HS “Contemporary Canadian Novels of Immigrant Experience” 

Blockseminar in June/July 

The immigrant experience is a foundational phenomenon of Canadian culture and history. To a substantial degree, the country has been shaped by successive generations of immigrants, from colonial times until the present. The immigrant experience has been woven into every facet of the country’s history and understanding of itself at the level of individual destinies as well as that of the national collective. While an historical constant within Canadian life, the understanding and collective perception of immigrants and immigration and their role in shaping the country have changed over the years.  

It is no surprise that the Canadian literary institution has long been occupied with the literary depiction of the immigrant experience. Some of the quintessential texts of Canadian literature – from Frances Brooke and Susanna Moodie to Frederick Philip Grove and Michael Ondaatje – have been about the effects of immigration on the immigrants themselves and the country as a whole. To a significant degree, the changing contours of the Canadian national imaginary have been shaped by changing perceptions of immigration as expressed in the nation’s literary art. 

The present course will be occupied with a reading of four contemporary Anglophone novels of immigrants and immigrant experience within Canada. Our interest in studying these texts will be to identify consistencies within the transhistorical “story” of immigration, but also to observe changes and to reflect upon the ways in which the changing narratives of immigrant experience reflect shifts within the national imaginary. 

Students are required to read the assigned texts in advance of the relevant classes and to come to discussions prepared to express their own ideas and insights.    

List of Required Reading (tentative list): Peter Behrens, The O’Briens, 2012 

Barbara Joan Scott, The Taste of Hunger, 2022 

Dmitri Nasrallah, Hotline, 2022 

Nancy Lam, The Loyal Daughter, 2022 

N.B. Course Requirements: Course readings / discussions 

    Presentation on a relevant topic of the student’s choice 

    Final essay of approximately 15 - 20 pp. 

Tentative Schedule (Alterations to the schedule possible – according to student availability):

Tentative Schedule: 

Monday June 16     16:00 – 18:00      Introduction

Friday June 20       16:00 – 19:00      Peter Behrens, The O’Briens 

Monday June 23     16:00 – 19:00      Peter Behrens, The O’Briens 

Friday June 27       16:00 – 19:00      Barbara Joan Scott, The Taste of Hunger 

Monday June 30     16:00 – 19:00      Barbara Joan Scott, The Taste of Hunger 

Friday July 4          16:00 – 19:00      Dmitri Nasrallah, Hotline

Monday July 7        16:00 – 19:00      Dmitri Nasrallah, Hotline 

Friday July 11        16:00 – 19:00       Nancy Lam, The Loyal Daughter 

Monday July 14      16:00 – 19:00       Nancy Lam, The Loyal Daughter 

HS Performing Antiquity: American Engagements with Ancient Greek Drama 

Wed. 12-2 pm 

A 2 2, room 120.1 

In 2024, David Stuttard wrote: “Greek drama has never been so popular. Across the globe, as productions – especially of Greek tragedy – proliferate, directors and performers find ever more creative ways of approaching two-and-a-half-millennia-old texts as they present, adapt or reinterpret them for modern audiences” (Looking at Greek Drama). In Germany, Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Laios, a play that builds on Sophoclean Oedipus material, was selected as Play of the Year 2024 by the journal Theater Heute. In American literature and culture, too, ancient Greek drama continues to resonate as an extraordinarily productive and rewarding set of stories to think with. This is as true in the twenty-first century as it has been at many different times in American cultural history, including the first half of the twentieth century, with its sizzling cauldron of experimentation in art and life; in this class, we will be particularly concerned with these two cultural moments. We will look at selected American adaptations of extant ancient Greek plays as well as examples of writings by American artists and intellectuals who theorize modern (American) engagements with ancient Greek drama – particularly Upward Panic, an autobiographical text by Eva Palmer Sikelianos. In our inquiries we will trace complex pathways of reception that emerge in and around American engagements with ancient Greek drama, both aesthetically and politically. As we do so, we will focus not only on the textual, but also on the performative processes with which meaning is created in this context. In order to explore these performative aspects in greater depth, this seminar will include two special sessions organized in collaboration with theatre practitioners. Both these events are an integral part of the class, so please save the dates:  

Dramaturgical workshop with Peter Wälter (theatre2go)
Thursday, May 8, 2025, 6 – 9 pm, Theatersaal des Studentenwerks (D4 1, UdS Campus)

Upward Panic by Protasi Theatre Company (Athens, Greece): Performance and Roundtable Discussion
Tuesday, June 24, 2025, 7.30 – 10 pm, Theater im Viertel, Landwehrplatz 2, 66111 Saarbrücken (free admission)
Students will be expected to have read the respective texts in advance of the class and to come prepared to discuss their own ideas in relation to them.

Readings
George Cram Cook, The Athenian Women (first performed 1918, first published 1926)
Excerpts from: Eva Palmer Sikelianos, Upward Panic (written between 1938 and 1948, first published 1993)
Ellen McLaughlin, Lysistrata (first performed 2003, first published 2005)
Ellen McLaughlin, The Oresteia (first performed 2019, first published 2024)
You do not need to purchase any readings for this class.

PS North American Coming-of-Age Narratives 

Thursdays 4-6 pm 

A 2 2, 120.1 

Coming-of-age narratives depict the challenges of children and young adults during a formative phase of their lives. According to Sarah Graham, such narratives “offer privileged access to the psychological development of the central character whose sense of self is in flux, paralleling personal concerns with prevailing values.”  We will discuss the genre history of coming-of-age texts and the Bildungsroman tradition in the North American context and explore how themes such as individuality, family, school, friendship, sexuality, and career choices are negotiated through the lens of race, class, and gender. A reader with a variety of American and Canadian stories and excerpts will be provided in Moodle at the beginning of classes. 

Course requirements: readings, active participation, abstract of paper project, research paper (10-12 pages)

PS Bob Dylan 

Thursdays, 12-14 

B 3 1, 2.18 

Few contemporary artists have shaped U.S. American culture and literature like Bob Dylan. Throughout his almost 7 decades spanning career, he has been (and continues to be) one of the most influential, prolific Anglophone poets. For his impact on American literature, and specifically “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” (Nobel Prize Press Release 2016), he has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Thematically, his body of work comprises folk songs, protest songs, personal reflections; musically, he has applied various styles, ranging from folk to blues to Rock’n’roll; he has composed both prose and poetry, has started his memoirs, has tried his hand as a painter, and has repeatedly been the subject of critically acclaimed films, fictional and non-fictional – most recently, in the biopic A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (James Mangold, 2024). 

This seminar will provide an overview to Bob Dylan’s extensive oeuvre by studying and discussing selected albums and song lyrics, other select pieces of his writing, as well as filmic accounts of his life and career. 

Readings may include (final syllabus will be presented in the first session): 

Tarantula (1971), poetry collection 

Chronicles: Volume One (2004), memoir 

The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963) 

The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964) 

Bringing It All Back Home (1965) 

Highway 61 Revisited (1965) 

Blonde on Blonde (1966) 

Blood on the Tracks (1975) 

The Basement Tapes (1975) 

Time Out of Mind (1997) 

DON’T LOOK BACK (D. A. Pennebaker, 1967) 

NO DIRECTION HOME (Martin Scorsese, 2005) 

I’M NOT THERE (Todd Haynes, 2007) 

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN (James Mangold, 2024) 

Requirements: 

Active participation, including reading/watching and writing assignments, participation in class discussion, a short presentation, and a seminar paper (6000 words). 

PS Revealing the “Truth”? American Crime Fiction from the 19th to the 21st Century 

Wednesday, 16-18 

A 2 2, 120.1 

Geöffnet für Gender Zertifikat: Modul aktuelle Fragestellungen der Genderforschung 

In this seminar, students will be introduced to the genre of American crime fiction. We will look at the reasons for the fascination of American literature and culture with crime, mystery and violence. Prior to the discussion of our primary texts, we will familiarize ourselves with terms and theoretical concepts important for the analysis of crime fiction. We will read short stories and Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl to trace traditions as well as developments of the genre and its sub-genres like the detective story, hard-boiled narratives or (neo) noir. We will start with short stories from the 19th century by Edgar Allan Poe, who is often seen as the “founding father” of American crime/mystery fiction. After these early examples, we will look at developments like the emergence of the hard-boiled detective in the twentieth century, for example in stories by Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler, before we explore recent trends in late 20th-Century and early 21st-Century texts, especially innovations to the genre by female writers, e.g. Sara Paretski’s V.I. Warshawski. Class discussion will consider questions such as: Is crime fiction conservative because of its tendency to restore the status-quo by solving the crime and punishing the perpetrator(s) or is there potential for subversion? How can narrative/a narrator trick the audience until the revelation of the “truth” at the very end? How is violence presented? How are sex/gender and race/ethnicity represented? How can the solving of mysteries in fiction be paralleled to society’s interest to reveal “truth”? Has crime fiction changed with current debates about “post-truth”? 

Short stories and secondary literature will be made available. 

Students have to buy: Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl (2012). 

Preferably this edition: Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl. Random House, 2012. 

EAN: 9780385347778 

Requirements: 

Active participation, including reading and writing assignments, participation in class discussion, a short presentation and a seminar paper. 

Introduction to Cultural Studies I: North America 

Thursday, 12-14 

B 3 1, Lecture hall I 

This course is intended to provide a foundational understanding of cultural myth(s), production, and analysis. This lecture will primarily focus on the United States but will feature some Canadian history and culture. The first section of the course will be dedicated to a general survey of contemporary political and social issues to prepare students for more in-depth discussions and approaches while inviting students to challenge common stereotypes. The second section will provide an overview of theoretical approaches to North American Cultural Studies with a focus on the historical development of policy, media, race, gender, and class. The course’s historical focus will primarily be centered around understanding how events in the twentieth- and twenty-first century have contributed to present-day American national identity formation. We will explore how popular narratives aim to encompass multiculturalism, while also working to universalize the American experience and what it means to be “American.” 

We will discuss issues regarding race, class, gender, sexuality, discrimination, violence, and slavery. It is my intention to create a safe space for all participants to learn and engage with this discourse, as well as understand/respect different perspectives.  

Geöffnet für Hok Nf American Cultural Studies 

Introduction to Media Studies: Almost Human?! Reflections on Technology, AI and Robots in American Media, Culture and Society 

Monday, 10-12 

B 3 1, 2.18 

Future technologies from (Sci-fi) movies and TV series—such as touch screens, video calls or VR glasses—have long become an important part of our everyday lives. Media are everywhere around us; we consume, use, mediate and digest media daily. Most of these media are—and have become—digital; books, newspapers, or physical films become relics when they are transferred into the well-connected and omnipresent digital sphere. As media also mirror and influences the society they are produced in, media productions such as movies and series are a fruitful subject within the field of cultural studies. Artificial intelligence(s), robots, cyborgs and future technologies have interested and fascinated directors and viewers but also influenced developments in computer science and artificial intelligence, which then inspired directors for new media productions. 

This course introduces students to the study of media and its interrelations with culture, society, and itself, laying particular emphasis on film studies and gender representations within media on the theoretical level. After an overview on various aspects of media history, media theory, and media analysis, we will reflect on the roles of and interconnections between media, technology, culture, and society as well as their representations in the media, i.e. in movies, series and games. Although the course focuses on a specific genre, the students will be provided with a toolkit to critically analyze media productions in general and from various angles. 

We/you will work with several sci-fi productions, depending on their availability on streaming platforms (Netflix, Prime, Disney+, AppleTV) during the semester. Possible media productions to investigate are e.g.: 

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 

Total Recall (1990) 

The Fifth Element (1997) 

The Matrix franchise (1999-2021) 

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) 

Minority Report (2002) 

I, Robot (2004) 

WALL-E (2008) 

Surrogates (2009) 

Mass Effect 2 (2010) 

Mass Effect 3 (2012) 

Total Recall (2012) 

Prometheus (2012) 

Her (2013) 

Pacific Rim (2013) 

Almost Human (2013-2014) 

Ex Machina (2014)  

Chappie (2015) 

Alien: Covenant (2017) 

Detroit: Become Human (2018) 

Altered Carbon (2018-2020) 

Alita: Battle Angel (2019) 

Love, Death & Robots (2019-present) 

Upload (2020-present) 

Severance (2022-present) 

Silo (2023-present) 

You will watch some of the films completely, I will use excerpts from others in class. You may, of course, watch all of them! If you have a specific American sci-fi production in mind, which you would like to work on although it is not on this list, no problem! Any North American (= from the US or Canada) (co-)production can be chosen. Over the first weeks of the semester, you will have time to explore the corpus and find a media production and topic to work on in your presentation and short paper / oral exam. 

Readings and material: a selection of texts will be provided; the films we will work with are available on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and AppleTV, respectively. 

Please note that you do not have to have access to all streaming platforms listed here! We will see during the first session, which ones are available to you and adjust the course accordingly! 

Requirements: The introductory part of the course will be accompanied by readings, the application part of watching clips/films and small writing assignments, students will give a presentation, either in class or as a recording (depending on the number of participants), and write a short paper, which has to be handed in until September 30. Students of “LA Sek 1” will have to take an oral exam instead of writing a paper. 

Geöffnet für Zertifikat Angewandte Pop-Studien: Pflichtmodul 1: Interdisziplinäre Einführung in die Popkultur 

Geöffnet für Zertifikat Digitalität, KI, Gesellschaft

UE CS II North America: The Roots and Global Reach of Hip-Hop Culture 

Blockseminar 

06-07 June and 11-12 July: Fridays 12-18.30 and Saturdays 9.30-15.30 

A 2 2, 120.1 

 
This course explores the origins of hip-hop in 1970s New York and its evolution into a global cultural phenomenon. Students will examine its historical roots, focusing on hip-hop as a response to socio-economic challenges in the Bronx, and trace its worldwide influence, including its role in marginalized communities abroad. Key themes include anti-racism, anti-colonialism, and critiques of systemic oppression, with case studies like Public Enemy’s Fight the Power. Through song analysis, documentaries (Hip-Hop Evolution), and readings (e.g., Tricia Rose’s Black Noise), the course integrates theory and practice, inviting students to engage creatively with hip-hop as a tool for artistic and political expression. 

Geöffnet für Zertifikat Angewandte Pop-Studien: Pflichtmodul 1: Interdisziplinäre Einführung in die Popkultur