Course registration starts March 13, 2023 at 3:30 CET

Check LSF for details on individual times/classes.

Courses Summer 2023

In the summer term 2023 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.

“Borders and Wars”

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

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

Borders—especially border transgressions—and wars are closely connected: wars are being fought over territorial issues, and borders are often subject to conflicts. Borders are being weaponized, and they are often viewed in terms of military preparedness and confrontation. They are therefore central to our understanding of societies that are affected by war experiences.

This class focuses on wartime experiences, shared and documented by young people and contextualized in a broader global and historical context. It will address issues of border crossings and migration, living conditions and the many challenges that life brings about in times of war. Being part of an international summer school, students will meet up with other students from Ukraine and the U.S. for an entire week in order to analyze and talk about first-hand experiences, integrating them into a scientific Border Studies debate, contextualizing them both historically and globally in the long history of border disputes and wars over borders.

Blockseminar (17.-24.04.2023)

VL War and Peace in North American Literature

Tuesday, 12-14

Warfare and the quest for peace have been omnipresent in American culture since the first explorers and settler colonists arrived on the shores of the continent. From fights with the Indigenous population, the Revolutionary War that gave birth to the United States, the Civil War, and the Vietnam War to recent wars in the Middle East, war and peace have shaped American history. This lecture will provide a survey of American literature, showing in which ways fictional texts as well as autobiographical writings have negotiated war and peace, serving as a site on which the nation’s struggles have been played out.

Course Readings:

A course reader will be made available via moodle or teams.

BA/MA/STEX Colloquium

Tue, 16-18

This workshop-like colloquium allows candidates (BA-students, MA-students and Stex-students) to talk about the topics of their theses and the topics for their oral exams.

This colloquium consists of two parts:

1) “Blockkolloquium” in April for those students who will participate in the oral state exam (LAG, LAR, LAB). All topics can be presented and discussed. Please bring handouts for your brief presentations. This “Blockkolloquium” will take place on Tuesday, April 11, 2023 at 4 p.m.

Please sign up for the Blockkolloquium via email by March 30, 2023 (amerikanistik[at]mx.uni-saarland.de).

2) Workshop for those students who will write/or are working on their BA, MA or Staatsexamensarbeit. A major goal of this course is to guide students through the process of writing a research paper. All candidates in NamLitCult who are working on a written thesis are therefore encouraged to attend regularly.

This colloquium starts on Tuesday, April 25, 2023. Further meetings will be announced in the first session.

Please sign up via LSF.

Research Colloquium

Tue, 18-20 online

This research colloquium offers writers of Ph.D. dissertations a forum for presentations of their work-in-progress. It will start on April 25, 2023.

UE/VL Foundations of Cultural Studies

Wed 10-12

This course is intended to make students familiar with the various theoretical approaches and practices common to the study of culture. It should introduce students to the intellectual roots and contemporary applications of Cultural Studies, focusing on the theoretical bases for the analyses of meaning and power in the production and reception of texts. While this class will offer various approaches to the study of cultures in the English-speaking world, it should also provide students with an opportunity to do Cultural Studies. In our analyses we will therefore draw on a wide range of cultural material (literature, television, films, and commercials) and explore the ways in which questions of representation are interrelated with issues of identity, in particular racial/ethnic, sexual, class, and regional differences.

Texts:

A course reader will be made available.

Geöffnet für Gender-Zertifikat.

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

Geöffnet für Hok Nf American Cultural Studies und Gender Studies.

HS Ukrainian-Canadian Literature

Blockseminar in June/July:

Friday, June 30: 7-20

Saturday, July 1: 10-13

Monday, July 3: 17-20

Friday, July 7: 17-20

Saturday, July 8: 10-13

Monday, July 10: 17-20

Friday, July 14: 17-20

Monday, July 17: 17-20

Friday, July 21: 17-20

In the social and cultural history of Canada, the Ukrainian diaspora has long played a formative role. The officially multicultural character of the country, for example is to no small extent a result of, among other forces, the formative historical and contemporary presence of the Ukrainian-Canadian community. The following course will study the literary dimension of this important community via consideration of a survey of Ukrainian-Canadian literature. The course will proceed chronologically from the early twentieth-century through to recent developments. Our goal is not to develop any specific thematic or formal “thesis” regarding Ukrainian-Canadian literature, but rather to explore various topics that emerge out of the literary depiction of this community. Such topics will include: for example, the historical importance to Canada of Ukrainian immigration; the difficulties of integration into Canadian life; the experience of exile/emigration/immigration; the various personal and collective ramifications of an ethnic or “hyphenated” Canadian identity; etc.

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.

The following is a still tentative reading list (it will be modified/updated according to availability of the works):

Vera Lysenko, Yellow Boots (1954)

Lisa Grekul, Kalyana’s Song (2003)

Maria Reva, Good Citizens Need Not Fear (2020)

N.B.     Course Requirements: Course readings / discussions

    Presentation on a relevant topic of the student’s choice

    Final essay of approximately 15 - 20 pp.

HS From Achilles to Alexander: Wars of Classical Antiquity in American Literature

Wednesday, 12-14

As a topic and a motif, war has figured prominently in American literature since its inception. This is hardly a surprise, given the fact that America as a nation state emerged as a consequence of extended warfare. Armed conflicts with Indigenous nations and between colonial powers during the colonial period, the Revolutionary War, the Indian Wars of the nineteenth century, the Civil War, the two World Wars, the Vietnam War, the twenty first-century wars in the Middle East – all these and more have stirred American literary imagination. While dealing with their contemporary military conflicts, the writers often look to the past, for contexts and connections, and perhaps perspective and understanding. The storied deep past of classical antiquity, with its myth-encircled clashes of powers at Troy, Thermopylae, in Persia and beyond, has provided one of the vehicles for American writers through which to explore the meaning and experience of war. In this class, we will acquaint ourselves with some examples of American literature that do just that, works such as Laura Riding’s A Trojan Ending (1937), Steven Pressfield’s Alexander: The Virtues of War (2004), and Ellen McLaughlin’s adaptation of Aeschylus’s tragedy The Persians (2004). In our engagement with these creative works we will look to their poetics as well as their politics and consider the ways in which they intersect, negotiating an aesthetic suitable for addressing their respective concerns and conflicts while thinking through and with old stories. To inform our inquiry, we will turn to theories of classical reception as a helpful theoretical framework for these investigations.

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.

You will need to purchase the following book for this class:

1. Pressfield, Steven. Alexander: The Virtues of War. Bantam Books, 2005. ISBN 978-0-553-81435-4

PS From New England to the West Coast, from the Canadian Border to the South: Regions in US-American Literature

Wednesday, 14-16

Regions feature in literary texts in different ways: certain areas/places were hotspots for literary movements, authors who live(d) in a region may be connected to this area in special ways and regions can be important as settings for literature. While some regions like the American South feature prominent, other regions are considered less frequently for their influence on writings. This seminar will investigate the interconnections between American regions and literary texts to show how region can be seen as one key aspect of American literature and to analyze the changing strategies to narrate regions over time. Starting in colonial times on the East coast with excerpts from William Bradford’s “Of Plymouth Plantation”, we will journey through regions from East to West and from North to South and discuss texts from colonial times to the present. Utilizing approaches / methods from critical regionalism and Border Studies to analyze our corpus, we will look at various aspects to highlight region from the local color tradition to current developments. Our readings will mostly consist of short stories, for example Washington Irving’s “Rip van Winkle,” Bret Harte’s “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” or Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” plus Hernan Diaz’ novel In the Distance.

Readings:

The shorter primary texts as well as a selection of secondary material will be made available.

You have to buy Hernan Diaz’ novel: if possible in this edition:
Diaz, Hernan. In the Distance. Daunt Books, 2018. EAN: 9781911547235.

Requirements:

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

PS 20^th Century American Drama

Thursday, 16.15-17.45

At the beginning of this course we will consider the genesis and historical development of American theater. The main emphasis, however, will be on 20th century plays. We will explore the various dramatic techniques and recurring themes as well as the political and cultural developments that inform the texts. The readings will include the following American plays of our reading list: Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches. Information regarding text editions will be provided at the beginning of classes.

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

Introduction to Media Studies

Mo, 10-12

Media are not just everywhere around us – we consume, use, mediate and digest media on a daily basis. As the media also mirrors and influences the society it is produced in, it is a fruitful subject within the field of cultural studies. 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. After an overview on various aspects of media history, media theory, and media analysis, we will focus on selected American action movies. Those are usually loud, fast, violent, male-dominated, sexist, interchangeable and brainless, are they not? This is what we will look closer into during the semester. We will also be interested in what aspects make American action movies typically American. 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. 

The films from different subgenres, which will serve us as the basis for our analysis will probably be the following: 

-        Demolition Man (1993) 

-        The Fifth Element (1997) 

-        Miss Congeniality (2000) 

-        The Jurassic Park Trilogy (1993-2001) and the Jurassic World Trilogy (2015-2022) 

-        Edge of Tomorrow (2014) 

-        The Bourne franchise (2002-2016) 

You will watch some of them completely, I will use excerpts from others in class. You may, of course, watch all of them! If you have a specific American action film in mind, which you would like to work on although it is not on this list, no problem. In our first session, we can make some minor adjustments to the list of films according to your general preferences and interests. 

Readings and material: 

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

Requirements: 

The introductory part of the course will be accompanied by readings 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 essay, which has to be handed in until September 30. 

Geöffnet für Gender-Zertifikat: Aufbaumodul 2: Aktuelle Fragestellungen der Genderforschung

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

Introduction to Cultural Studies I: North America

Thu, 12-14

This course is intended to provide a foundational understanding of cultural myth(s), production, and analysis in Cultural Studies. 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 aspects in the United States, as well as some in Canada. 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.

Readings/materials: Select essays, chapters, and excerpts will be made available on Moodle. Most readings will be from: Neil Campbell & Alasdair Kean, American Cultural Studies: An Introduction to American Culture. Fourth edition. (Routledge, 2016).
Music, film, social media, and other video footage will also be provided to students via MS Teams and/or Moodle.
Course requirements: readings, regular attendance, final exam (depending on circumstances this could take place online or in person).

Geöffnet für Hok Nf American Cultural Studies.

UE CS II North America: On Ethics of Ownership, Representation and Appropriation in Popular Music

Blockseminar:

Friday, April 28: 12-18.30

Saturday, April 29: 9.30-15.30

Friday, June 23: 12-18.30

Saturday, June 24: 9.30-15.30

Popular music genres such as rap, reggae, hip-hop or afro beats continuously spread with the help of digital platforms, most recently TikTok, across large parts of the world. Over the decades, many popular American artists from Madonna to Miley Cyrus have incorporated, borrowed or remixed musical codes, styles, language, fashion from other parts of the world into their creative outputs. Recently, these transcultural musical exchange processes spark public debates about political correctness, cultural representation, ownership, and appropriation. Aspects such as who participated in a genres creation and to what extent (authenticity), or who is allowed to participate in it today and thus profit from its popularity are commonplace. These concerns go back to a historical experience of exploitation of marginalized musical styles and marginalized musicians, mainly people of color, Black or indigenous artists by privileged (white) colleagues, and also by superordinate societal and thus music industrial structures. At the same time, debates are often characterized by essentializations, exaggeration and simplification, which causes a stir and has a high reach in social media. The course aims at analyzing the current debates on cultural difference, representation and appropriation among the markers of race, class and gender from a cultural studies perspective by utilizing various media and musical examples.

Within the framework of the practical seminar, students have the task of creating a short multimedia presentation –using We Video or a similar tool– that weaves photographic, video, audio and text material into an interactive story. Students will learn how to realize basic digital storytelling and interactive contents and be guided technically and methodically. The development of the storyline (portfolio) takes place in cooperation with the lecturer.

Requirements: Active participation, including reading assignments, participation in class discussion, a short multimedia presentation including portfolio.

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