Check LSF for details on individual times/classes.

Courses Winter 2025/26

In the winter term 2025/26 NamLitCult is offering the following classes:

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

VL American Literature in the Age of (Post-)Globalization

Wednesday, 10-12

This lecture course will explore 20^th and 21^st century American literature. We will focus on how global and transnational perspectives enrich and complicate our understanding of American literatures, literary and cultural histories. Considering such topics as the relationship between the local and the global, border identities, and (trans-)hemispheric networks, the effects of 9/11, and Trumpism, the main concern of this course will be to think about American literature within a global, transnational frame. Introducing you to the theories and methodologies of Transnational Studies, Border Studies, Hemispheric Studies, Atlantic Studies, and Refugee Studies, we will raise questions concerning vexed phenomena such as globalization, exile, diaspora, and migration-forced and voluntary. What roles do national borders and boundaries play in literary texts? How do contemporary writers deal with issues such as the forced and voluntary movement of people (through migration, immigration, emigration, and trafficking)? What cultural work do American novels perform inside as well as outside the U.S.? We will also look at recent American literature, literary and cultural texts produced in the Age of Trump. How have American writers responded to the experience of a “new” American reality after 2016? 

Course Readings:

Course Readings will be made available on Teams.

UE/VL Foundations of Cultural Studies

Tuesday, 12-14

Geöffnet für Gender-Zertifikat: Basismodul

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

Geöffnet für Hok Nf American Cultural Studies und Gender Studies

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 on Teams.

BA/MA/STEX Colloquium

Tuesday, 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 October for those students who will participate in the oral state exam (LS I, LS I+II, LAG, LAR, LAB). All topics can be presented and discussed. Please bring handouts for your brief presentations. This “Blockkolloquium” will take place on October 14, 2025.

Please sign up for the Blockkolloquium via email by October 10, 2025 (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, October 21, 2025. Further meetings will be announced in the first session. 

Please sign up via LSF. 

Research Colloquium

Tuesday, 18-20

This research colloquium offers writers of Ph.D. dissertations a forum for presentations of their work-in-progress. It will start on October 21, 2025. We will also meet for “Erfolg in Serie”. 

UE CS II North America: “Race/Class/Gender in the Borderlands”

Thursday, 12-14

Not at all unlike geopolitical borders, identity categorizations such as race, class, and gender are societal constructs as much as locales for people to experience conformization and explore transgression. Borders and borderlands unearth the wounds of colonialism; simultaneously, they contain the potential to heal.

This class will investigate global borderlands (with a strong focus on the U.S.-Mexican, U.S.-Canadian, and indigenous borderlands) and its exploration of human identities in exchange with the (border-)lands that shape them through representations in film and other media (literature, film, video games, etc.). We will explore such issues as representational exclusion from and inclusion to mainstream U.S. popular culture, various forms of appropriation of dominant hegemonic culture, transnational identifications and cultural flows, ethnoracial stereotyping and resistance to such, and intersections of Chicanx and indigenous identities with aspects of class, race, sexuality, and gender.

One session of this class may be dedicated to exploring / simulating elements of this class in role play (TTRPG). 

Readings may include:

TOUCH OF EVIL (Orson Welles, 1958)

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (John Sturges, 1960)

LONE STAR (John Sayles, 1996)

FROZEN RIVER (Courtney Hunt, 2008)

PRINCESS KAIULANI (Marc Forby, 2009)

BREAKING BAD (Vince Gilligan, 2008-2013)

Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games, 2018)

Land of Love and Drowning (Tiphanie Yanique, 2014)

Selected poems by Brandy Nālani McDougall

A selection of relevant secondary sources will be made available in electronic form. We will discuss access options for films and other primary texts in the first session.

Requirements:

Regular attendance; preparing reading/watching and writing assignments; active participation in class discussion; a short presentation; and a small written assignment.

HS: Classical Hollywood

Monday, 12-14

Some of (U.S. American) film history’s most remarkable productions can be retraced to a single place of origin: Hollywood, California. Between the late 1920s and the early 1960s, the “Big Five” – the five major studios residing in Hollywood (MGM, Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and RKO) – and the “Little Three” – their three smaller, yet competitive rivals (Columbia, Universal, and United Artists), churned out a vast number of films, the sum of which not only tells of one of U.S. America’s most profitable capitalist ventures but also of a collective cultural imaginary. Between them, the films of Classical Hollywood reflect on and explore what it means to be American in an increasingly globalized world.

In this seminar, we will revisit a selection of Classical Hollywood’s finest, most successful and most controversial productions. We will study them as both generative products of their time and enduringly relevant historical documents. Through the films of Classical Hollywood, we will retrace U.S. Americans’ (self-)positioning and (self-)investigation in relation to discourses of race, class, gender, and sexuality, and we will critically reflect on Hollywood’s star and studio system as viable engines of pop cultural production and artistic expression – as we will discover Classical Hollywood to perpetually straddle the line between conformity and transgression.

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

Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)

Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)

It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)

Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)

Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)

How the West Was Won (Henry Hathaway/George Marshall/John Ford, 1962)

Requirements:

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

PS California Dreaming: The Golden State in American Literature

Wednesday, 16-18

California can be seen as the quintessential state promising the fulfillment of dreams and phantasies about “America,” the United States or the American West, but the so-called “golden state” has also turned out to be a nightmare connected to disappointed expectations. The American West has been one of the most powerful concepts in the construction of American identities. Dreams, phantasies and images of the American West as an area of freedom, individualism and progress have been shared by people inside the U.S. as well as around the globe, and the process of "going West" has become synonymous with crossing borders and boundaries, geographical as well as metaphorical; with freeing yourself from restrictions and becoming rich. This seminar will look at (literary) representations of California and introduce students to the imaginary quality as well as to foundational myths, like frontier or exceptionalism, and their deconstructions and down-sides. Our primary texts will range from short stories by Mark Twain and John Steinbeck to Joan Didion’s essay “Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream” to excerpts from the novels The Circle by Dave Eggers, Blue Skies by T.C. Boyle and How Much of these Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang. Students may choose which novel we will discuss in detail. 

Requirements:

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

PS “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”: 19th century American Writers 

Thursday, 16-18

In this course, we will discuss the three 19th-century novels on our departmental reading list: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850), Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899).

These seminal texts reflect the tensions between individual conscience and societal norms in 19th-century American literature. We will analyze how each author negotiates issues such as slavery and race, gender and autonomy, guilt and redemption, and how these conflicts are embedded in the language, symbolism, and narrative structure of the texts. 

Situating each text within its historical and literary context, we will also consider how the antebellum South, Puritan New England, and the post-Reconstruction era shaped the themes and narrative strategies of each author. 

We will pair close textual analysis with scholarly readings that trace the critical reception, cultural significance, and literary innovations of each novel. Emphasis will be placed on how these works reflect and resist the dominant ideologies of their times, as well as how their reception has evolved through changing (and challenging) critical frameworks.

Readings: 

Please get a hold of the following Norton Critical Editions:

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening. Edited by Margo Culley. Norton Critical Edition, 3rd ed., W.W. Norton, 2017. ISBN 978-0-393-61731-3

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings. Edited by Leland S. Person, Norton Critical Edition, 2nd ed., W. W. Norton, 2017. ISBN 0393264890

Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Edited by Thomas Cooley, Norton Critical Edition, 4th ed., W. W. Norton, 2021. ISBN 978-0-393-28815-5

Course requirements: 

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

Introduction to Media Studies: Welcome to the Future! AI, Robots and Technology in North American Sci-Fi Media (Movies, Series & Games)

Monday, 10-12

Geöffnet für Zertifikat Angewandte Popstudien (Pflichtmodul 1: Interdisziplinäre Einführung in die Popkultur)

Geöffnet für Zertifikat “Digitalität. KI. Gesellschaft”

Future technologies from (Sci-fi) movies, TV series and games—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, series and games 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)

Lost in Space (2018-2021)

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

Love, Death & Robots (2019-present)

Upload (2020-present)

Severance (2022-present)

Rebel Moon (2023/2024)

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 YouTube, 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.

Introduction to Cultural Studies I: North America

Thursday, 12-14

B 3 1, HS I

Geöffnet für Hok Nf American Cultural Studies

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.

UE CS II North America: Listening to Power: Music, Identity, and Cultural Politics

Blockseminar:

Friday 07.11.25 (12-18:30) & Saturday 08.11.25 (9-15:30)

Friday 12.12.25 (12-18:30) & Saturday 13.12.25 (9-15:30)

Plus, virtual office hours on demand during the semester

Geöffnet für:

BA Cultural Studies und Management

BA und Lehramt Englisch

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

This course introduces students to key questions in Cultural Studies through the lens of music. Focusing on Black music and global music cultures, it explores how musical practices reflect and shape issues of identity, power, and resistance. Students will engage with examples such as Beyoncé’s Formation, Burna Boy’s Monsters You Made, and the global phenomenon of Jerusalema by Master KG to analyse how music communicates cultural meaning. Using methods such as visual and textual interpretation of lyrics and music videos, students will learn to critically examine music as a cultural text. The course combines collaborative discussion and practical exercises, culminating in student-led presentations.

Readings and material: 

a selection of texts will be provided; music videos will be streamed.

Requirements: 

active participation, readings, oral presentation, short study paper until 20^th March 2026.

Erfolg in Serie: Staffel XIII 

Dr. Svetlana Seibel 

Termine:

28.10.2025

04.11.2025

11.11.2025

02.12.2025

Programm tba 

Kino Achteinhalb

Offen für alle Interessierten. 

Prüfungsleistung im Rahmen des Zertifikats: Portfolio. Details erfragen Sie bitte bei Dr. Svetlana Seibel.