Lehrende/r: Prof. Patrick Erben
Veranstaltungsart: Seminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan: 05.866.512
Unterrichtssprache: Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 30
Anmeldegruppe: AS 512
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie Zulassung gemäß Richtlinie über den Zugang zu teilnahmebeschränkten Lehrveranstaltungen vom 07. März 2007. Nähere Informationen hierzu entnehmen Sie bitte www.info.jogustine.uni-mainz.de/senatsrichtlinie
Inhalt: Have you ever felt that everything in literary studies has been done, that there is no room left for original work, that criticism is just an endless recycling of theories, and that the canon is a stagnant pool dominated by dead white men? This course studies and practices an alternative and collaborative model of scholarship and canon formation, based on the archival recovery of neglected voices and the wide participation of scholars, teachers, and students in the production of knowledge. In the past 20 years or so, the landscape of early American literature (roughly the colonial period through the mid-19th century) has changed dramatically through the recovery of marginalized authors (women, African Americans, Native Americans, non-English speaking immigrant groups) and marginalized forms of literary production and dissemination (manuscript writing and exchange, oral traditions). In this course, we will examine through three case studies how archival research and textual recovery scholarship is changing the canon, challenging exclusionary concepts of American culture, and enfranchising a wider array of scholars and students; in the latter half of the semester, we will learn and practice skills of archival research (traditional and digital) and textual scholarship. I will involve the whole class in my ongoing research, textual recovery, and publication project on the early German-American author Francis Daniel Pastorius. I currently have a book under contract with Penn State University Press for a selective edition of Pastorius’s work, and I will use this project to introduce the class to methods of archival recovery, scholarship, and editorial preparation. The culminating product of the semester will be for each student to find a neglected, unknown, or unpublished work (in manuscript or print), edit a portion, produce a scholarly introduction, and prepare it for publication. I will work with the best and most ambitious students (even beyond the end of the course) to find outlets for publication in print or online or develop conference presentations based on their research.
