Lehrende/r: Dr. Tim Lanzendörfer
Veranstaltungsart: Proseminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan: Proseminar II
Semesterwochenstunden: 2
Unterrichtssprache: Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 45
Anmeldegruppe: PS II AS
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: Taking a page from F.O. Matthiesson’s The American Renaissance (1940), we will look at the fiction of three central 19th century American authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Edgar Allen Poe (admittedly not a Matthiesson member of the renaissance). We will investigate their central philosophical interests and their fictional techniques. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s interest in historiography and epistemology, in his and New England’s Puritan past as well as in the modern modes of perception and action will concern us as much as his role in the development of American short fiction. We will discuss Herman Melville’s confronting of contemporary problems, from slavery and racism to modern city life, and Edgar Allen Poe’s interest both in the supernatural and the fantastic, as well as his countervailing fascination with ratiocination—and the question why Matthiesson himself did not think Poe a “Renaissance” man. The class will be based on short fictions (the longest will be Melville’s “Benito Cereno”).
Empfohlene Literatur: Students will be required to obtain the following books from the Norton Critical Editions series: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tales. A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. James McIntosh. New York: W.W. Norton, 1987. [17€] Melville, Herman. Melville’s Short Novels: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism. A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Dan McCall. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002. [15€] Poe, Edgar Allen. The Selected Writings of Edgar Allen Poe. A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. G.R. Thompson. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. [17€]
