Lehrende/r: Prof. Dr. Alison Martin
Veranstaltungsart: Hauptseminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan: 06.008.0508
Semesterwochenstunden: 2
Credits: 6,0
Unterrichtssprache: Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 15
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie zzgl. Bevorzugung höherer Fachsemester 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/senatsrichtlinieÜber die Senatsrichtlinie hinaus werden bei der Platzvergabe für diese Veranstaltung Studierende höherer Fachsemester bevorzugt berücksichtigt.
Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches: Travel writing constitutes one of the most popular genres on today’s publishing market, despite its uncertain literary status, positioned somewhere between light, accessible “coffee-table reading” and complex, stylistically experimental “high literature”. Taking as its focus three works of early 20th-century British travel writing -- Gertrude Bell’s Persian Pictures (1928), Freya Stark’s The Southern Gate of Arabia (1936) and Robert Byron’s The Road to Oxiana (1937) – this class will first investigate what constitutes travel literature in terms of its themes, questions, style and form, before reflecting on the translatorial difficulties posed by these texts both linguistically and culturally. Given that these three works were all translated into German immediately after the Second World War (1949, 1948 and 1948 respectively), and have subsequently appeared in revised (re)translations much more recently (1997, 2017 and 2014 respectively), we will also be investigating how these texts have been cast and positioned as textual and material objects in the German-speaking world. More generally, we will be examining issues of textual instability (Stillinger), multiplicity and versioning (Reiman), as we reflect on how these travel narratives have been repackaged and remarketed to capture the interest of a modern reading audience. Copies of the early 20th-century English editions will be made available to students during the seminar, as will copies of the older and more recent German translations.
Empfohlene Literatur: Students should purchase the following primary texts in the most recent English versions: Gertrude Bell, Persian Pictures (London: Tauris Parke, 2014) ISBN 978-1-78076-692-8; Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana (London: Pimlico, 2004) ISBN 978-1-8441-3422-9; Freya Stark, The Southern Gate of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut (London: Tauris Parke, 2011) ISBN 978-1-84885-315-7
