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Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Rainer Emig
Event type:
hybrid: Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
05.874.412
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
2,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Requirements / organisational issues:
This lecture will cover an often ignored part of Britain and its culture. Wales, which sometimes claims to be England's first colony, has a language of its own and participates in many literary and cultural developments of the British Isles, not only in the early period of the so-called "Dark Ages". There, the myths surrounding King Arthur and his seemingly ideal rule permeated the whole of Britain and much of Europe. But also in the Middle Ages Wales was home to a lively literature that is often much less stuffy than that of its English and European neighbours. This continues via the Renaissance, when a Welsh dynasty, the Tudors, were on the English throne, through the Enlightemnent and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries into the period of Industrialisation, when Wales was at the forefront of modernisation. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Wales' status was troubled again. The crisis of industry in Britain, the World Wars, the recession of the 1970s and more recent economic downturns hit the country hard. At the same time, they paved the way for a devolution that is now under threat again after Brexit.
The lecture will combine historic and cultural developments with their literary and also media counterparts, including films and TV series. It will introduce students to texts written in Welsh and English (the former in translation) in all genres and on a vast number of topics. It hopes that at the end of the lecture students will have found their own answer to a Welsh historian's provocative question, "When was Wales?".
The lectures will be held live. There will be a backup on LMS of the Powerpoint slides and audio recordings of the lectures for students who cannot attend them.
Students requiring credits other than "aktive Teilnahme" will write a 45-minute exam in the final week of teaching.
Contents:
This lecture will cover an often ignored part of Britain and its culture. Wales, which sometimes claims to be England's first colony, has a language of its own and participates in many literary and cultural developments of the British Isles, not only in the early period of the so-called "Dark Ages". There, the myths surrounding King Arthur and his seemingly ideal rule permeated the whole of Britain and much of Europe. But also in the Middle Ages Wales was home to a lively literature that is often much less stuffy than that of its English and European neighbours. This continues via the Renaissance, when a Welsh dynasty, the Tudors, were on the English throne, through the Enlightemnent and eighteenth and nineteenth centuries into the period of Industrialisation, when Wales was at the forefront of modernisation. In the 20th and 21st centuries, Wales' status was troubled again. The crisis of industry in Britain, the World Wars, the recession of the 1970s and more recent economic downturns hit the country hard. At the same time, they paved the way for a devolution that is now under threat again after Brexit.
The lecture will combine historic and cultural developments with their literary and also media counterparts, including films and TV series. It will introduce students to texts written in Welsh and English (the former in translation) in all genres and on a vast number of topics. It hopes that at the end of the lecture students will have found their own answer to a Welsh historian's provocative question, "When was Wales?".
The lectures will be held live. There will be a backup on LMS of the Powerpoint slides and audio recordings of the lectures for students who cannot attend them.
Students requiring credits other than "aktive Teilnahme" will write a 45-minute exam in the final week of teaching.
Recommended reading list:
- J. Graham Jones (2014): The History of Wales. Third edition. Cardiff, Wales: University of Wales Press. Ebook.
- Geraint Evans, ed. (2019): The Cambridge History of Welsh Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ebook.
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