05.866.122 Proseminar 122 American Studies: 19th-Century Classics

Lehrende/r: Dr. Nele Sawallisch

Veranstaltungsart: Proseminar

Anzeige im Stundenplan: 05.866.122

Semesterwochenstunden: 2

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 45

Anmeldegruppe: AS 122

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

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:

• Introduction to American Studies/Literary Studies (115) (for B.A. students)
  
• Written English I (preferably)
  
• Willingness to perform a lot of reading and willingness to participate actively in class
  

Inhalt:
This class will introduce students to examples of ‘classic’ American literature of the nineteenth century.  We will cover such well-known authors as Irving, Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Douglass, Jacobs, Dickinson, and more, to explore their genres, literary periods, and why they have made it into the ‘canon’ of AmLit. We will be concerned with the formal and aesthetic features of their texts and ask how they respond to the larger historical conditions in which they emerged. In so doing, we will also critically reflect on the notion of the literary canon.

Course Objectives

STUDY SKILLS:

• perform critical thinking and literary analysis
  
• express and argue a critical stance
  
• know how to differentiate between an argumentative thesis and a descriptive statement
  
• know how to formulate a research thesis for a term paper
  
• be able to write a proseminar paper
  
• be able to perform independent research
  

• be able to identify representative authors, literary periods, and texts of the nineteenth century in America
  
• contextualize texts in nineteenth-century American historical, religious, political events
  
• identify, compare, critically reflect on aesthetic as well as ideological agendas
  

Empfohlene Literatur:
Students must have access to: Baym, Nina, gen.ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vols. B AND C. New York: Norton.

Zusätzliche Informationen:
Further readings will be provided on ILIAS.

Due to the high number of public holidays and other appointments, students will be expected to engage in a number of blended learning activities.