05.866.313 Seminar 313 American Studies: Science and Fiction from the Enlightenment to Romanticism

Lehrende/r: Dr. Nele Sawallisch

Veranstaltungsart: Seminar

Anzeige im Stundenplan: 05.866.313

Semesterwochenstunden: 2

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 30

Anmeldegruppe: AS 313

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)
  
• Written English I 
  
• Proseminar (122)
  
• Willingness to perform a lot of reading and willingness to participate actively in class
  

Inhalt:
This class introduces students to (early) American fascinations with scientific discourse, discourses on science, and their implications on American authors and their texts. We will look at a range of authors who were interested in nature, science, progress, and technological development as varied as Bartram, Jefferson, Franklin, Emerson, Dickinson, Douglass, Hawthorne, or Poe. We will investigate how diverse interests in technology, natural sciences, racial science, medicine, gender (human sexuality), evolutionary thinking, etc., translated into the literary works of such authors, sparking tensions between an Enlightened claim to rationality and a more Romanticist pursuit of the super-natural, pseudoscientific, and proto-science-fictional.

Course Objectives

STUDY SKILLS:

• perform critical thinking and literary analysis
  
• 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
  
• present research in front of peers
  
• give critical feedback
  

• be able to identify representative authors and texts in the discussions on science and literature
  
• contextualize such texts in American historical, political, intellectual periods and events
  
• identify, compare, critically reflect on aesthetic as well as ideological agendas
  

Zusätzliche Informationen:
This class is part of the cluster 'Fictions of Science—Science Fiction' with the class "Futures Past: Futurology Between Science and Popular Culture in Transnational Perspective" taught by Dr. Torsten Kathke and the class "Video Games, Game Studies, and Science Fiction" taught by Dr. Damien Schlarb. Students in one of these classes will work with students in both other classes either through online platforms or in person.

The cluster's courses deal with science and the history of science by examining texts, movies, video games and other media. Depending on the focus of the class you are in, we will look at fictional and non-fictional texts as literature, cultural objects, or historical sources. We will tackle Enlightenment notions such as rationalism and progress, as well as topics like ethics in science, skeptical views of science, issues of privacy and data collection (as in social media), or automatization and its effects.

Participants in all three courses will work off a shared list of core theoretical readings. Due to the high number of public holidays in the summer term, students are expected to engage in several blended learning activities throughout the semester. A separate day-long workshop in which all classes join may be substituted for several sessions at the end of the semester.