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Instructors: Dr. Nele Sawallisch
Event type:
Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.866.313
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Registration group: AS 313
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
- willingness to perform a lot of reading and willingness to participate actively in class
- at least one other literature seminar
- Written English I
Contents:
2018 marks the 200th anniversary of Frederick Douglass, one of—if not the—foremost black North American intellectuals of the nineteenth century. This class seizes this opportunity to dive into the wide array of Douglass’ work including and going beyond the slave narrative for which he became famous. We will also observe Douglass’ engagement in political, nationalist, and other intellectual debates of the nineteenth century and read him alongside a number of other influential thinkers, from Walker and Delany to Wells, Washington, DuBois, and Garvey.
As any other seminar, this class is reading-intensive and discussion-based. It lives off your input and active participation as members of the class. Feel encouraged to bring ideas, suggestions, and your areas of interest/expertise to the first session.
Study Skills
- practice 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 term paper
- be able to perform independent research
Content Skills
- be able to identify key black thinkers, key debates, and key texts of the nineteenth century
- contextualize texts in nineteenth-century American historical, religious, political events
- identify, compare, critically reflect on ideological agendas and discourses
Recommended reading list:
Information on readings to follow soon.
Additional information:
Participation in this class will include the mandatory cooperation with our writing fellow. The fellow will give each student a written feedback on two written assignments during the semester (structure and outline of the text, argument(ation), linguistic and formal criteria, tips for revision) and will offer individual meetings to talk about your writing. In this way, you will be able to reflect on writing strategies and problems to delevop strategies to deal with upcoming writing assignments.
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