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Instructors: Dr. Frank Obenland
Event type:
online: Proseminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.866.122
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 45
Registration group: AS 122
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
This is an intermediate class in American literary studies. It is recommended that students have attended at least one (pro)seminar in American literary studies before joining this class. It is expected that students are familiar with the vocabulary necessary to analyze and describe narrative, dramatic, and poetic texts.
Contents:
This course provides a survey of the major genres of early American literature from the 17th to the 19th century. Students will be introduced to the analysis of rhetorical texts, early modern poetry, as well as 19th-century prose fiction. In the course of the semester, students will explore the diversity of early American literature. In particular, we will explore how literary texts from this era reflect the intercultural contact between white European settlers and Native Americans. We will conclude with a discussion of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s historical romance The Scarlet Letter. The focus in this seminar will be on close readings of the aesthetic and formal features of these texts as well as a contextualization of these literary examples in light of the specific historical circumstances in which they were written.
Recommended reading list:
Literary studies handbook for this class:
Meyer, Michael. English and American Literatures. Francke, 2011.
Please purchase a copy of:
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Penguin Classics, 2016.
Additional texts and handouts will be made available on ILIAS.
Digital teaching:
This class will be taught online. This means that assignments for self-study will alternate with live video conferences. Students will also be given group assignments to collaborate on.
Study materials will be made available through the university's ILIAS platform. For live digital interactions we will use MS Teams.
Please make sure that you have access to both platforms via your university login (Email, Jogustine, etc.) at the beginning of the semester. A detailed schedule will be made available on the syllabus at the beginning of the semester.
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