Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies I

Course content

Group A:
What is literature? What is literary criticism, literary theory, literary history? What is poetry, narrative, the novel, drama, theatre and film? What is fiction, plot, story and discourse? What is metafiction? What is an author and a reader? What is orality, literacy? What is film and TV? What is gender studies, postcolonialism? Psychoanalysis and Marxism? Deconstruction and postmodernism? What is formalism, New Criticism? What is a Jacobean revenge tragedy, a Keatsian ode, metaphysical poetry, a mashup novel? We will read William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Arden Edition), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and a selection of poetry. Additional material will be made available at the beginning of term.

Group B:
This course will introduce you to key concepts in British and American literary studies. Our guiding questions will be: What is literature? What are the purposes of literary studies? How do we analyse a literary text? Over the course of the semester, you will become acquainted with the basic tools for analysing poems, narrative, and dramatic texts. We will discuss different theoretical approaches in literary studies and how they may produce different critical readings. Most importantly, we will apply these concepts and techniques to examples from various periods of literary history: Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a selection of poems, and a short story, which will be announced at the beginning of term.

Group C:
This course will introduce you to the basics of British and American Literary Studies. We will look at the concepts, terms and methods that you need for a systematic study of literature and for all further more specific topics and discussions. We will begin with fundamental questions –such as "what is literature?" and "what are liter-ary studies about?"– and the basic terms and tools for discussing literary texts such as poems, plays and narratives. We will also discuss how to "historicize" and "contextualize" literary texts and how different theoretical approaches yield different readings and results. For our discussions we will look at sample texts from different genres and periods; examples will be distributed/announced in the course of the semester.

Group D:
Behold the Hippopotamus! We laugh at how he looks to us, and yet in moments dank and grim I wonder how we look to him. […] (Ogden Nash) Would you consider this excerpt to be a literary text? If yes, why so? In this course we will start out with just this question: What exactly is literature? How do I come to grips with different genres, periods, analytical techniques and theoretical methods? This seminar is meant to be an introduction to crucial concepts of British and American Literary Studies. We will discuss poems, narratives and dramatic works in order to deepen our analytical skills, familiarize ourselves with technical terms and learn how to contextualize the works in question. For this, we will enjoy William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Paul Auster’s The City of Glass.