2024-25 MM Literary History and Literary Studies

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  under construction
  • Course: Literature, Literary History and Literary Studies
  • Time: Friday 10-12h
  • Venue: A06 2-212
  • Course Description: This course is designed to accompany the lecture ‘Introduction to Literary History and Textual Analysis’ (3.02.040) with additional discussions of the ideas, theories, and texts mentioned there. The course is meant to add to students' construction of a ‘narrative’ of this field, or, in other words, to students’ understanding of the history and culture of literary studies as an academic discipline. Why do we read certain texts? Why do we read them with certain ‘analysis tools’? Each week, we will discuss the contents of the lecture and read texts that will open up this perspective. Please note that we will concentrate on reading secondary literature but that you will also need to familiarize yourself with the current BM's corpus. Hence, please buy and read:
  • Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Ed. Sukanta Chaudhuri. The Arden Shakespeare, third series. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. Print. [ISBN: 978-1408133491]
  • Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Tales. Ed. Roger Luckhurst. Oxford: OUP, 2008. Print. [ISBN: 978-0199536221], read Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde only

PLEASE NOTE that you will have to visit both the lecture and the course (Friday, 8-10h and 10-12h).

  • Course Requirements
  • Requirements for 3 KP: active attendance (incl. a RPO)
  • Requirements for 6 KP: active attendance (incl. a RPO) and an (oral/)written contribution in the form of a seminar paper (15 pp), based on the topic of the seminar and one of the primary sources in the current BM.
  • As part of the "Aktive Teilnahme" regulation:
    Die aktive Teilnahme besteht aus folgenden Komponenten
    - regelmäßige Anwesenheit: max. 3 Abwesenheiten und gegebenenfalls Nacharbeit
    - Vor- und Nachbereitung des Seminarstoffs (Expertengruppen, Vorbereitung/Lektüre von Texten) 
    - Entwicklung einer wissenschaftlichen Fragestellung aus dem Problembereich des Seminars, durch:
      *Übernahme von Ergebnispräsentationen (Gruppenarbeit) und 
      *Entwicklung einer Research Paper Outline im Laufe des Semesters: 
       Wahl eines Themenbereichs (bis letzte Sitzung vor Weihnachten),
       Abstract mit Fragestellung inkl. Forschungsbibliographie (RPO) (bis 20. Jan), 
       Vorstellung der Fragestellung (letzte Semestersitzung).

Session 1: 18 October

  • 8-10h Lecture: "Introduction and Overview. What Is Literature? What Do We Do with Literature?"
  • 10-12h Course: Introducing the course, the Poetry Reader and discussion of excerpts from Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (1975)

Session 2: 25 October

  • 8-10h Lecture (online): "What Do We Do with Literature? – Examples and Practices"
  • 10-12h Course: Ian Hunter, "Learning the Literature Lesson: The Limits of the Aesthetic Personality" (1991)
  • Handout Literature & Representation

Session 3: 1 November

Session 4: 8 November

  • No lecture [BM Practice week: Recap and Practical Unit (with tutors)]
  • 10-12h Course: Anton Kirchhofer, "The Foucault Complex" (1997)

Session 5: 15 November

  • 8-10h Lecture: "Literature in Historical Context: Poetry and Rhetoric"
  • 10-12h Course: excerpts from Aristotle, Poetics and Rhetoric
  • Handout Analysing Poetry
  • Handout Rhetoric

Session 6: 22 November

  • 8-10h Lecture: "Literature in Historical Context: Drama"
  • 10-12h Course: excerpts from Manfred Pfister, The Theory and Analysis of Drama (1993)
  • Handout Analysing Dramatic Communication

Session 7: 29 November

Session 8: 6 December

  • No lecture [BM Practice week: Recap and Practical Unit (with tutors)]
  • No course meeting: Reading Week - Narrative Fiction (text see above)

Session 9: 13 December

  • No lecture [BM Practice week: Recap and Practical Unit (with tutors)]
  • 10-12h Course: Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?" (1967)

Session 10: 20 December

  • 8-10h Lecture: Recap, Historical and Practical Unit: Theoretical Perspectives on the History of Shakespeare Performance, Editing, and Interpretation
  • 10-12h Course: Ina Schabert, Das Shakespeare Handbuch (1978/2018; Auszüge)
  • Handout: Editing Shakespeare
  • Handout: Shakespeare Handbuch

// Christmas Break //

Session 11: 10 January

  • 8-10h Lecture: "Literature in Historical Context: Narrative Fiction, 1"
  • 10-12h Course: excerpts from Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction (1983)
  • Handout Narratology

Session 12: 17 January

  • 8-10h Lecture: "Literature in Historical Context: Narrative Fiction, 2"
  • 10-12h Course: Catherine Gallagher, "The Rise of Fictionality" (2006)
  [Hand in RPO until 20 Jan 2024]

Session 13: 24 January

Session 14: 31 January

  • No lecture [BM test]
  • 10-12h Course: discussion of research paper topics; feedback on evaluation
  [Hand in research papers until 15 March 2024]

Tools

Course and Further Reading

  • Aristotle, Poetics and Rhetoric (335 BCE)
  • Ian Watt, The Rise of the Novel (1957)
  • Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?" (1967)
  • Jonathan Culler, Structuralist Poetics (1975)
  • Ina Schabert, Das Shakespeare Handbuch (1978/2018; Auszüge)
  • Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction (1983)
  • Louis A. Montrose, "Professing the Renaissance: The Poetics and Politics of Culture" (1989)
  • Stephen Greenblatt, "Towards a Poetics of Culture"
  • Ian Hunter, "Learning the Literature Lesson: The Limits of the Aesthetic Personality" (1991)
  • Manfred Pfister, The Theory and Analysis of Drama (1993)
  • Kirchhofer, Anton. “The Foucault Complex. A Review of Foucauldian Approaches in Literary Studies. ZAA 45.4 (1997): 277-299.
  • Olaf Simons, Marteaus Europa, oder der Roman bevor er Literatur wurde (2001)
  • Catherine Gallagher, "The Rise of Fictionality" (2006)
  • Monika Fludernik, "The Fiction of the Rise of Fictionality" (2018)
  • Simon During's essay on the demoralization of the humanities in The Conversation (2022)
  • Ken Gelder (2022)
  • Hanlon, Aaron R. "The Ends of Literary Studies." The Ends of Knowledge: Outcomes and Endpoints Across the Arts and Sciences. Eds. Seth Rudy and Rachael Scarborough King. London: Bloomsbury. 2023.

Helpful Resources