S Queer Autobiographical Writing
UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!!
COURSE OUTLINE
3.02.980: S Queer Autobiographical Writing
- [Module] ang981, ang982, ang983 - The Canon and the Margins
- [Credits] M.A. English Studies: 12 KP; M.Ed. Gym: 9 KP; M.Ed. WiPäd 6 KP
- [Instructor] Dr. Christian Lassen
- [Time] Wednesday, 08.15 am - 09.45 am, weekly session, consisting of the following two parts: plenary session, discussing the asynchronous presentation (8.15 am - 9.15 am); and prepararory session for presentation groups (9.15 am - 9.45 am); nota bene: presentations will not be given in class but they will be made available on Stud.IP the Friday before they are scheduled, i.e. watching the presentations in time for the relevant sessions constitues a mandatory requirement.
- [Room] A07 0-025
- [Description] TBA
- [Office Hours] Wednesday, 11.00 am - 12.00 am
PRIMARY TEXTS (Mandatory Reading)
- Crisp, Quentin. The Naked Civil Servant. 1968. New York and London: HarperCollins, 2007. Print. [or any other edition]
- Isherwood, Christopher. Christopher and His Kind. 1976. London: Vintage, 2012. Print.
- Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006. Print.
FURTHER TEXTS (Recommended Reading)
- TBA
ASSIGNMENTS
- [Prüfungsleistung]
M.A. English Studies: asynchrones (Gruppen-)Referat (max. 2 Personen; ca. 25-30 Folien.) mit Schriftlicher Ausarbeitung (15 Seiten) [oder in Ausnahmefällen: Hausarbeit (20 Seiten)] (9 KP) + Project/ Essay (3 KP)
M.Ed. Gym.: asynchrones (Gruppen-)Referat (max. 2 Personen; ca. 25-20 Folien) mit Schriftlicher Ausarbeitung (15 Seiten) [oder in Ausnahmefällen: Hausarbeit (20 Seiten)] (9 KP)
M.Ed. WiPäd: asynchrones (Gruppen-)Referat (max. 2 Personen; ca. 25-30 Folien) mit Schriftlicher Ausarbeitung (10 Seiten) [oder in Ausnahmefällen: Hausarbeit (15 Seiten)] (6 KP)
- [Aktive Teilnahme] Regular Attendance; 3 Abstracts (1 page each)
Please note that written assignments (abstracts, short term papers, long term papers) need to be composed according to the style sheet ("Leitfaden") of the University of Oldenburg, which can be accessed via the 'Institutswiki'-page of the English department. The style sheet not only provides relevant information on how to write a correct bibliography but it may also help you to structure your work according to academic standards.
Please make sure to sign the "Erklärung zum 'Plagiat'" and to attach it to your research papers.
- [Abgabefrist] 15. September 2022.
Contents
- 1 Session 01, April 20: Introduction
- 2 Session 02, April 27: Theory Session - Autobiographical Writing in Literary and Cultural Studies
- 3 Session 03, May 04: Theory Session - Autobiographical Writing Across Disciplines
- 4 Session 04, May 11: Theory Session - Queering Autobiographical Writing
- 5 Session 05, November 15: Reparative Responses to Death: Coping with AIDS in Adam Mars-Jones's "Remission"
- 6 Session 06, November 22: Reparative Responses to Death: Coping with Cancer in Margaret Edson's W;t I
- 7 Session 07, November 29: Reparative Responses to Death: Coping with Cancer in Margaret Edson's W;t II
- 8 Session 08, December 06: Reparative Responses to Loss: Alison Bechdel's Fun Home I
- 9 Session 09, December 13: Reparative Responses to Loss: Alison Bechdel's Fun Home II
- 10 Session 10, December 20: Mid-Term Recap
- 11 Session 11, January 10: Reparative Responses to Politics: Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto I
- 12 Session 12, January 17: Reparative Responses to Politics: Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto II
- 13 Session 13, January 24: Reparative Responses to Politics: Laura Poitras's Citizenfour
- 14 Session 14, January 31: RPO Session
Session 01, April 20: Introduction
Organisational Matters
- Assignments
Assignments are graded and mandatory.
M.A. English Studies: In order to obtain 12 credits (KP), you will have to give a (group) presentation (Referat, ca. 25 Folien) on one of the presentation topics specified in the syllabus. In addition to that, you will have to hand in a short term paper (Ausarbeitung, 10 Seiten) by the end of term (15. September). In exceptional cases, you may hand in a long term paper (Hausarbeit, 15 Seiten) instead of the above. However, an exception is only granted upon consultation. As M.A. students, you will have to hand in an extra project/essay (Projektbericht), the topic and design of which we will discuss during an individual consultation.
M.Ed. Gym: In order to obtain 9 credits (KP), you will have to give a (group) presentation (Referat, ca. 25 Folien) on one of the presentation topics specified in the syllabus. In addition to that, you will have to hand in a short term paper (Ausarbeitung, 15 Seiten) by the end of term (15. September). In exceptional cases, you may hand in a long term paper (Hausarbeit, 20 Seiten) instead of the above. However, an exception is only granted upon consultation.
M.Ed. WiPäd: In order to obtain 6 credits (KP), you will have to give a (group) presentation (Referat, ca. 25 Folien) on one of the presentation topics specified in the syllabus. In addition to that, you will have to hand in a short term paper (Ausarbeitung, 10 Seiten) by the end of term (15. September). In exceptional cases, you may hand in a long term paper (Hausarbeit, 15 Seiten) instead of the above. However, an exception is only granted upon consultation.
- Presentation Topics, Presentation Groups
Presentation Topics are specified on your syllabus. In order to prepare your presentations, please pick a topic, get together in groups (see below) and write up a power-point presentation. Add your audio commentary to the presentation, save the file and send it on to me so that we can discuss your presentation during your preparatory session before you upload it. After that, you make your file available on Stud.IP on the Friday before your presentation is due so that all participants can read/ watch the presentation in time, i.e. before the session.
Requests regarding your choice of presentation topics can be send to me via e-mail, starting on Monday, April 04th. I will sign you in in the order of the requests' arrival. Please check this page regularly to see if your requests have been met.
Preparatory Sessions for presentations take place in the second part of the weekly sessions, i.e. Wednesday 9.15 am - 9.45 am. Please make sure that you attend the video conference the week before your presentation is due.
- Active Participation
Active Participation is ungraded but mandatory. In order to fulfil the requirements, you will have to attend class regularly. Moreover, you will have to write three abstracts, each including a topic, a state of research, a thesis statement, and a brief outline of your argument (approx. 1 page), in the course of the seminar. You can choose your own topic; however: all abstracts have to address different primary texts. In other words, your abstracts will have to cover each of the three materials. They are due by the end of the week (i.e. Friday) that marks the ending of the respective sections, i.e. due date The Naked Civil Servant: ???; due date Christopher and His Kind: ???; due date Fun Home: ???)
Summary: Presentations
1. Pick a presentation topic and contact me via e-mail (starting April 04). Check below for available places. Presentation groups may consist of a maximum of 2 people.
2. Contact the other members of your group and prepare your presentation, i.e. power-point presentation with audio commentary.
3. Send me your presentation 8 days before your presentation is scheduled.
4. Discuss your presentation with me in your preparatory session 7 days, i.e week, before your presentation is scheduled. Preparatory sessions take place during the second part of class, i.e. Wednesday 9.15 am - 9.45 am.
5. Upload your file on the Fridaybefore your presentation is scheduled.
6. Be ready to answer questions on the day of your presentation.
Session 02, April 27: Theory Session - Autobiographical Writing in Literary and Cultural Studies
Theory Texts
- TBA
Guiding Questions
- TBA
Session 03, May 04: Theory Session - Autobiographical Writing Across Disciplines
Theory Texts
- TBA
Guiding Questions
- TBA
Session 04, May 11: Theory Session - Queering Autobiographical Writing
Theory Texts
- TBA
Guiding Questions
- TBA
Preparatory Session
- Preparatory Session Group:
Session 05, November 15: Reparative Responses to Death: Coping with AIDS in Adam Mars-Jones's "Remission"
Primary Material
Secondary Material
Further Material
Guiding Questions
- According to Sedgwick, "[t]he queer-identified practice of camp [...] may be seriously misrecognized when it is viewed, as [Judith] Butler and others view it, through paranoid lenses. As we've seen, camp is most often understood as uniquely appropriate to the projects of parody, denaturalization, demystification, and mocking exposure of the elements and assumptions of a dominant culture. And the degree to which camping is motivated by love seems often to be understood mainly as the degree of its self-hating complicity with an oppressive status quo. […] the paranoid aesthetic on view here is one of minimalist elegance and conceptual economy." (Sedgwick, "Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading" 149) By contrast, "[t]he desire of a reparative impulse [...] is additive and accretive. Its fear, a realistic one, is that the culture surrounding it is inadequate or inimical to its nurture; it wants to assemble and confer plenitude on an object that will then have resources to offer to an inchoate self. To view camp as, among other things, the communal, historically dense exploration of a variety of reparative practices is to do better justice to many of the classic camp performances [...]." (ibid.)
- According to Dollimore, "Camp [...] negotiates some of the lived contradictions of subordination, simultaneously refashioning as a weapon of attack an oppressive identity inherited as subordination, and hollowing out dominant formations responsible for that identity in the first instance. So it is misleading to say that camp is the gay sensibility; camp is an invasion and subversion of other sensibilities, and works via parody, pastiche, and exaggeration." (Dollimore, Sexual Dissidence 311)
- With regard to Mars-Jones's short stories "Slim" and "Remission", the following questions arise: which sensibilities are invaded and subverted here? And what role does the appropriation of normative culture through cam, the "transgressive reinscription" (ibid.) play?
Presentation
- "Good Thought. Hang on to That,": or: Cultivating Camp Coping Strategies in Times of AIDS
- Presentation Group:
Video Conference
- Video Conference Group: Miriam Goy, Tabea Hirsch
November, 19: Abstract Monopolies of Loss due
Session 06, November 22: Reparative Responses to Death: Coping with Cancer in Margaret Edson's W;t I
Primary Material
- Edson, Margaret. W;t. 1993. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Print.
Secondary Material
Further Reading
Presentation
- Reparative Pedagogy in W;t, or: Teaching Compassion, Caregiving and a New Ars Moriendi in the Medical Humanities
- Presentation Group: Miriam Goy, Tabea Hirsch
Video Conference
- Video Conference Group: Karsten Richtsmeier
Session 07, November 29: Reparative Responses to Death: Coping with Cancer in Margaret Edson's W;t II
Primary Material
- Edson, Margaret. W;t. 1993. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Print.
Secondary Material
- Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. "Margaret Edson's Wit and the Art of Analogy." Style 40.4 (2006): 346-56. Print.
- Wriglesworth, Chad. "Theological Humanism as Living Praxis: Reading Surfaces and Depth in Margaret Edson's Wit".Literature & Theology 22.2 (2008): 210-22. Print.
- Sykes, John D. Jr. "Wit, Pride, and the Resurrection: Margaret Edson's Play and John Donne's Poetry." REN 55.2 (2003): 163-74. Print.
Presentation
- Of Holy Sonnets and The Runaway Bunny, or: Intertextuality, Spirituality, and the Ambivalent Role of Christianity in W;t
- Presentation Group: Karsten Richtsmeier
Video Conference
- Video Conference Group: Ngoc Anh Vu Hoang, Louisa Kravagna
December, 03: Abstract W;t due
Session 08, December 06: Reparative Responses to Loss: Alison Bechdel's Fun Home I
Primary Material
- Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006. Print.
Secondary Material
Presentation
- Putting Grief into Boxes, or: Reparative Readings, Fun Home, and the Narrative's Use of Comics Form
- Presentation Group: Ngoc Anh Vu Hoang, Louisa Kravagna
Video Conference
- Video Conference Group: Celine Jegust, Melina Kloth
Session 09, December 13: Reparative Responses to Loss: Alison Bechdel's Fun Home II
Primary Material
- Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006. Print.
Secondary Material
Presentation
- Creating a Queer Sense of Belonging, or: Memory, Loss, and Healing in Fun Home
- Presentation Group: Celine Jegust, Melina Kloth
Video Conference
- Video Conference Group: Daniela Stüker
Session 10, December 20: Mid-Term Recap
Mid-Term Recap
Video Conference
- Video Conference Group: Malte Stolle, Maja Hedtke
January, 07: Abstract Fun Home due
Session 11, January 10: Reparative Responses to Politics: Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto I
Primary Material
- Breakfast on Pluto. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Cillian Murphy, Ruth Negga, Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, and Brendan Gleeson. 2005. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. DVD. [or, alternatively: McCabe, Patrick. Breakfast on Pluto. London: Picador, 1998. Print. (or any other edition)]
Secondary Material
Further Material
- In the Name of the Father. Dir. Jim Sheridan. Perf. Daniel Day-Lewis, Emma Thompson, Pete Postlethwaite. 1993. Universal Pictures, 2010. DVD.
Presentation
- The Trouble with the Troubles, or: Realist vs. Stylised Modes of Representing Politics in Breakfast on Pluro and In the Name of the Father
- Presentation Group: Malte Stolle, Maja Hedtke
Video Conference
- Video Conference Group: Lea Griska, Anna Laber
Session 12, January 17: Reparative Responses to Politics: Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto II
Primary Material
- Breakfast on Pluto. Dir. Neil Jordan. Perf. Cillian Murphy, Ruth Negga, Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, and Brendan Gleeson. 2005. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2006. DVD. [or, alternatively: McCabe, Patrick. Breakfast on Pluto. London: Picador, 1998. Print. (or any other edition)]
Secondary Material
Presentation
- "Serious, Serious, Serious," or: The Reparative Uses of Camp in Breakfast on Pluto
- Presentation Group: Lea Griska, Anna Laber
Video Conference
- Video Conference Group: Marcell Schrader
January, 21: Abstract Breakfast on Pluto due
Session 13, January 24: Reparative Responses to Politics: Laura Poitras's Citizenfour
Primary Material
- Citizenfour. Dir. Laura Poitras. Perf. Edward Snowdon, Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras. 2014. Good Movies/Indigo, 2015. DVD.
Secondary Material
Further Reading
Presentation
- Outstaring Surveillance, or: Big Data, Paranoia, and Reassessing Culture's Faith in Exposure in Citizenfour
- Presentation Group: Marcell Schrader
January, 28: Abstract CitizenFour due
Session 14, January 31: RPO Session
Guidelines for finding your RPO topic:
Your RPO topic needs to be related to at least one of the primary texts
March, 15: Term Paper due
Please upload your paper to the folder "Ausarbeitungen und Hausarbeiten" on our Stud.IP page and send a printed copy to the address below.
Bitte stellen Sie Ihre Prüfungsleistung in den Ordner "Ausarbeitungen und Hausarbeiten" auf unserer Stud.IP-Seite ein und senden Sie eine gedruckte Fassung an die untenstehende Adresse.
Dr. Christian Lassen
Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Fakultät III: Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften
Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Ammerländer Heerstraße 114-118
26129 Oldenburg