2007-08 MM Early Modern Self-Fashioning
- Time: Tuesdays 10-12 am
Ever since Stephen Greenblatt introduced the term in 1980, the concept of Self-Fashioning has energised both historical research and literary criticism in recent years. If the self is not an originary and transhistorical given, but rather the product of historically contingent techniques, then it becomes interesting to investigate the historically specific modes of constructing or experiencing the self, and to consider in what ways these forms of modelling the self are learned, chosen, imposed or rejected. During the early modern period, as Greenblatt was not the only one to argue, there was an understanding of the self as something that could be modelled or ‘fashioned’, which had got lost in nineteenth-century conceptions of identity and individuality. Our seminar will offer an opportunity to engage with this topic both in historical and theoretical perspective. We will discuss some of the recent theoretical approaches to the constructions of selfhood (Greenblatt, Foucault, Bourdieu). We will encounter a range of materials form the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that played their role in practices of self-fashioning. And we will deal especially with the aspects of ‘Self-Fashioning and Gender’, ‘Self-Fashioning and Social Status’, ‘Religious Self-Fashioning’, ‘Poetic Self-Fashioning’. Course materials will be uploaded to Stud.IP We will decide in our first meeting whether to hold the seminar in English or in German, and depending on the emphasis in the work which you contribute, you may obtain credits either in History (MM ##) or in English Studies (MM English Literatures).
Requirements for credits as a Master Module “English Literatures”: 1. Regular attendance and active participation (you may miss up to two meetings, whatever the reasons). 2. An oral contribution formulating and addressing research questions; this will help you decide on a topic for your subsequent term paper. 3. A term paper (generally dealing with one or several of the issues raised in your oral contribution; length ca. 20 pages; deadline March 1, 2008).
Contents
23.10.2007
30.11.2007
Theorie 1: Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning, "Introduction"
06.11.2007
Theorie 2: Foucault, "Technologies of the Self"
13.11.2007
Theorie 3: Pierre Bourdieu,
20.11.2007
Conduct Books for (aristocratic) Men Students: Josefowicz, Kreutzer
27.11.2007
Conduct Books for Women Students: Krause, Nolte, Plock
04.12.2007
Religious self fashioning: manuals of piety Students: Lekismann, Friedel, Kramer
11.12.2007
Bunyan, Grace Abounding
Students: Sip, Koopmann, Gerdes, Moik
18.12.2007
Weber, Protestantische Ethik
Students: Neidhöfer, Feil
08.01.2008
Mode/ Kleiderordnungen
Waschkowski, Möhlmann
15.01.2008
Poetic Self-FAshioning 1:
1 and 2: Mahn, Stawick, Debruyn, Neal, Fieske, Tönnies
Background Reading
22.01.2008
29.01.2008
Evaluation. Retrospect. Questions and Conclusions.
05.02.2008
Evaluation. Retrospect. Questions and Conclusions.
Texts
Further Reading
McKenzie, Don, "Speech-Manuscript-Print," The Library Chronicle 22 (1990), 87-109.
