2008-09 MM The Booker Prize 2008 and the Culture of Literary Prizes
- Lecturers: Anton Kirchhofer and Anna Auguscik
- Time: Tuesdays, 2-4pm
- Venue: A1 0-004
Contents
Course Description
This course will offer an opportunity to explore the culture of literary prizes in Anglophone fiction on the example of the Man Booker Prize 2008. As UK's most prestigious literary prize celebrates its 40th anniversary, the course will introduce students to the main issues and developments of the Booker 2008, and invite them to analyse its background on four levels: textual analysis, marketing, reviewing and prize coverage. By the beginning of term, students should have purchased and read the six novels on the 2008 Booker shortlist.
For a preliminary seminar plan, see below.
A reader with secondary sources will be made available around the middle of September. A number of essays can already be downloaded from the links below. (Please, contact us if you do not yet have the password.)
The thirteen novels of the Booker longlist as well as a number of important books will be in the Handapparat in the University Library from the middle of August.
Please, sign up to the Booker mailinglist, check out the Booker website and be aware of the following —
Important Dates:
- The judging panel: announcement on 18 December 2007
- The longlist: announcement on 29 July 2008
- The shortlist: announcement 9 September 2008
- The winner: announcement on 14 October 2008.
Requirements
Course Requirements for credits as a Master Module "English Literatures":
- Regular attendance (you may miss up to two meetings, whatever the reasons) and
- active participation
- An oral presentation of max. 30 minutes to introduce the seminar discussion of one of the six novels
- A contribution to one of the "expert groups" which discuss the similarities and differences in textual analysis, marketing, reviewing and prize coverage for all six novels
- A term paper (generally dealing with one or several of the issues raised in your oral contribution; length ca. 15-20 pages for M.Ed.Gym.; 10-12 pages for M.Ed.WiPaed.; deadline 1 March 2009).
- Additionally, for students of the MA English Studies, a research project
Requirements for candidates for the Staatsexamenklausur:
- Regular attendance and active participation.
- A contribution to one of the "expert groups" which discuss the similarities and differences in textual analysis, marketing, reviewing and prize coverage for all six novels. Alternatively, you may join a group that produces short summaries of the seminar meetings which help you revise for the written exam.
14.10.2008
Introduction and Discussion of Booker Web Site
Exeptional first meeting together with Delia Duncan's course (if possible, a kick-off evening together to mark the announcement of the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize). Details to follow.
21.10.2008
Theory and Secondary Materials
28.10.2008
Theory and Secondary Materials
04.11.2008
Novel 1: Textual Analysis, Marketing, and Reviewing
14.11.2008
Novel 2: Textual Analysis, Marketing, and Reviewing
18.11.2008
Novel 3: Textual Analysis, Marketing, and Reviewing
25.11.2008
Novel 4: Textual Analysis, Marketing, and Reviewing
02.12.2008
Novel 5: Textual Analysis, Marketing, and Reviewing
09.12.2008
Novel 6: Textual Analysis, Marketing, and Reviewing
16.12.2008
Close Reading: Textual Analysis I
06.01.2009
Close Reading: Textual Analysis II
13.01.2009
Marketing
20.01.2009
Reviewing
Course Evaluation.
27.01.2009
Outlook: Theory Revisited.
Feedback on course Evaluation.
Reader
- English, James F. 2005. The Economy of Prestige. Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP. (Esp. Chapter 9: "The New Rhetoric of Prize Commentary." 197-216.)
- Markovits, Benjamin. 2005 (March 6). "Prize Fight." New York Times Book Review. 27.
- Ginsburgh, Victor. 2003. "Awards, Success and Aesthetic Quality in the Arts." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 17.2 (Spring): 99-111.
- English, James F. 2002. "Winning the Culture Game: Prizes, Awards, and the Rules of Art." New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation 33.1 (Winter): 109-35.
- Showalter, Elaine. 2002. "Coming to Blows over the Booker Prize." Chronicle of Higher Education 48.42 (June 28): B11.
- Strongman, Luke. 2002. The Booker Prize and the Legacy of Empire. Cross/Cultures: Readings in the Post/Colonial Literatures in English 54. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
- Huggan, Graham. 2001. The Postcolonial Exotic. Marketing the Margins. London and New York: Routledge.
- Huggan, Graham. 1997. "Prizing 'Otherness': A Short History of the Booker." Studies in the Novel 29.3 (Fall):412-33.
- Todd, Richard. 1996. Consuming Fictions: The Booker Prize and Fiction in Britain Today. London, England: Bloomsbury. (Esp. Chapter 2: "Literary Prizes and the Media." 55-94.)
- Huggan, Graham. 1994. "The Postcolonial Exotic: Salman Rushdie and the Booker of Bookers." Transition 64: 22-29.