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.
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.
14.10.2008
Introduction and Discussion of Booker Web Site
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.
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 (expert on one novel and
- An oral presentation of ca. 20 minutes that will form the basis for your subsequent term paper (you present information and develop an argument that must allow you to formulate research questions concerning a particular text and topic, which will then be discussed by the seminar).
- A term paper (generally dealing with one or several of the issues raised in your oral contribution; length ca. 20 pages; deadline March 2009).
Requirements for candidates for the Staatsexamenklausur:
- Regular attendance and active participation.
- An oral presentation of ca. 20 minutes that will allow you to practice collecting, selecting and focusing information and textual analysis, as you will be asked to do in the written exam (you present information and develop an argument that must allow you to formulate research questions concerning a particular text and topic, which will then be discussed by the seminar).
Alternatively, you may join a group that produces short summaries of the seminar meetings which help you revise for the written exam.
NOTE: Depending on the focus of your contribution, you may take this course as "Brit Lit.wiss" or as "Brit.Cult.Stud.".
Reader
- English, James F. 2005. "The New Rhetoric of Prize Commentary." The Economy of Prestige. Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP. 197-216.
- Markovits, Benjamin. 2005 (March 6). "Prize Fight." New York Times Book Review. 27. read online
- 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. "Literary Prizes and the Media." Consuming Fictions: The Booker Prize and Fiction in Britain Today. London, England: Bloomsbury. 55-94.
- Huggan, Graham. 1994. "The Postcolonial Exotic: Salman Rushdie and the Booker of Bookers." Transition 64: 22-29.
