552.305 (20S) Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo

Sommersemester 2020

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Erster Termin der LV
03.03.2020 16:00 - 18:00 N.0.27 On Campus
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Überblick

Lehrende/r
LV-Titel englisch Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo
LV-Art Seminar (prüfungsimmanente LV )
Semesterstunde/n 2.0
ECTS-Anrechnungspunkte 6.0
Anmeldungen 11 (25 max.)
Organisationseinheit
Unterrichtssprache Englisch
mögliche Sprache/n der Leistungserbringung Englisch
LV-Beginn 03.03.2020
eLearning zum Moodle-Kurs
Anmerkungen

Attendance of the first class meeting on March 3, 2020 is MANDATORY!

Zeit und Ort

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LV-Beschreibung

Intendierte Lernergebnisse

Students will further develop their skills in the systematic analysis of literary texts and advance their competence in interpreting texts within their specific socio-cultural and historical contexts. They will broaden their knowledge of several influential U.S. writers of the twentieth century, postmodernism, the historical novel, and historiographic metafiction.

Lehrmethodik inkl. Einsatz von eLearning-Tools

Short input lectures; in-class exploration of primary and theoretical texts through close textual analysis; in-class and group discussion; short oral presentations by students

Inhalt/e

Some of the underlying questions shaping contemporary U.S. culture and politics, from Kellyanne Conway’s talk of “alternative facts” to the ongoing impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, involve fundamental issues of representation, truth, and (the production and shaping of reality through) narrative. This seminar reconsiders a genre of postmodern narrative fiction, historiographic metafiction (Hutcheon), that elaborately deals with some of these issues by focusing on history and its representation. Emerging from the 1960s on, in response to increasingly skeptical attitudes toward concepts like truth, fact, history, certainty, or linearity, historiographic metafictions are critically “historiographic” as they – often humorously – (re)create different versions of historical events in order to question the authoritative voice of historiography and subvert claims to authenticity, reliability, and objectivity. At the same time, they are “metafictional” in the sense that they self-reflexively comment on their own production of stories, i.e. self-consciously examine their own modes of construction. Beyond looking at their representation of historical knowledge, we will pay close attention to narrative form and innovations in three key texts, and discuss terms such as postmodernism, intertextuality, genre, or trauma, and questions related to race, class, and gender. Rereading Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969), which blends science fiction with an account of the Dresden bombings, Doctorow’s Ragtime (1975), and DeLillo’s Libra (1988), which speculates about the assassination of John F. Kennedy will broaden our understanding of postmodernism in ways that highlight the continuing relevance of such thought and literature to understanding U.S. culture and society today.

Literatur

Required texts

DeLillo, Don. Libra. Any edition.
Doctorow, E.L. Ragtime. Any edition.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. Any Edition.

All other texts will be made available by the course instructor.

Prüfungsinformationen

Im Fall von online durchgeführten Prüfungen sind die Standards zu beachten, die die technischen Geräte der Studierenden erfüllen müssen, um an diesen Prüfungen teilnehmen zu können.

Beurteilungsschema

Note Benotungsschema

Position im Curriculum

  • Diplom-Lehramtsstudium Unterrichtsfach Englisch (SKZ: 344, Version: 04W.7)
    • 2.Abschnitt
      • Fach: Advanced Culture Studies (Pflichtfach)
        • SE zu Topics in American Culture Studies ( 2.0h SE / 5.0 ECTS)
          • 552.305 Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo (2.0h SE / 5.0 ECTS)
  • Bachelorstudium Anglistik und Amerikanistik (SKZ: 612, Version: 15W.3)
    • Fach: Fachliches Vertiefungsstudium (Pflichtfach)
      • 7.2 (b) Focus on Literature ( 0.0h SE / 6.0 ECTS)
        • 552.305 Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo (2.0h SE / 6.0 ECTS)
          Absolvierung im 4., 5. Semester empfohlen
  • Bachelorstudium Anglistik und Amerikanistik (SKZ: 612, Version: 10W.3)
    • Fach: Fachliches Vertiefungsstudium (Pflichtfach)
      • Focus on Literature ( 2.0h SE / 7.0 ECTS)
        • 552.305 Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo (2.0h SE / 7.0 ECTS)

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