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This will be a seminar on some of the most discussed and debated novels of the last century, reaching from the 1920s into the 1990s. The object of the seminar will be the training of perceptive and critical reading, paying attention to semantics (themes and images), narrative structures (narrators, focalizers, time, and space), cultural context (history), the treatment of race (and slavery), the various problematizations of gender (and heteronormativity), the presences of class and ethnicity, the challenges of decolonizing thinking and practices. Beside the aesthetic strategies of the text, one main topic will be democracy/freedom/power in the novels. A discussion we will also lead concerns the aspects in these books which could be interesting for school and teaching.
Literature to Read (in this sequence, please start reading long before the semester starts):
- Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (1925) (Oxford World Classics Edition)
- William Faulkner: Absalom! Absalom! (1936) (Vintage Classics Edition)
- James Baldwin: Giovanni's Room (1956) (Penguin Great Loves Edition)
- Toni Morrison: Beloved (1987) (Vintage Edition)
- Louise Erdrich: Tracks (1988) (Harper Perennial)
- Karen Tei Yamashita: Tropic of Orange (1997) (Coffee House Press)
Course Requirements:
- There will be no presentations in this seminar. Your only requirement is to write 10 short evaluations of individual meetings (of your choice) reflecting on the session: contents, debates, book discussed, and our methodologies.
- MAP (for students in the new StuO): oral exam, approx. 20 min. (together with a topic in linguistics)
Registration through Agnes. Please register also in the e-learning platform Moodle. As a password use "Sethe". |
