This class is an advanced survey course on major problems of American Literary and Cultural History. The objective is a repetition of the field combined with an exploration of one specific issue: visual history. For that purpose powerpoint-presentations on some of the major issues of cultural history will be available on Moodle for everybody. In class we will briefly discuss questions related to this presentation and the classical period descriptions: Re-Discovery: 1492 (Old and New Inhabitants); City upon a Hill (The Puritan Experiment); Reason and Revolutions (The Age of Reasons and American Revolutions between Philadelphia and Seneca Falls); In and beneath the American Renaissance (a canon for 1850 and its multicultural and multi-gendered basis); Post-bellum Realisms and Naturalisms; Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance; Postmodernism and the old/new Diversity. The main part of the meetings will concentrate on questions of visual history: we will study together one aspect of the visual history of the respective period in depth (a painting, a building, a photograph, a sculpture, a movie excerpt etc.) and we will explore its implications. Students who need a more comprehensive introduction to American literary and cultural history are welcome to participate in the lecture for the BA students. Reading: · A reader with pertinent texts will be available the copyshop "Sprintout", Georgenstraße, S-Bahn Bogen 190. · The powerpoint-presentations discussed in the lecture will be available for viewing and downloading on the e-learning platform Moodle before each lecture. Course Requirements: Each student is expected to post one or two questions about one of the periods in focus on moodle. As a Modul examination students will write a take-home exam with questions from this class and the class "Theories of American Studies". For this exam you are expected to prepare one work of art in depth. Please register for this class in the e-learning platform Moodle. The key is MajPro. |
