Hauptseminar: Anglistik Literaturwissenschaft: Literarische Gattungen und Gattungstheorien I und II; Themen, Genres, Epochen der amerikanischen Literatur - Details
Hauptseminar: Anglistik Literaturwissenschaft: Literarische Gattungen und Gattungstheorien I und II; Themen, Genres, Epochen der amerikanischen Literatur - Details
Hauptseminar: Anglistik Literaturwissenschaft: Literarische Gattungen und Gattungstheorien I und II; Themen, Genres, Epochen der amerikanischen Literatur
“Now imagining it may be equally agreeable to you to know the Circumstances of my Life, many of which you are yet unacquainted with, I sit down to write them for you.” Addressing his son, Benjamin Franklin had also a larger audience in mind when he wrote his Autobiography between 1771-1790 in which he recorded a series of historical events (e.g., the American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783) and construed his life as a model to be imitated by future Americans. Celebrated as one of the most influential autobiographies ever written, Franklin’s Autobiography in fact paved the way for the emerging field of American “life writings.” The term “life writing” is an inclusive term used to describe the multitude ways people narrate their lives and the lives of others and it encompasses not only written texts (e.g., autobiographies, memoirs, and journals), but also oral testimonies, artifacts, and visual texts (e.g., photography, film, and online media). In this course, we will explore a broad range of American life writings from the Age of Enlightenment to the present time. Backed up by several theoretical approaches to life writing (Philippe Lejeune’s “The Autobiographical Pact,” Paul de Man’s “Autobiography as De-Facement,” and Jacques Derrida’s “The Law of Genre”), we will examine a number of autobiographical texts from the 18th and 19th century: Franklin’s Autobiography, Frederick Douglass’ slave narrative (1845), and Mary Chesnut’s journal kept during the Civil War (1861-1865). 20th and 21st century American life writings to be discussed in class include Henry Adams’ The Education of Henry Adams (1907), the jazz autobiographies written by Louis Armstrong (1954) and Miles Davis (1990), the Native American life narrative Halfbreed by Maria Campbell, Paul Auster’s postmodernist The Invention of Solitude (1982), and Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father (1995, 2004). As to visual life writings, we will examine a “biopic” of your choice, the American classic Patton (dir. Franklin J. Schaffner, 1970), and Art Spiegelman’s 9/11 graphic novel In the Shadow of No Towers (2004). Overall, our main focus will be on narrative constructions of individual lives within their respective social, political, and historical contexts.
Required texts:
• Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography (Oxford World’s Classics).
• Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude (Faber and Faber).
• Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father (Canongate).
• A reader with primary and secondary texts will be made available at the beginning of the course.
