MLU
Seminar: Novels of the American South - Details
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Veranstaltungsname Seminar: Novels of the American South
Untertitel [Aufbaumodul] Amerikanische Literatur - Aufbaumodul: Amerikanische Literatur - Aufbaumodul Amerikanistik Literatur I - Aufbaumodul: Amerikanistik Literatur I
Semester WS 2018/19
Aktuelle Anzahl der Teilnehmenden 16
Heimat-Einrichtung Amerikanistik / Literaturwissenschaft
Veranstaltungstyp Seminar in der Kategorie Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
Erster Termin Montag, 15.10.2018 18:15 - 19:45
Voraussetzungen Students who have successfully passed their "Introduction to Literary Studies" (Basismodul Einführung in die englische und amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft) are welcome to this course on novels originating in the American South, a region that stretches all the way from Maryland to Texas.
Lernorganisation In order for students to pick up skills necessary in academia, we will spend some time on how to do research and presentations as well as on how to write papers. The university library (HaLit, MLA-IB, OPAC) will be a topic as will be the Internet as a research tool (JStor, Google Scholar etc.). In addition, there will be an introduction to CITAVI and how to use that bibliographical tool. The MLA style sheet (7th ed., 2009) is our model for all written work. (Please, do NOT use MLA 8th ed., 2016.) How to write essays the way American colleges expect them to be written will also be discussed.
All students taking this class must have a copy of each novel in paper format and bring the relevant book to class. Not having it with you when we are dealing with it is unacceptable.
Leistungsnachweis Requirements
Students will need to pass four quizzes if they want credit for this seminar (tests checking on whether students have read the novels). They are expected not to miss more than three sessions and will have to participate actively in discussions. In addition, students must present in class (15-20 mins. plus 5-10 mins. discussion) on a topic to be arranged with the lecturer. Each student must present a handout (Thesenpapier) that is sent to the lecturer a week before the presentation is due. A paper copy of the reviewed handout must be available to all students on the day of his/her presentation. Reading assignments (secondary literature) will be given on a weekly basis. Studying in groups is encouraged.
At the end of the semester BA students will have to write an essay/Hausarbeit (ca. 12-14 pages) whereas students planning to be teachers will have to take an oral exam of 30 mins. (probably in February 2019). The BA essays are due on 1 April 2019.
Studiengänge (für) ANG.03202.02 [Aufbaumodul] Amerikanische Literatur LA Gym, LA Sek
ANG.05280.03 Aufbaumodul: Amerikanische Literatur LA Gym, LA Sek ab WS 2012/13
ANG.04628.03 Aufbaumodul Amerikanistik Literatur I BA Anglistik und Amerikanistik 60/90 LP
ANG.06158.01 Aufbaumodul: Amerikanistik Literatur I BA Anglistik und Amerikanistik 60/90 LP
(ab WS 2015/16)
SWS 2
Sonstiges LITERATURE
Did you know that as a student at MLU you are entitled to a free version of software that helps students find and organize academic literature? This software is very valuable when it comes to managing your bibliographies. Go to <bibliothek.uni-halle.de/benutz/litverwalt/> for more information on "Citavi", "EndNote", "Mendeley", and "Zotero."

PRIMARY
Gaines, Ernest. A Gathering of Old Men. New York: Vintage, 1992; 11983.
[ISBN: 978-0-67-973890-9]
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel. With a foreword by Edwidge Danticat and an afterword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006; 11937. Print.
[ISBN: 978-0-06-083867-6]
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 50th Anniversary Edition. London: Arrow Books, 2010; 11960. Print.
[ISBN: 978-0-09-954948-2]
Percy, Walker. The Moviegoer. New York: Methuen, 2004; 11961. Print.
[ISBN: 978-0-41-377327-2]

SECONDARY SOURCES
Andrews, William L., ed. The Literature of the American South: A Norton Anthology. New York, NY: Norton, 1998. Print. [incl. 1 Audio-CD]
Ayers, Edward L., ed. The Oxford Book of the American South: Testimony, Memory, and Fiction. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 1997. Print.
Bendixen, Alfred, ed. A Companion to the American Novel. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2012; pb. 2015. Print. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture 80.
Cassuto, Leonard, Clare V. Eby, and Benjamin Reiss, eds. The Cambridge History of the American Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.
Flora, Joseph M., and Robert Bain, eds. Contemporary Fiction Writers of the South: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. Print.
Elliott, Emory, gen. ed. Columbia Literary History of the United States. New York: Columbia UP, 1988. Print.
Engler, Bernd, and Kurt Müller. Metzler Lexikon amerikanischer Autoren. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000. Print.
Graham, Maryemma, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the African American Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. Print.
Gray, Richard, and Owen Robinson, eds. A Companion to the Literature and Culture of the American South. Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub., 2004. Print.
Hönnighausen, Lothar and Valeria Gennaro Lerda, eds. Rewriting the South: History and Fiction. Tübingen: Francke, 1993. Print.
Jarrett, Gene Andrew, ed. A Companion to African American literature. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Blackwell companions to literature and culture. [Online version of Companion to African American Literature. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Marcus, Greil, and Werner Sollors, eds. A New Literary History of America. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2009. Print. Harvard UP Reference Library. pb ed. 2012.
Werlock, Abby H. P., ed. The Facts on File Companion to the American Novel. New York: Facts on File, 2006. Print. Facts on File library of American literature.
Zacharasiewicz, Waldemar. Die Erzählkunst des amerikanischen Südens. Darmstadt: Wiss. Buchges., 1990. Print. Erträge der Forschung, 270.
Zapf, Hubert, and Helmbrecht Breinig, eds. Amerikanische Literaturgeschichte. 3rd ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2010. Print.
ECTS-Punkte 5

Themen

Gray, Writing Southern Cultures, Lee, _Mockingbird_ - V. Müller, Lee, _Mockingbird_ - Tradition vs. Innovation - S. Lindner; D. Qasem, Lee, _Mockingbird_; D. Qasem; W. Mildner; O. Kosinska - Assignment bibliography, Hurston, _Eyes_ - J. Paulke; E. Brzoska; Assignment bibliography, Hurston, _Eyes_ - Th. Lieske; M. Krüger, Hurston, _Eyes_ - A.-V. Weigmann; S. Bethke, Gaines, _Gathering_ - R. Zabel; D. Duong, Gaines, _Gathering_ - D. Wendler; A. M. Köhler, Gaines, _Gathering_ - M. Wagner, Percy, _Moviegoer_ - C. Lindhorst; L. Schramm, Percy, _Moviegoer_ - L. Pütsch: Th. Vu, Percy, _Moviegoer_ - H. Vogt, Feedback - Gray, The South

Modulzuordnungen

Kommentar/Beschreibung

The rich literary tradition of the American South is reflected in the writings of authors such as George Washington Cable, Erskine Caldwell, Charles Chesnutt, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Eudora Welty to name but a few. Some parts were originally French, others were influenced by Spanish traditions. For centuries wealth and poverty were created in a society that thought it depended on slavery. The Civil War (1861-65) avoided secession of the South from the North, but it neither solved social problems nor conflicts between blacks and whites.
For our seminar I have chosen four novels three of which were also made into movies. We will start with Harper Lee's (1926-2016) Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) which is set in a small town in Alabama during the Great Depression and is told from the perspective of a schoolgirl whose father is an attorney. He defends an African American who is accused of raping a white woman. The reader is confronted with the world of a small town in the American South with prejudice, racism and white supremacy in the 1930s. The movie won Gregory Peck an Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Actor in 1963.
A very different perspective is presented in Zora Neale Hurston's (1901-1960) novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) which was rediscovered by Alice Walker in the 1970s. Set in Florida in the late 1920s it is the story of African American protagonist Janie who emancipates herself from her grandmother's traditional ideas and starts to live an independent life in the South. Based on a script by Suzan-Lorie Parks the novel was turned into a moving picture in 2005.
Ernest J. Gaines (*1933) was born in Louisiana which often provides the backdrop for the novelist's Southern world. His career started in the early 1960s. Among his many novels is A Gathering of Old Men (1983) which explores the question of solidarity among black men after a the son of a Cajun farmer is killed. Gaines lets each man tell his story in the first person providing the reader with many perspectives and eventually a surprise ending in the Mexican standoff between the white posse and the African American community. German movie director Volker Schlöndorff turned Gaines's novel into a movie in 1987 starring Richard Widmark as sheriff.
Finally we will be reading The Moviegoer (1961) by Walker Percy (1916-1990) which is set in post WW II New Orleans against the backdrop of Mardi Gras. Its protagonist Binx Bolling is an unmarried broker who at the age of almost thirty prefers to go to the movies instead of moving himself. When he meets troubled Kate he finally decides to take up the risk of living instead of watching other people live life on the moviescreen. Percy's philosophical penchant for Kierkegaard makes this a novel in the existentialist tradition. It was translated into German by Peter Handke, and Sibylle Lewitscharoff made The Moviegoer the novel to discuss when she accepted the honor of the Dozentur für Weltliteratur at Cologne University in 2012.

Anmelderegeln

Diese Veranstaltung gehört zum Anmeldeset "Zeitgesteuerte Anmeldung: Novels of the American South".
Folgende Regeln gelten für die Anmeldung:
  • Die Anmeldung ist möglich von 01.09.2018, 08:30 bis 14.10.2018, 12:00.