Seminar in der Kategorie Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
Erster Termin
Dienstag, 06.10.2015 18:00 - 20:00
Studiengänge (für)
AMG. 03927.01 und ANG.03928.01; MA Angloamerikanische Literatur, Sprache und Kultur 120 LP; MA Englische Sprache und Literatur 45/75 LP;
ANG.03220.02 und ANG.03208.01: LAG, LAS, LAF;
ANG.05292.01: LAS, LAG, LAF ab WS 2012/13 und MA ab WS 2015/16
The critic Lucinda MacKethan argues that the American South has “its own literary genres – its particular sets of forms or organizing motifs – as much as it has a history and manners” (Southern Spaces). Rather than relying on the relatively fixed periodization of Southern literature found in traditional literary histories, she presents an overview of Southern literature based on a selection of key genres that not only shape the way we understand Southern texts, but also promote specific versions of Southern culture. In this course, we will first discuss the relationship between the South, its ideology, and literary conventions (i.e. genres) before we explore a variety of genres, such as the plantation novel, the slave narrative, southwestern humor, southern pastoral and “counter-pastoral,” southern modernism, and the southern grotesque, and examine in more depth the work of representative authors: for instance, Frederick Douglass, John Pendleton Kennedy, Mary Chesnut, Kate Chopin, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and Ernest J. Gaines. We will also pay attention to recent movies that are firmly entrenched in Southern genres such as Django Unchained (2012) and 12 Years a Slave (2013). A special highlight will be the lecture on “Narratives About the American South” by Winfried Fluck (Berlin).
Required texts:
Course material will be made available on Stud.IP.
