Seminar: AM Englische Literatur: Imperialism in British Literature - Details

Seminar: AM Englische Literatur: Imperialism in British Literature - Details

Allgemeine Informationen

Veranstaltungsname Seminar: AM Englische Literatur: Imperialism in British Literature
Semester WiSe 2026/27
Aktuelle Anzahl der Teilnehmenden 14
Heimateinrichtung Englische Literatur und Kultur
Veranstaltungstyp Seminar in der Kategorie Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
Nächster Termin Montag, 12.10.26, 08:15 - 09:45 Uhr Seminarraum 2 [AKStr.35] (Angl.)
Teilnehmende LAG, LAS, LA Fö
Voraussetzungen erfolgreich bestandenes Basismodul Literaturwissenschaft
Lernorganisation Brown, Natasha. Assembly. Penguin, 2022.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. ed. Michael Shinagel. Norton Critical Edition. Norton, 1994 (and following editions)
Jackson, Ashley. The British Empire: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2013.
Leistungsnachweis Studienleistung: Referat mit Handout
Prüfungsleistung: 30 min. mündliche Prüfung
Lehrsprache(n) Englisch
Studiengänge (für) LAG, LAS, LAFö
SWS 2
ECTS-Punkte 5

Kommentar/Beschreibung

This seminar traces the development of British imperial thought from the late sixteenth century to the present through a range of literary genres. Beginning with Richard Hakluyt's A Discourse on Western Planting (1584), a political tract advocating English colonial expansion, the course moves to Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), a crucial novel of colonial enterprise and self-fashioning. James Thomson's patriotic poem Rule, Britannia! (1740) celebrates Britain's emerging maritime power in the Long Eighteenth century, while William Blake's visionary poem Jerusalem (1804–20) offers a complex response to industrialization, nationhood, and empire. We then move into the Victorian age and examine W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado (1885), whose satirical use of a fictionalized Japan reflects Victorian attitudes toward empire and cultural difference, alongside Rudyard Kipling's short story Beyond the Pale (1888), which explores the racial and social boundaries of British India. The course concludes with Natasha Brown's Assembly (2021), a contemporary novel that examines the enduring legacies of empire, race, and class in modern Britain. In comparison, these texts will reveal how British literature has both promoted and challenged imperial ideologies across more than four centuries.