MLU
Project seminar: AM Englische Literatur: The Supernatural - Details
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General information

Course name Project seminar: AM Englische Literatur: The Supernatural
Course number ANG.03573.05
Semester WS 2021/22
Current number of participants 28
Home institute Englische Literatur und Kultur
Courses type Project seminar in category Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
First date Monday, 11.10.2021 10:30 - 12:00, Room: Seminarraum 3 [AKStr.35] (Angl.)
Type/Form Seminar
Participants Lehramtsstudierende (LAG, LAS, LA Fö)
Pre-requisites erfolgreich absolviertes Basismodul Literaturwissenschaft
Learning organisation Gaiman, Neil and Terry Pratchett. Good Omens. Gollancz, 2014.
Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. Ed. David Scott Kastan. Norton Critical Editions. 2005.
Performance record Referat (Studienleistung)
Mündliche Prüfung (Prüfungsleistung)
Studiengänge (für) LAS
LA Fö
LAG
SWS 2
ECTS points 5

Topics

Introduction and course requirements, Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, Coleridge, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Rossetti, Goblin Market, Kipling, The Bisara of Pooree, Nesbit, The Shadow, Pratchett & Gaiman, Good Omens, Reading Week, Conclusion & oral exam prep

Module assignments

Comment/Description

The supernatural comes in many guises, and has long been a motif of literature before becoming a genre. Starting with Christopher Marlowe’s play _Doctor Faustus_ (1592) and its invocation of devils, via Coleridge’s cursed sailors in the “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” (1798) to Christina Rossetti’s fantastical creatures of “Goblin Market” (1862), the rupture and dissociation created by the demonic other was originally firmly consigned to the safety of medieval or fairy-tale times. If the supernatural was contemporary, at least it was removed in space, and part of the exotic, colonial world, as in Kipling’s short story “The Bisara of Pooree” (1887) – though Kipling wrote it for his local, Anglo-Indian readership first. Edith Nesbit’s “The Shadow” presents the contemporary supernatural as opaque, never to be understood (and many are the readings trying to resolve that enigma) and, though removed by a generation, still with enough force to cause death in the present. Finally, the last text we will encounter, Pratchett and Gaiman’s novel _Good Omens_ (1990), taps deeply into all these traditions and presents a witty parody of all things supernatural. Please buy an edition of _Good Omens_ and the Norton edition of Marlowe's play for this course; the other texts will be provided by Stud-IP for download. You can obtain credit by active participation, an oral presentation, and an end-of-term oral exam. Students are requested to have read the A text from the Norton edition of Doctor Faustus by the second week of term!