MLU
Seminar: Dystopian Masterpieces - Vertiefungsmodul - Details
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Veranstaltungsname Seminar: Dystopian Masterpieces - Vertiefungsmodul
Veranstaltungsnummer siehe "Details"
Semester WS 2019/20
Aktuelle Anzahl der Teilnehmenden 14
erwartete Teilnehmendenanzahl 20
Heimat-Einrichtung Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
Veranstaltungstyp Seminar in der Kategorie Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
Erster Termin Dienstag, 15.10.2019 14:00 - 16:00, Ort: Seminarraum 2 [AKStr.35] (Angl.)
Studiengänge (für) ANG.03210.01 für LAG, LAS (2007)
ANG.04629.02 für LAG, LAS, LAF (2012, 2015) / MA Engl. Sprache und Literatur 45/75 LP / MA Angloam. Literatur, Sprache und Kultur 120 LP
SWS 2

Modulzuordnungen

Kommentar/Beschreibung

Why do we have this tremendous desire for fictional disasters? Just a quick glance at trendy Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu TV series, such as Black Mirror, Fringe, Westworld, Colony, and 3%, suffices to demonstrate that popular culture is enamored with and tries to satisfy our immense appetite for dystopian and (post-) apocalyptic narratives. In her 1965 essay “The Imagination of Disaster,” Susan Sontag argues that since “we live under continual threat of … inconceivable terror,” disasters as fantasy can distract us from such terror and, at the same time, they can “normalize what is psychologically unbearable, thereby inuring us to it” (42). But do not dystopian and (post-)apocalyptic narratives serve other purposes as well? Do they not want us to change the ways we think and act? Do they not serve as imaginary foils to criticize contemporary societies? In this seminar, we will begin with a discussion of a few theoretical underpinnings of dystopian and (post-)apocalyptic narratives and then focus on three or four masterpieces written in the twentieth- and twenty-first century: George Orwell’s 1984 (1948) or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) or Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993), and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006) – we will determine the novels for our course in the first session (I’m also open to your suggestions). Apart from tracing the history of the dystopian and (post-)apocalyptic novel from the past to the present, we will discuss a wide spectrum of topics ranging from totalitarianism and omnipresent government surveillance, patriarchal regimes that repress women, and widespread racism to global climate change and existential issues. Additionally, we will examine the filmic/serial adaptations of selected novels (e.g., Hulu’s TV-series called The Handmaid’s Tale, 2017- , and the 2009 film The Road directed by John Hillcoat).