Seminar: Henry James: Selected Novels - Details

Seminar: Henry James: Selected Novels - Details

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General information

Course name Seminar: Henry James: Selected Novels
Subtitle [Aufbaumodul] Amerikanische Literatur; Aufbaumodul Amerikanistik Literatur I; Aufbaumodul: Amerikanistik Literatur I
Semester SS 2017
Current number of participants 6
Home institute Amerikanistik / Literaturwissenschaft
Courses type Seminar in category Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
First date Monday, 03.04.2017 18:15 - 19:45, Room: (Adam-Kuckhoff-Str. 35, SR 3)
Pre-requisites Students who have successfully passed their "Introduction to Literary Studies” (Basismodul Einführung in die englische und amerikanische Literaturwissenschaft) are welcome to this course on selected novels by Henry James.
Learning organisation In order for students to pick up some 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 (OPAC, MLA-IB and other databases) 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.
Performance record Students will need to pass three quizzes if they want credit for this seminar. Quizzes are tests checking on whether students have read the novels. Please, do not miss more than two sessions as classes on Mondays will meet only twelve times this semester. (The legal view on Anwesenheitspflicht is preposterous as it ignores the fact that we practice speaking and arguing in English in our seminars.) All students are expected to participate actively in discussions. Also, students must present in class (20 mins. plus discussion) on a topic to be arranged with the lecturer. It must be accompanied by a handout (Thesenpapier). Please, send your handout to the lecturer a week before your presentation is due. A copy of the reviewed handout must be available to all students on the day of 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 July). The BA essays are due at the end of September.
Studiengänge (für) [Aufbaumodul] Amerikanische Literatur ANG.03202.02 LA
Aufbaumodul: Amerikanische Literatur ANG.05280.03 LA
Aufbaumodul Amerikanistik Literatur I ANG.04628.03 BA
Aufbaumodul: Amerikanistik Literatur I ANG.06158.01BA
SWS 2
Miscellanea 1. PRIMARY [PLEASE, PURCHASE THESE EDITIONS SO WE CAN USE THEM IN CLASS]
James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady: An Authoratitative Text, Henry James and the Novel, Reviews and Criticism. Ed. Robert D. Bamberg. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 1995. Print. A Norton critical edition.
[ISBN 978-0-393-96646-6] [ca. € 9]
James, Henry. Washington Square. Ed. Martha Banta. London: Penguin Classics, 2007. Print.
[ISBN 978-0141-44136-8] [ca. € 8,5]
James, Henry. Daisy Miller: A Study. Ed. with an introduction and notes by David Lodge. London: Penguin Classics, 2007.
[ISBN 978-0-141-44134-4] [ca. 6 €]

2. SECONDARY MATERIAL
There is a great wealth of secondary material on Henry James and his works. Please, use the titles below for general orientation and consult the MLA International Bibliography (available at MLU's library  Datenbanken) for sources on the three novels we are reading this semester. Pay special attention to the Norton Critical Edition of The Portrait of a Lady (see above) and to Michael Gorra's Portrait of a Novel (see below).

Did you know that as a student at MLU you are entitled to a free version of Citavi? Citavi manages your sources and, among many other things, produces bibliographies in MLA style with a click of your mouse. Check details at <bibliothek.uni-halle.de/benutz/citavi/>.

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, England: Cambridge UP, 2011. 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.
Gorra, Michael E. Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece. New York, N.Y.: Liveright Publishing, 2012. Print.
Hacht, Anne Marie, and Dwayne D. Hayes, eds. Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of World Literature. 4 vols. Detroit: Gale, Cengage Learning, 2009. Print.
Marcus, Greil, and Werner Sollors. A New Literary History of America. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 2009. Print. Harvard UP Reference Library.
Zapf, Hubert, and Helmbrecht Breinig, eds. Amerikanische Literaturgeschichte. 3rd ed. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2010. Print.
ECTS points 5

Rooms and times

(Adam-Kuckhoff-Str. 35, SR 3)
Monday: 18:15 - 19:45, weekly (12x)

Module assignments

Comment/Description

The American author Henry James (1843-1916) was born in New York, but he spent much of his life in Europe making London and Rye on the Isle of Wight his European homes becoming an English citizen a year before he died. James wrote many novels, short stories, and even tried his luck at playwriting. Among his friends were important American writers and critics (St. Crane, W. D. Howells, E. Wharton) as well as European authors (J. Conrad, I. Turgenev, H. G. Wells). He is often associated with the "international theme," the exploration of the difference between America and Europe, and he is sometimes called an author of the American novel of manners. Quite often the lifelong bachelor made young American women protagonists of his novels.
This is also the case for the novels we are reading this semester. The shortest of them, Daisy Miller: A Study (1878), is about the flirtatious American Daisy who shuns European rules of social behavior and eventually pays a high price for her insistence on being a daring American in Rome. Washington Square (1880) takes us to New York City where in about 1850 Catherine Sloper is torn between her cold and heartless father and a handsome young man of questionable reputation. The father takes his daughter to Europe to create some distance between his daughter and her suitor, who seems more interested in the heritage she expects to inherit from her father than in Catherine as an increasingly independent woman. The longest of the novels we are reading this term is The Portrait of a Lady (1881) which tells the story of yet another young American woman whose inheritance makes her interesting not only to men who appreciate her character. In Europe the American learns about the pitfalls of fortunes but shows a great deal of appreciation for her independence.