Prof. Dr. Bernd Engler

HS: THE LITERARY CONSTRUCTION OF AUTHORITY IN 18TH- AND 19TH- CENTURY AMERICA

Mi 16-18 Raum 04 Beginn: 22.10.

This course will deal with the (re-)formation of literary and public authority in post-revolu tionary America (primarily from the 1770s thru the 1820s). We will focus on the cultural strategies that were employed as a means of responding to the revolution's fundamental questioning of all claims to authority (political, social, religious etc.), and we will analyze the effects the cultural and social re-negotiations of authority had on the literary system and the profession of authorship in the early 19th century.

Texts: William Hill Brown, The Power of Sympathy, and Hannah Webster Foster, The Coquette (Penguin 0-14-043468-2); Susanna Rowson, Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple (Penguin 0-14-039080-4); Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland (Penguin 0-14-039079-0). A reader with additional material will be supplied by the beginning of October.

Registration: Im Sekretariat der Abteilung für Amerikanistik (Zi. 558), ab dem 7. Juli.

Professor Ethel M. Smith

HS: THE SLAVE NARRATIVE AND ITS TRADITIONS

Wed 18-20 Room 04 Beginn: 22.10.

The course will address the history of African-American literature from its mid-eighteenth-century beginnings to the Civil Rights Movement. We will examine transcripts of oral folk productions, slave narratives, speeches, autobiographies, essays, poetry and prose fiction in order to trace the rapid development of African-American literary culture from a primarily oral tradition. We will pay particularly close attention to the various rhetorical qualities of the works in order to identify key aspects of early African-American literary practice.

Texts: Jacobs, Harriet Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harvard UP); Keckley, Elizabeth Behind the Scenes; Washington, Booker T. Up From Slavery (Norton); Morrison, Toni Tar Baby; Morrison, Toni Beloved; Gaines, Ernest Jr. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman; Douglass, Frederick Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Penguin).

Requirements: Regular participation, oral report, term paper.

Registration: Sekretariat der Abteilung für Amerikanistik (Zimmer 558), ab dem 7. Juli.

Professor Ethel M. Smith

HS: WOMEN WRITERS OF THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE AND THEIR HEIRS

Fr 9-11 Room 406 Beginn: 17.10.

The Harlem Renaissance, the literary artistic arm of a massive social movement, with roots in the broken promises of post-Reconstruction America, offers at least a decade of fairly clear communal and nationalist assertion, focused in the work of African-American artists. The Harlem Renaissance becomes, in fact, the most vivid outcome of a second African Diaspora, when large numbers of Black people living in the southern United States fled the high tide of the "reign of terror," staged in the terrorist manoeuvres of the Ku-Klux Klan. Though Harlem Renaissance poetry is more widely known than fiction, it is in the latter arena that significant women writers of the period made their appearance. Throughout the years it has also been the women's voices of the period that have been silenced. We will examine many of the Harlem Renaissance writers, to see what impact they have had on later Black women writers.

Texts: Hurston, Zora Neale Their Eyes Were Watching God; Larsen, Nella Passing and Quicksand; Fauset, Jessie Plum Bun; West, Dorothy The Living is Easy and The Wedding; Petry, Ann The Street; Morrison, Toni Jazz.

Requirements: Regular participation, oral report, term paper.

Registration: Sekretariat der Abteilung für Amerikanistik (Zimmer 558), ab dem 7. Juli.

Prof. Dr. Horst Tonn

HS: NORMAN MAILER

Di 18-20 Raum 120 Beginn: 21.10.

Norman Mailer is one of the most prominent, productive and controversial writers in the United States. His literary and journalistic work spans the entire period from the end of World War II to the present. No other contemporary American writer has more persistently explored the vagaries and riddles of his society. His topics range from politics and science to sports and pop culture. His public image has been equally shaped by his books as by his decidedly iconoclastic appearances in various settings.

In this seminar we will read several of Mailer's novel as well as follow his career as a public figure with considerable skills for self-dramatization. The work in this seminar will be organized around group work. Active participation in a group is required.

Texts: The Naked and the Dead (1948) An American Dream (1965) The Armies of the Night (1968) The Executioner's Song (1980)

Registration: Sekretariat Amerikanistik, Raum 558, ab 7. Juli.

Prof. Dr. Horst Tonn

HS: CULTURE STUDIES: The Civil Rights Movement in the United States

Do 9-12 Raum 04 Beginn: 16.10.

In this course we will study the variety of social forces and events that are commonly referred to as the Civil Rights Movement. Our explorations into the topic will center around the documentary TV series "Eyes on the Prize" (1985). The course will pursue two lines of inquiry: (1) based on readings and media sources we will construct our own version of the history of the Civil Rights Movement, (2) by analyzing "Eyes on the Prize" we will identify some of the strategies by which a culture can conceptualize its history in a popular medium.

The work in this seminar will be organized around group work. Active participation in a group is required. For methods of analysis John Fiske's Introduction to Communication Studies is required reading. A list of readings and media sources will be available at the beginning of the term.

Note! - Staatsexamen-candidates can get credit only for their ÒLandeskundeÓ-requirement.

Registration: Sekretariat Amerikanistik, Raum 558, ab dem 7. Juli.

Prof. Dr. Alfred Weber

HS: STUDIEN ZUR GESCHICHTE DER AMERIKANISCHEN KÜNSTLER- ERZÄHLUNG

Fr 13-16 Raum 406 Beginn: 17.10.

Seit dem späten 18. Jahrhundert entstanden in den USA eine zunehmende Zahl von sogenannten ÒKünstlererzählungen:Ó Erzählungen, in denen ein Künstler erscheint und in denen Probleme des künstlerischen Schaffens und der Rolle des Künstlers in der Gesellschaft thematisiert werden. Das Seminar kann sich auf umfangreiche bibliographische Vorarbeiten stützen und wird versuchen, anhand einer Auswahl wichtiger Short-Story-Autoren und ca. 45 ihrer repräsentativen Erzählungen den gattungsgeschichtlichen Entwicklungen nachzugehen, die sich im Laufe von 200 Jahren in diesem thematischen Bereich der amerikanischen Kurzgeschichte feststellen lassen. Eine Stunde dieses dreistündigen Seminars wird jeweils für Vorträge des Seminarleiters und eingeladener Gäste sowie derjenigen Studenten reserviert, die sich in einer größeren Hausarbeit auf einen Autor oder ein spezielles Thema konzentrieren wollen. Neben den aktiven Teilnehmern, die einen Seminarschein erwerben wollen und von denen am Ende des Semesters eine Hausarbeit erwartet wird, ist eine begrenzte Zahl von Gästen zugelassen, die bereit sind, das volle Lektüreprogramm zu absolvieren und regelmäßig an den Seminardiskussionen teilzunehmen. In der ersten Sitzung am 17. Oktober, in der über die Teilnahme und den Arbeitsplan entschieden werden wird, sollten die Zwischenprüfungszeugnisse vorgelegt werden. Zu dieser Sitzung sind 2 Texte zu lesen: Nathaniel Hawthorne, ÒThe Artist of the Beautiful,Ó und Ernest Hemingway, ÒThe Snows of Kilimanjaro.Ó Das Seminar ist auf 25 Teilnehmer begrenzt und findet abwechselnd in deutscher und englischer Sprache statt. Anmeldung: Im Sekretariat der Abteilung für Amerikanistik (Zimmer 558) ab dem 7. Juli.