Teaching
HS: The Sentimental Mode in the Eighteenth Century
The eighteenth century gave rise to a new literary and philosophical mode that significantly shaped the cultural products, practices, and discourses of its time. In part a reaction to Enlightenment’s privileging of rationality, this so-called sentimental mode instead emphasises the importance of emotions and feelings. In our seminar, we will explore the ubiquity of the sentimental mode in the latter half of the eighteenth century; considering the large variety of genres and contexts (e.g., discourses about poverty, gender relations, or the abolition of slavery) in which it appears. After a brief historical introduction to the eighteenth century, we will focus on the key ideas connected to what is referred to as moral sentimentalism, i.e., the school of moral philosophy that forms the theoretical basis for the sentimental mode in eighteenth-century literature and culture at large. The remainder of the semester is then dedicated to the analysis of key literary texts that founded the sentimental literary tradition in the mid-eighteenth century (e.g., Henry Mackenzie’s The Man of Feeling or Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey) as well as later texts reacting to or even satirizing sentimental literature such as Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. In addition to the sentimental novel, we will also consider parallel developments in the field of theatre, where playwrights like Oliver Goldsmith (e.g., She Stoops to Conquer or The Good-Natur’d Man) similarly engaged with sentimental comedies that were highly popular a couple of decades earlier (e.g., Richard Steele’s The Conscious Lovers) in an ironic manner.
AS: Culture
AS Culture extends the knowledge and skills acquired in GS Culture and is structured along the lines of cultural theory, cultural history, and cultural analysis. The course also comprises case studies of texts in various media to illustrate respective approaches. Depending on the lecturer’s field of expertise, these examples will primarily focus on either Great Britain or the United States.
– Winter 2024/2025
PS: Contemporary British Drama: Genre, Themes, and Politics
For many people visiting London, going to the theatre to watch famous actors perform one of the latest dramas live on stage ranks very highly on their to-do list. Indeed, Britain can not only look back on a long tradition of playwrighting but also offers a vibrant, popular, and highly renowned contemporary theatre scene. In this seminar, we will explore some of the most recent developments and tendencies in 21st-century British drama. A key focus lies on the dramatic genre as a whole as well as on specific subgenres like history plays, postcolonial plays, political plays or the dystopian turn that characterizes recent British drama. Moreover, we will discuss a variety of the most common themes that feature prominently in many contemporary plays as well as in current political and societal discourses in Britain. In fact, British drama is highly political and strongly engages with current political affairs as well as with broader topics like climate change, environmentalism, nationalism, authoritarianism, or various forms of discrimination. Works by key playwrights such as Caryl Churchill (Far Away), Mike Bartlett (Earthquakes in London), Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem), and Tanika Gupta (The Empress) serve as case studies for our analysis of the themes, politics, and genre of contemporary British drama.
AS: Literature
Building on the knowledge acquired in Grundseminar Literature, this class serves as an introduction to literary theory. We will discuss several approaches and methods in depth and critically analyze their potential and limits by applying them to exemplary primary texts. In doing so, we will also reflect on how these different approaches and methods impact our understanding of literature.
GS: Culture
This seminar provides a first insight into the field of contemporary Cultural Studies, with a special emphasis on definitions of culture and on the different approaches and methods of cultural analysis. The course also introduces students to special topics such as Media Studies, constructions of otherness, the role of myths in the production of social meaning, and Gender Studies.
– Summer 2024
PS: Anglophone Postcolonial Literatures
This seminar aims to provide students with a first introduction to the large field of postcolonial literatures written in the English language. After a brief introduction to postcolonial studies as well as its key concepts and thinkers, the main focus of the seminar then lies on the analysis of selected literary texts that will serve as case studies. A key focus of this course lies on the different textual strategies (rewriting/writing back, history writing, place writing, life writing) that are commonly employed in literature from this field. In addition, we will also employ key concepts from postcolonial studies to the texts discussed in class. Overall, the course attempts to capture the diversity and wide range of the field of postcolonial literatures which comprises texts written by authors with different geographical and cultural backgrounds (Caribbean, Indian, African, South East Asian, Irish, etc.) as well as different genres (we will mostly be looking at narrative fiction and poetry). Further identity categories such as gender, ethnicity, class, etc. will also be taken into consideration in our discussions.
AS: Culture
AS Culture extends the knowledge and skills acquired in GS Culture and is structured along the lines of cultural theory, cultural history, and cultural analysis. The course also comprises case studies of texts in various media to illustrate respective approaches. Depending on the lecturer’s field of expertise, these examples will primarily focus on either Great Britain or the United States.
– Winter 2023/2024
AS: Culture
AS Culture extends the knowledge and skills acquired in GS Culture and is structured along the lines of cultural theory, cultural history, and cultural analysis. The course also comprises case studies of texts in various media to illustrate respective approaches. Depending on the lecturer’s field of expertise, these examples will primarily focus on either Great Britain or the United States.
GS: Culture
This seminar provides a first insight into the field of contemporary Cultural Studies, with a special emphasis on definitions of culture and on the different approaches and methods of cultural analysis. The course also introduces students to special topics such as Media Studies, constructions of otherness, the role of myths in the production of social meaning, and Gender Studies.
PS: Shakespeare and Constructions of (British) National Identity
When asked to list famous British authors, one of the first names that comes to many people’s minds is William Shakespeare. Not only did Shakespeare had a significant impact on the country’s literature and language, but his works also played a crucial role in shaping British/English national identity. This applies especially to Shakespeare’s history plays, which depict the lives of former British Kings and important historical events. In this seminar, we will take a closer look at two examples, Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry V, in order to investigate the images of Britishness they construct. In our discussion, we will also take the representations of regional identities, e.g. Scottish and Welsh, as well as that of different social classes into consideration. As a basis for our analyses, the seminar will also introduce students to Early modern theatre as well as to key theories and concepts about national identity. Moreover, the seminar will also provide an outlook into the present as we will investigate the ways in which Shakespearean notions of Britishness persist until this day as well as how the Bard is now used as a signifier for Britishness for various purposes.
– Summer 2023
PS: Contemporary British Historical Fiction
In the last couple of years, there has been a significant tendency in British culture and society to look back to the country’s past. This can for instance be observed in Brexit’s central slogan ‘take back control’, which nostalgically promises the restoration of an allegedly lost golden age, or the popularity of the historical fiction genre. Drawing on current research, we will discuss the main characteristics of this genre and compare different ways in which these cultural products represent and engage with British history. In doing so, the seminar will also touch upon key issues such as national identity, gender, class, nostalgia, and revisions of history. In our analysis, we will take different media forms such as novels, films or TV series and the differences between them into consideration.
AS: Culture
AS Culture extends the knowledge and skills acquired in GS Culture and is structured along the lines of cultural theory, cultural history, and cultural analysis. The course also comprises case studies of texts in various media to illustrate respective approaches. Depending on the lecturer’s field of expertise, these examples will primarily focus on either Great Britain or the United States.
Paderborn University: English Literary and British Cultural Studies + Teaching English as a Foreign Language
– Winter 2022/2023
PS: Borders and National / European Identity: (Northern) Irish and British Perspectives
In this seminar, we will investigate the role of borders in the (trans)formation of regional and national identities on the Irish isle across various historical periods. Of special significance for our analysis are the time of British colonisation, the Partition of Ireland, the civil war in Northern Ireland known as “The Troubles”, the years of the “Celtic Tiger” boom as well as the current situation concerning Brexit and the Northern Ireland Protocol. Indeed, the result of the 2016 EU referendum impacts Ireland as much as Britain. To better understand this most recent development, we will consider (Northern) Irish as well as British perspectives on Brexit, border issues, and European identity. In this present context, another key focus for our discussion also lies on these imagined communities’ attitudes towards immigration. For our investigation of the aforementioned topics and periods, we will draw on a large variety of cultural products such as literary texts, films/TV series, political rhetoric as well as texts from traditional and social media.
– Summer 2019
PS: Teaching Popular Culture
Popular cultural products are an important part of contemporary culture and as such should be included in the EFL classroom. In this seminar we will focus on various popular texts such as young adult novels, films, graphic novels and slam poetry as well as different approaches how to teach them in the EFL classroom. In the first sessions we will look at general concepts relevant for the teaching of culture (cultural learning, intercultural learning, transcultural learning, ICC) as well as establish a theoretical basis for the discussion and analysis of the use of popular cultural products in the EFL classroom.
– Winter 2018/2019
PS: Teaching Literature in the EFL Classroom
In this seminar we will explore various ways of teaching literature in the EFL classroom. The focus is on planning literature-related lessons for learners in Sekundarstufe 1 and 2. At first, we will look at the curricula and guidelines from North Rhine Westphalia’s Ministerium für Schule und Bildung. In a next step, we will discuss theories about the integration of literature into the EFL classroom, with an emphasis on how literature can be used to support the learners’ development of intercultural competencies. This will serve as the basis for the planning of lessons. For the rest of the semester we will explore literary examples from the genres poetry, drama and prose. We will use a practical approach, as you are expected to develop your own tasks and activities as well as plan lessons, which we will then discuss in class.
Ruhr University Bochum: British Cultural Studies and English Literature
– Summer 2021
PS: Nostalgia in Contemporary British Culture and Society
Contemporary Britain is characterised by a fixation on its past as well as nostalgia for its former glory. This can for instance be seen within the context of Brexit, where nostalgic rhetoric and traditional notions of Englishness played a central role. Such a widespread feeling of nostalgia is also mirrored in British culture, most notably the multitude of nostalgic historical fiction produced in the last couple of years, e.g. the film Darkest Hour(2017) or the TV series The Crown (2016-).
This course will focus on the political, societal and cultural manifestations of the prevalent feeling of nostalgia in contemporary Britain. First, we will discuss theoretical texts on nostalgia and the dominant role it currently plays in the UK. Participants will be introduced to cultural theories and concepts, which will later on be applied to a variety of cultural products, e.g. print and social media, political rhetoric, films and TV series. The analyses especially focus on how these products support or might even challenge nostalgic sentiments and notions about the country’s past. In the last part of the semester, students will be conducting their own research projects in small groups and are expected to present their results to the class.
– Winter 2020/2021
PS: BrexLit: Literary Responses to Brexit and Current British Politics
Although the media coverage of Brexit has recently been overshadowed by that of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is currently gaining traction again as the deadline for a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU approaches. In the last couple of years, Brexit has been one of the most important political topics that has shaped British society and culture. The growing number of literary representations dealing with Brexit and related issues has led to the emergence of a new genre, for which Kristian Shaw coined the term ‘BrexLit’.
This course will provide an overview of the BrexLit genre as well as cultural factors that are significant for understanding the outcome of the referendum and the situation in pre- and post-Brexit Britain. We will take a closer look at some of the key texts from this genre: Ali Smith’s Summer, Jonathan Coe’s Middle England and Douglas Board’s Time of Lies. In our analysis of these novels we will employ methods from both literary studies as well as cultural studies concepts such as class and national identity.