(32 003)
- Ex - |
Examensworkshop
(2 SWS) (2 cr) |
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Das Ende Deines Studiums steht kurz bevor? Du möchtest Examen machen, hast aber keine Ahnung, was Dir blüht? Oder Du bist mitten in den Prüfungen und brauchst noch Rat, wie Du für die Klausur lernen kannst? Dann bist Du richtig im Examensworkshop am John-F.-Kennedy-Institut:
Ziel dieses Kurses ist es, Examenskandidaten im Fach Nordamerikastudien organisatorisch und methodisch in allen Phasen der Vorbereitung und während ihres Examens zu unterstützen. Neben Hilfe bei der Anmeldung geht es um all die Fragen und Probleme, die Examenskandidaten zu einer eingeschworenen Gemeinschaft machen:
Wie finde ich die Themen für meine Magisterarbeit und meine Prüfungsfächer? Was ist ein Exposé, und warum muss ich es schreiben? Wo lässt sich die relevante Forschungsliteratur für meine Arbeit finden, und wie organisiere ich meine Notizen? Wie schreibe ich eine Einleitung und finde eine gute Gliederung für meine Arbeit? Wie bereite ich mich am besten auf die Klausur in Nordamerikastudien vor und punkte in der mündlichen Prüfung?
Das Examen ist kein Zuckerschlecken. In diesem Kurs aber lernst Du Methoden und Strategien, wie Du es erfolgreich hinter Dich bringen kannst. Grundlage dafür ist Deine regelmäßige und aktive Mitarbeit. You can do it (together with us)! |
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Kurs I (Schwerpunkt: Literatur, Kultur und Sprache) Mo 16.00-18.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 203 (Seminarraum) |
(16.10.) |
Katja Urbatsch |
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Kurs II (Schwerpunkt: Geschichte, Politik, Soziologie und Wirtschaft) Di 16.00-18.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 319 (Seminarraum) |
(17.10.) |
Ariane Neumann |
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32 211
- HS - |
Serialität
(2 SWS) (7 cr); Di 10.00-12.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 319 (Seminarraum) |
(17.10.) |
Ulla Haselstein |
Mit dem Konzept der Serialität verbinden sich seit dem 19. Jahrhundert höchst unterschiedliche Phänomene: eine kommerzielle Ästhetik der Unterhaltung, die unter dem Druck ökonomischer Faktoren verschiedene Typen von Wiederholung ausbildet, steht experimentellen Praktiken in Musik und Literatur gegenüber. Das Seminar wird serielle Phänomene und Kozepte der Serialität gleichermaßen behandeln. Diskutiert werden u.a. Whitman, Stein, Ginsberg; Warhol und die Minimal Art; serielle Musik; TV Serien.
Einführende Literatur: Umberto Eco, "Serialität im Universum der Kunst und Massenmedien", Katharina Sykora, Das Phänomen des Seriellen in der Kunst, Christine Blättler, "Überlegungen zu Serialität als ästhetischem Begriff". |
Sprechstunden Ulla Haselstein: Do, 10 - 12
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32 212
- HS - |
The "Sixties"
(2 SWS) (7 cr); Di 16.00-18.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 201 (Seminarraum) |
(17.10.) |
Ulla Haselstein |
Den Gegenstand des Seminars bildet die Literatur der 1960er Jahre, einer Zeit des kulturellen Umbruchs in den USA. Die Texte reagieren auf die internationalen politischen Krisen der Zeit und reflektieren die Spannungen innerhalb der Gesellschaft der USA. Ihre formalen Innovationen stehen meist im Zusammenhang mit der neu entstehenden Jugendkultur und einem ästhetisch wie politisch motivierten Konzept der Revolte. Das Seminar wird sich neben einer Bestandsaufnahme insbesondere den Wechselbeziehungen zwischen ästhetischen und politischen Utopien widmen.
Literatur: Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five; Jack Kerouac, On the Road; Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation; Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49; Norman Mailer, Armies of the Night; Joseph Heller, Catch 22; William Burroughs, The Soft Machine; James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time; Robert Lowell, For the Union Dead; Allen Ginsberg, Wichita Vortex Sutra. |
Sprechstunden Ulla Haselstein: Do, 10 - 12
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32 220
- HS - |
Confessional Poetry
(2 SWS) (7 cr) (Englisch); Mo 12.00-14.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 201 (Seminarraum) |
(16.10.) |
Andrew Gross |
This course will explore the poetry of the 1950s and 1960s that is labelled “confessional” because of a preoccupation with personal matters exceeding even Whitman’s, and standing in direct contradiction to Eliot’s modernist definition of poetry as “impersonal.” The confessional poets we will be dealing with are Robert Lowell, John Berryman, Robert Creeley, Sylvia Plath, Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, and—often considered the contemporary counter-example to the confessionals—James Merrill. There is much debate over the usefulness of the term and over the poets to whom it might be most usefully applied. Even those who accept the accuracy of the “confessional” label tend to use it disparagingly, declaring the experiment at an impasse by the 1970s, and admonishing certain poets (the lists tend to vary) for their curious mixture of public revelation and private misery. One common objection to the confessional mode is that its “jargon of authenticity” finds resonance not with the general reading public but with an “in group” of readers schooled in writers’ workshops and therapy groups. We will take the academic orientation of this “seminar poetry” as a starting point, focusing on confessional poetry’s unique combination of personal experience and institutional vocabulary. Of particular concern will be the centrality of trauma and suffering as authorizing elements of the lyrical voice. We will also explore the place of the lyric in Cold War society, formations of subjectivity in the post-industrial age, and the role (and possibility) of oppositional aesthetics in the context of consensus politics.
A course reader will be available in the copy shop on Königen-Luise-Strasse before the beginning of the semester. |
Sprechstunden Andrew Gross: Di, 14.30 - 15.30
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32 221
- HS - |
Thomas Paine
(2 SWS) (7 cr) (Englisch); Di 12.00-14.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 319 (Seminarraum) |
(17.10.) |
Andrew Gross |
This course will explore some of the major ideas and conflicts of the American Enlightenment through the extremely influential and controversial essays of Thomas Paine. The struggles between democracy and tyranny, rights and compulsions, “natural” and scriptural religion, reason and superstition, are clearly dramatized in Paine’s texts, but in a rhetoric that deliberately appeals to violent emotions and actions while patterning itself after the sermon. While the writing of those revolutionaries who have come to be known as the Founding Fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc.—is governed by what might be termed a “consensus aesthetic” or rhetoric of decorum, Paine has always been a polarizing figure in his writing, life, and legacy. Concentrating on both the controversy engendered by Paine and the extreme popularity he periodically enjoys, we will explore some of the major tensions at the heart of the American Revolution, emphasizing the way Paine understands its relation to the French Revolution, European politics in general, and, most broadly, to the universal project of human liberation. We will also explore the extent to which the American Revolution can be considered a literary event, and the degree to which the pre-eminent literary form of the day, the essay, is to be conceived political act.
Required texts (all by Thomas Paine):
Common Sense American Crisis Rights of Man, vol. 1 The Age of Reason, vol. 1 |
Sprechstunden Andrew Gross: Di, 14.30 - 15.30
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32 240
- HS - |
City and Nature: Texts, Images, Sounds
(2 SWS) (7 cr); Di 14.00-16.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 340 (Hörsaal) Achtung: Beginnt erst am 23.10.2006! |
(23.10.) |
Catrin Gersdorf,
Frank Mehring |
“The city—for better or worse—is our future.” If we agree with Richard Lehan’s observation we need to ask a set of crucial questions: What will the future (of the) city look like? How do we want to inhabit this future environment? What is its relationship to nature? This seminar will address these and similar questions by tracing back the cultural history of the city-nature relationship in the United States, and by examining representations of city and nature in literature, journalism, music, film, and the visual arts. Historically, the city signifies civilization’s desire to control, regulate, and ultimately substitute order and predictability for the chaos and unpredictability of ‘wild’ nature. As such, the city emerged as both an idea and a reality: it symbolizes the ideal of a perfect community whose identity is defined against the Otherness of nature and that which is defined as natural; and it exists as an architectural, social, and economic environment, protecting its inhabitants against nature’s vagaries. In America, the city-nature relationship has been articulated in various forms. It began with the Puritan ideal of a City-upon-a-Hill that rises above the (moral and natural) wilderness of the New World; during the 19th century, the City of the West combined America’s political and religious ideals, standing as a symbol of “radical equality and divine spaciousness” (Tuan); by the turn of the 20th century, the modern industrial city had morphed into a social-Darwinist “jungle” (U. Sinclair), in turn calling into action the reformers of the City Beautiful Movement (A.J. Downing, F.L. Olmsted) who saw nature as a means to alleviate the social and cultural tensions of the modern metropolis. During the latter part of the 20th century, particularly in the wake of the environmental movement and the cultural shift towards post-industrialism, efforts to rethink, reimagine and redesign the relationship between natural and urban spaces have returned to the agenda of artists, intellectuals, writers, landscape architects, and urban planners. Among the writers, critics, and artists we will discuss are Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, Audre Lorde, Paul Auster, Toni Morrison, Gerald Vizenor, Mike Davis, Charles Sheeler, Georgia O’Keeffe, John Cage, Frank Lloyd Wright, John Singleton. Reading material will be available in a reader and on Blackboard. For credits, regular attendance, an oral presentation, and a research paper (Hausarbeit) are required. The seminar will be held in English. |
Sprechstunden Catrin Gersdorf: Mi 10 - 11 und nach Vereinbarung
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32 251
- HS - |
Race, Identity, and Nation: Theoretical Perspectives
(2 SWS) (7 cr) (Englisch); Fr 10.00-12.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 203 (Seminarraum) |
(20.10.) |
Trimiko Melancon |
Examining literature written during various historical moments throughout the modern and postmodern periods, this course engages discourses and theories on race, identity, and nation, exploring the interplay of these apparatuses. Drawing upon a wide selection of critical scholarship, we will explore the ways critics of various ethnicities and nationalities—W.E.B. Du Bois, Anne McClintock, William Van Deburg, Wahneema Lubiano, Madhu Dubey, Patricia Hill Collins, and Ernest Gellner, among others—theorize about the politics of race, identity, and nation. We will read these scholars’ arguments and theorizations in conjunction with, as well as along the backdrop of selected African American texts: primarily, Nella Larsen’s Quicksand, Richard Wright’s Uncle Tom’s Children, James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, Toni Morrison’s Sula, Ann Allen Shockley’s Loving Her, and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple.
Required texts (suggested editions):
• Nella Larsen, Quicksand and Passing. ISBN: 0813511704. (Rutgers University Press) • Richard Wright, Uncle Tom’s Children. ISBN: 0060587148. (Harper Collins) • James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain. ISBN: 0440330076. (Dell) • Toni Morrison, Sula. ISBN: 1400033438. (Random House) • Ann Allen Shockley, Loving Her. ISBN: 1555533299. (Northeastern University Press) • Alice Walker, The Color Purple. ISBN: 0156028352. (Harvest) |
Sprechstunden Trimiko Melancon: nach Vereinbarung
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32 260
- HS - |
Migrantenliteratur im anglophonen und frankophonen Kanada
(2 SWS) (7 cr); Mi 10.00-12.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 203 (Seminarraum) Achtung: Beginn erst am Mi, 25.10.06! |
(25.10.) |
Heinrich Ickstadt,
Peter Klaus |
In beiden kanadischen Kulturen ergreifen seit den 1980er Jahren zunehmend Migranten der ersten und zweiten Generation das Wort und bringen sich in das künstlerische Schaffen Kanadas (und Québecs) ein. Sie tun das als bildende Künstler, Filme- und Theatermacher und vor allem als Schriftsteller. In der Literatur des frankophonen Kanada (vor allem Québecs) ist der Beitrag der allophonen wie auch der frankophonen Migranten seit etwa 1983 ebenso bemerkenswert wie programmatisch (etwa in der Zeitschrift Vice Versa). Von ähnlich großer Bedeutung ist der Beitrag von Migranten zur anglophonen Literatur. In beiden Bereichen hat sich die Literaturszene (vor allem in Metropolen wie Montréal und Toronto) internationalisiert. Wobei zu diskutieren wäre, ob es sich im Falle dieser Migrantenliteratur um eine Literatur im Exil handelt, um eine neue Phase kanadischer Literatur oder um eine neu 'post-koloniale' Entwicklung der zeitgenössischen Literatur überhaupt.
Texte: Marco Micone, Gens du Silence (1982), Régine Robin : La Québécoite (1983) Émile Ollivier, Passages (1991), Neil Bissondaath, Digging up the Mountains (1985) Michael Ondaatje, In the Skin of a Lion (1987), Rohinton Mistry, Family Matters (2002)
Seminarplan:
I. 25. 10. Einführung (Organisatorisches)
II. 01. 11. Immigration und Migration in Canada und Quebec (historischer Hintergrund)
III. 08. 11. Multikulturalität und/oder Hybridität – Varianten kanadischer Selbstdefinition Linda Hutcheon, Other Solitudes (Einleitung) Linda Hutcheon, „’The Canadian Mosaic: A Melting Pot on Ice’: The Ironies of Ethnicity and Race” (aus: Splitting Images) Pierre Nepveu, “Écritures Migrantes” (aus : L’Écologie Du Réel) Sherry Simon, Hybridité Culturelle (1999) Homi Bhabha, the location of culture („Introduction“, Kap. 8: “DissemiNation” und Kap. 11: “How Newness Enters the World”)
IV. 15. 11. Kurzgeschichten der Quebequois Migrantenliteratur
V. 22. 11. Neill Bissoondaath, Kurzgeschichte aus Digging Up the Mountains (1985)
VI. 29. 11. Bharati Mukherjee, Kurzgeschichte aus The Middleman and Other Stories und Rohinton Mistry, “The Swimming Lesson”
VII. 06. 12. Rohinton Mistry, Family Matters (Doppelsitzung)
VIII. 13. 12. Émile Ollivier, Passages
IX. 20. 01 Dionne Brand, At the Full and Change of the Moon
Weihnachtesferien
X. 10. 01. Abla Farhoud, « Less Filles du 5-10c » (The Girls from the Five and Ten) ein Theaterstück)
XI. 17. 01. Régine Robin, La Québécoite (1983)
XII. 24. 01. La Québécoite II
XIII. 31. 01. Dany Laferrière, Cette grenade dans la main du jeune Nègre est-elle une arme ou un fruit? (übersetzt: Why must a black writer write about sex?) XIV. 07. 02. George Elliott Clarke, Québécité: A Jazz Fantasia in Three Cantos
XV. 14. 02. Zusammenfassung |
Sprechstunden Heinrich Ickstadt: nach Vereinbarung ,
Peter Klaus: nach Vereinbarung
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32 261
- HS - |
Passing -Transgressions Across the Color Line
(2 SWS) (7 cr) (Englisch); Mo 10.00-12.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 203 (Seminarraum) Achtung: Beginn erst am Mo, 6.11.06! |
(6.11.) |
Heinrich Ickstadt |
This is a parallel seminar taught at the American Studies Center in Warsaw by Agnieska Graff and at the Kennedy- Institute by Heinz Ickstadt
This HS-seminar explores the realities and cultural significance of segregation and racism in the USA by focusing on various forms and functions of hybridity – of putting oneself, physically and metaphorically, into the skin of the ‘Other.’ In our discussions of fiction, film, criticism and autobiographical pieces we will inquire into anxieties and obsessions concerning race in America and into the processes of cultural change that feed on continuous transgressions across the color line. According to the Southern one-drop rule ‘blackness’ was not a matter of visibility but of descent. For ‘blacks’ who were white (although black according to racist laws of Jim Crow), there was the possibility of either passing for white or choosing ‘blackness’ for reasons of ethnic loyalty. Inversely, whites – especially during the twenties (the period of modernism) – were fascinated by ‘blackness’ as a promise of a creative life beyond (and below) the confines of civilized consciousness. Passing for white was a dangerous and in many ways painful option for a few to enter white society – an option that both fascinated and repelled. The ‘novel of passing’ (Johnson, Fauset, Larsen) holds an important place in the history of African American literature. On the white side of the color line, ‘passing for black’ was a role option for imaginative self-enrichment but also – on a larger scale - opened possibilities of absorbing ‘blackness’ into white culture (Stein, Van Vechten). ‘Passing for black’ thus became a metaphor for putting on the mask of the ‘primitive’ and becoming ‘Other’ at least through metaphor. The seminar will study the complexities (and agonies) of real and fictional identities “in-between” from the Harlem Renaissance and Modernism (Faulkner’s Light in August), via their transmutation in the 1950s and 60s till Danzy Senna’s more recent novel Caucasia (1998).
The seminar will begin in the first week of November and it will end with a long weekend symposium when the students of the seminars in Warsaw and Berlin will meet at the Kennedy-Institute to present and discuss papers on issues raised by both seminars.
I. 06. 11. Introduction: Racial identity, Hybridity, Passing
Langston Hughes, “Mulatto” (poem) Kate Chopin, “Désirée’s Baby” Charles Chesnutt, “White Weeds,” The Short Fiction of Charles W. Chesnutt, 391-404 F.J. Davis, Who is Black. One Nation’s Definition, 1-80
II.- III. 13.11. &20.11.: Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894) Eric Sundquist, “Mark Twain and Homer vs. Plessy,” To Wake The Nations, 225-270
IV. 27.11.: Charles Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912/1927)
V. 0.2.12. (Saturday) Film: The Jazz Singer (1927)
Susan Gubar, “Spirit-Murder at the Movies,” in Racechanges, 53-94 Michael Rogin, “Blackface, White Noise: The Jewish Jazz Singer Finds His Voice” , Blackface, 3-120.
VI-VII . 4. &11.12.: Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance: “white impersonations of blackness”
Gertrude Stein, “Melanctha,” aus: Three Lives (1906) Van Vechten, Nigger Heaven (1927) &Waldo Frank, Holiday (1923) (Excerpts)
Michael North, The Dialect of Modernism, 59-76 Astrid Franke, Keys to Controversies, 81-121.
VIII. 18. 12. :Nella Larsen, Passing (1929)
IX. 06.01. (Saturday) &08.01.: William Faulkner, Light in August (1932) - X
XI. Friday till Sunday (12.-14- January): meeting, in Berlin, and jam session with the Warsaw seminar.
XII. 22. 01. : Passing for Black in the Fifties
John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me (1960)
[Norman Mailer, “The White Negro” (1957)] Gayle Wald, “A Most Disagreeable Mirror: Reflections on White Identity in Black Like Me), in: Elaine Ginsberg, Passing and the Fictions of Identity
XIII. 29.01. Danzy Senna, Caucasia (1998)
XIV. 05.02. Philip Roth, The Human Stain (2000)
XV. 12.2. Summary |
Sprechstunden Heinrich Ickstadt: nach Vereinbarung
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(32 114)
- C - |
Forschungscolloquium Literatur / Kultur
(regelmäßige Sitzungen und Workshops am Wochenende, Termine werden noch bekannt gegeben)
(4 SWS) (2 cr); Do 18.00-20.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 201 (Seminarraum) |
(2.11.) |
Winfried Fluck,
Ulla Haselstein,
Laura Bieger |
Im Fachcolloquium der Abt. Literatur und Kultur werden in diesem Semester Vorträge von Vertreterinnen und Vertretern der deutschen und europäischen Amerikanistik im Mittelpunkt stehen. Gelegenheit zur Vorstellung von Magisterarbeits- und Dissertationsprojekten wird es auf einem Symposion des Colloquiums geben. |
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