32 101
- AK - |
Key Concepts of American Culture
(BA Aufbaukurs) (im Grundstudium Magister ist dies ein PS, 2 SWS, 7 credits)
; Do 14.00-16.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 201 (Seminarraum) |
(16.10.) |
Johannes Völz,
Simon Schleusener |
"American Dream," "frontier," "manifest destiny," "melting-pot," "from rags to riches," „common man“ – in diesem Kurs wollen wir uns all diese Ihnen wahrscheinlich großenteils vom Namen her bekannten Schlüsselkonzepte amerikanischer Kultur anhand von Primär- und Sekundärtexte vornehmen und gemeinsam nachvollziehen, wie sie entstanden sind und welche tiefer gehende Bedeutung ihnen innerhalb der amerikanischen Kulturgeschichte zukommt. Dabei wird ein besonderes Augenmerk darauf liegen, wie diese Konzepte als Grenzgänger zwischen Wunsch und Wirklichkeit zwischen diesen unterschiedlichen gesellschaftlichen Realitäten vermitteln und wie sie dabei in verschiedensten Medien (Romanen, Gedichten, Zeitungsartikeln, Reden, Gemälden, Fotographien, Filmen) wirksam sind. Eine weitere Frage, die uns durch den Kurs hindurch begleiten wird, ist, inwiefern diese Konzepten mit der Vorstellung des so genannten „American Exceptionalism,“ also mit einer besonderen Konstitution und Rolle der amerikanischen Nation, in Verbindung stehen. Das Seminar versteht sich somit als eine Einführung in zentrale Aspekte der amerikanischen Kulturgeschichte, die anhand von unterschiedlichen Materialen (historische Schlüsseltexte, einschlägige Sekundärtexte, kulturelle Verarbeitungen in Hoch- und Populärkultur) erschlossen werden sollen. Der Kurs findet in englischer Sprache statt.
Voraussetzungen für einen Schein: regelmäßige Teilnahme, gründliche Lektüre, Quizzes, Diskussionsleitung, Abschlussklausur. Einen seminarbegleitenden Reader gibt es zu Semesterbeginn im Copyshop in der Königin-Luise-Str. Weiterführende Literatur wird in einem Handapparat bereitgestellt. |
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32 106
- AK - |
Visions of the Frontier: (Re-)Imagining the American West in U.S. Literature and Painting from the Cultural Beginnings to the Early 20th Century
(BA Aufbaukurs (im Grundstudium Magister ist dies ein PS, 2 SWS, 7 credits))
; Do 10.00-12.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 201 (Seminarraum) |
(16.10.) |
Stefan Brandt |
Throughout U.S. American history, the ›West‹ has been charged with images and concepts that echo the promises of America itself: ›progress,‹ ›adventure,‹ ›manifest destiny,‹ and ›individualism,‹ just to mention a few. During this time, figures such as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, and Buffalo Bill have emerged which epitomize the glories of the ›West‹ and the struggles of American pioneers to establish a new cultural order. Even more than a ›real territory‹ (marked by the Indian wars and the everyday endeavor for survival in the frontier regions), the American West must be regarded as an imagined region. This seminar will examine the 19th and early 20th century West as both an ›historical‹ place and an ›imaginary construct.‹ We will delve into the cultural, geographical, iconographic, and mythological background which marks the West as ›typically American.‹ What fascinated – and still fascinates – Americans so much about the ›Golden West‹? Why is the westward movement so fervently dramatized in key texts of American literature, culture, and painting? Our focus will be placed on affirmative as well as on critical assessments of the American West created by explorers, writers, painters, and politicians. Works to be discussed include writings by Lewis &Clark, Bret Harte, Hamlin Garland, Mark Twain, and Owen Wister. In addition, we will analyze influential paintings by George Caleb Bingham, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Remington. Reading Material: It is highly recommended to purchase the course reader with all obligatory texts for the seminar. This reader is available by October 13, 2008, in the copy-shop »Kopierservice« at Königin-Luise-Str. 39; opening hours: Mon-Fri, 8-20, Sat 9-14, Tel 832-6606. Additional texts can be found in Handapparat 29 at the John F. Kennedy-Institute Library.
Credit requirements: 1. Regular attendance and lively participation in class discussions plus at least 9 entries in the discussion forum on Blackboard (https://lms.fu-berlin.de/webapps/login/ ) (1/3); 2. Oral presentation as part of an expert group (1/3); 3. Final paper (13-15 pages) on a course-related topic (1/3). |
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32 102
- AS - |
Transcultural Spaces
(BA Aufbauseminar) (im Grundstudium Magister ist dies ein PS, 2 SWS, 7 credits)
; Do 16.00-18.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 201 (Seminarraum) |
(16.10.) |
Frank Mehring |
Modern cities represent transcultural spaces in which the confrontations of urbanity, ecology, and the environment emerge most visibly. Tensions between the creative and destructive aspects of global cities (Saskia Sassen) reverberate throughout the humanities. In the wake of the recent politicization of the humanities and especially the ›transnational turn‹ within the discipline of American Studies, the ›environment‹ and ›culture‹ have increasingly been delineated as hybrid entities. If, indeed, the environment can be seen as »lived space,« as Henri Lefebvre has claimed in his traditional study, and literature as a form of »cultural ecology,« as Hubert Zapf has recently argued, we have to ask further-going questions regarding the dynamic cultural interactions in "spaces of control" and "spaces of possibilities" (Berndt Ostendorf). What is still missing in the current dialogue on the stakes of environmentalism is an interdisciplinary approach that ties together structural as well as experiential components developed in each discipline. The seminar will discuss theories of the "spatial turn" and analyze representative examples in the field of literature, visual culture, and music.
The seminar will be coordinated with the international symposium »Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment in the New Millennium.« It wants to provide a forum in which such questions can be addressed in a synergetic manner, trespassing the traditional boundaries between literary theory, social anthropology, cultural studies, and environmental planning. How should – and how can – such an interdisciplinary approach react productively to the post-ecological turn of the 2000s? Students of the seminar will attend the conference.
Requirements: Regular attendance, active participation in discussions, an oral presentation, and a final paper. A reader will be available at the copy-shop at Koenigin-Luise-Str. 39. Additional texts for recommended reading can be found in the Handapparat at the JFKI. |
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32 103
- VS - |
American Cultural History of the 1920s
(BA Vertiefungsmodul A, Vertiefungsseminar) (im Grundstudium Magister ist dies ein PS, 2 SWS, 7 credits)
; Di 12.00-14.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 201 (Seminarraum) |
(14.10.) |
Frank Mehring |
During the time between World War I and the Great Depression, an ever-growing number of Americans came to believe in a series of changes in the structure of their world due to new technologies, means of communication, socio-cultural conditions, and moral values. Our seminar will analyze the cultural mechanisms and modes of representations which triggered the unusual awareness of the American people that they were living "in a new era." We will focus on the nexus between modernism and modernity by turning to visual culture, theater, and music. In order to understand the growing fascination with "primitivist modernism" in various media, the seminar will offer a transatlantic perspective on the evolution of the American film industry, the history of jazz music, painting, and photography emphasizing processes of cultural translation, hybridity, and transcultural confrontations.
Requirements: Regular attendance, active participation in discussions, an oral presentation, and a final paper. A reader will be available at the copy-shop at Koenigin-Luise-Str. 39. Additional texts for recommended reading can be found in the Handapparat at the JFKI. |
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32 105
- VS - |
Hollywood Snoops: Welles, Fuller, Hitchcock, and Morris
(BA Vertiefungsmodul A, Vertiefungsseminar) (im Grundstudium Magister ist dies ein PS, 2 SWS, 7 credits)
; Mo 12.00-14.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 319 (Seminarraum) |
(13.10.) |
Alan Taylor |
Since its inception the Hollywood studio system has been noted for its mass market, genre-driven product that largely concurs, by market necessity, with conventional Realist principles in both film form and narrative structure.
Occasionally, rebel elements have flourished within the system, some (Hitchcock) lasting longer and more successfully than others (Welles). Their playful, ironic, deconstructionist tendencies, ie, `Rear Window` (1954), Vertigo (1958), Citizen Kane (1941), F for Fake (1975) amounts to an unrelenting refutation and challenge to the given Realist aesthetic which, for Hitchcock, was “mere photography” yet upon which `Hollywood` aesthetic is founded.
Hollywood Snoops is intended to align the work of Hitchcock and Welles with that of former newspaper journalist and rogue director Samuel Fuller (`Shock Corridor`, 1961) and the recent visual enquiries of former private eye - and now celebrated documentary Oscar winner - Errol Morris (`The Thin Blue Line`, `Fog of War`). His `Standard Operating Procedure` of 2008 won the Silver Bear/ Grand Jury Prize at that year’s Berlinale.
Irony, paradox, self-reflexive enquiry: as such, the course is intended for BA Advanced students with a familiar grounding in Hollywood histories and who, like the four directors under study, wish to advance their own level of critical questioning of American culture by exploring, analysing, and writing on those who have and continue to challenge its most popular art form.
Course details to be made available only on the dedicated page: “Hollywood Snoops @ JFK-I” at http://kinowords.edublogs.org |
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32 104
- VS - |
Geschichte des amerikanischen Films III, 1980 bis heute
(BA Vertiefungsmodul B, Vertiefungsseminar (im Grundstudium Magister ist dies ein PS, 2 SWS, 7 credits))
; Di 14.00-16.00 - ZI JFKI Lansstr. 7-9, 340 (Hörsaal) Extra-Screenings: Do, 16-18 Uhr, Raum 340 |
(14.10.) |
Stefan Brandt |
The third part of this seminar series concentrates on the period after 1980, paying special emphasis to the development of the following genres and production types: blockbusters (Titanic), comedies (Legally Blonde), action, adventure, and horror movies (Saving Private Ryan, The Departed, Die Hard, The Silence of the Lambs), dance films (Flashdance) animated films &comic adaptations (Ratatouille, Batman), independent film (Pulp Fiction), science-fiction movies (Blade Runner), politics &social criticism (American Beauty, Rendition), monumental film (Troy), and queer cinema (Brokeback Mountain). While discussing these films on an aesthetic level (examining their strategies of narration and cinematic construction), we will also attempt to situate them within the framework of political and historical events. Themes to be discussed include race, gender, sexuality, class, and (hyper)reality. Attendance of the first two parts of this course series is no precondition. The course will be held in English and German.
Reading and viewing material: The main films for this course will be made available at the Kennedy Institute Library. You may check these films out over night (!) and have to return them by 10 a.m. on the next day! Alternative material can be found in Handapparat 28 (JFKI Library).
Credit requirements: 1. Regular attendance and lively participation in class discussions plus at least 9 entries in the discussion forum on Blackboard (https://lms.fu-berlin.de/webapps/login/ ) (1/3); 2. Oral presentation as part of an expert group (1/3); 3. Final paper (13-15 pages) on a course-related topic (1/3). |
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