Kommentiertes Vorlesungsverzeichnis Sommersemester 2013

http://www.bibliomania.com/ (sometimes full text function switched off). We will arrange a schedule of members'
presentations in the first regular session.
NB. The compact session on 03.06. is needed to replace a few regular sessions that cannot take place.
41104 “Survival = Anger x Imagination”: The Poetry, Films, and Novels Deetjen
of Sherman Alexie (Coeur d’Alene/Spokane)
BA (Teilgebiet 1.3) A 4, A 7; Lehramt A4/A4a, B2d; MAIAS elective
PS 2st., Mo 12-14,
‘Having fun is very serious.’ This seminar introduces the work of Native American writer Sherman Alexie who belongs
to the second generation of the so-called ‘Native American Renaissance.’ In his trademark comedic style
Sherman Alexie addresses grave themes that concern ‘Native America’ today: America’s ongoing colonial history,
violence and addiction on reservations, basketball. This seminar will cover four of Alexie’s genres: poetry, short
fiction, novel, and film. We will begin by reading select poems from his collection The Business of Fancydancing
(1992). We will read select short stories from the collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993)
and watch the film Smoke Signals (1998) which is based on the short story collection. Finally, we will read two novels
by Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues (1995) and his more recent young adult novel, Flight (2007). Beyond a
focus on the work of Sherman Alexie this seminar will also introduce key concepts of Native American Studies.
Students interested in participating in the seminar have to register via e-mail to: Claudia.Deetjen@unibayreuth.de
by April 1, 2013.
Copies of the poems will be made available via the Elearning Server.
Texts to be purchased
Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: Grove Press, 2005. [ISBN: 978-
0802141675]
Alexie, Sherman. Reservation Blues. New York: Grove Press, 2005. [ISBN: 978-0802141903]
Alexie, Sherman. Flight. New York: Grove Press, 2007. [978-0802170378]
41105 “Narratives of Slavery: From Slave Narrative to
Neo-Slave Narrative”
BA (Teilgebiet 1.3) A4, A 7; Lehramt A4/A4a, B2d; MAIAS elective
PS 2st., Mi 12-14,
58
Deetjen
This seminar will be concerned with past and present African American narratives of the ‘Peculiar Institution’ of
American slavery. While it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write, many slaves nonetheless succeeded in
reporting their experiences of slavery. They published autobiographical accounts that served as powerful testimony
in the struggle to abolish slavery. We will begin by reading two of these early ‘slave narratives’: Frederick
Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845) and Harriet Ann Jacobs’s Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl: Written by Herself (1861). In the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, 20th century
African American writers have returned to the experience of slavery. Since the 1960s, numerous so-called ‘neoslave
narratives’ have been published. We will read two of these contemporary narratives of slavery: Octavia Butler’s
Kindred (1979) and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987).
Students interested in participating in the seminar have to register via e-mail to: Claudia.Deetjen@unibayreuth.de
by April 1, 2013.
Texts to be purchased
Butler, Octavia. Kindred. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004. [ISBN: 978-0807083697]
Gates, Henry Louis, ed. The Classic Slave Narratives. New York: Signet Classics, 2012. [ISBN: 978-0451532138]
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. London: Vintage, 1997. [ISBN: 978-0099760115]
41106 The Plays of Eugene O’Neill
BA (Teilgebiet 1.3) A4, A7; Lehramt A4/A4a, B2d; MAIAS elective;
Magister
PS 2st., Di 10-12,
Schmidt
Without a doubt, Eugene O’Neill was the most important and most influential American playwright of the 20th century
as he (almost alone) was responsible for the rise of American theater to global prominence. O’Neill wrote dozens
of plays, ranging from naturalist one-act plays to tragedies in the vein of the Greek original, but also including expressionist,
symbolist, and psychological realist plays. In 1936, he was the second American to win a Nobel Prize
for Literature "for the power, honesty and deep-felt emotions of his dramatic works, which embody an original concept
of tragedy,” as the jury declared in their decision.
In this course, we will read a wide selection of plays, covering all stages of O’Neill’s career. Students will be exposed
to a wide variety of dramatic genres, and will get a chance to practice the general skills of literary interpretation.
We will also watch parts of film adaptations of his plays.
Texts:
We will read all plays as printed in the Library of America series edition of Eugene O’Neill: Complete Plays (60/HU
4631.988-1/2/3), which will be in the seminar’s “Semesterapparat.”
Students interested in participating in the seminar have to register via e-mail to Christian.schmidt@unibayreuth.de
by April 1, 2013!
41107 20th Century British Dystopian Fiction
BA TG 1.2, A4, A7; MAIAS elective; Lehramt
PS 2st., Do 10-12,
Friedrich
In this course we will study the different literary pictures British authors created to express their thoughts about the
dark abyss of 20th century society. In contrast to utopian fiction that features the idea of an ideal world, dystopian
fiction can be regarded as a harsh reaction to the disturbing condition of its time depicting a world dominated by