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Semester | Frühjahrsemester 2019 |
Angebotsmuster | unregelmässig |
Dozierende | Philipp Schweighauser (ph.schweighauser@unibas.ch, BeurteilerIn) |
Inhalt | Literary, scholarly, opinionated, and often deeply personal, the essay is an iridescent genre that takes on a multiplicity of shapes and colors yet is often assigned but a negative label: non-fiction. This graduate seminar invites students to enjoy the verbal virtuosity and discuss the pointed arguments of major essays penned across centuries and nations: from Michel de Montaigne's blistering critique of colonialism in "Of Cannibals" (c. 1580) to Ta-Nehisi Coates's reckoning with Donald J. Trump in "The First White President" (2017). Along the way, we will encounter Virginia Woolf's feverish "On Being Ill" (1926), George Orwell’s deeply ambivalent reflections on his own role in British colonialism in "Shooting an Elephant" (1936), and James Baldwin's searing The Fire Next Time (1963), whose lessons on race relations in the United States resonate powerfully today. We will also read and discuss a few texts - essays themselves - that seek to capture the nature of this elusive yet exciting genre, among them Theodor W. Adorno's "The Essay as Form" (1958). |
Lernziele | To provide students with an overview of major essays from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century; to gain an understanding of the various forms essayists have used across centuries and nations. |
Literatur | Virginia Woolf's "Selected Essays", George Orwell's "Facing Unpleasant Facts", James Baldwin's "The Fire Next Time", and Ta-Nehisi Coates's "We Were Eight Years in Power" should be read before the beginning of the term. We will proceed chronologically and start with Woolf. The Labyrinth bookstore on Nadelberg 17 has copies for sale. Consider supporting a local bookstore. Additional texts are made available on ADAM. |
Weblink | ADAM |
Teilnahmebedingungen | This MA course is a research seminar for MA students, PhD candidates, and post-docs. |
Unterrichtssprache | Englisch |
Einsatz digitaler Medien | Online-Angebot obligatorisch |
Intervall | Wochentag | Zeit | Raum |
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Keine Einzeltermine verfügbar, bitte informieren Sie sich direkt bei den Dozierenden.
Module |
Modul: Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies (Master Studienfach: Englisch) Modul: Literaturgeschichte (Master Studiengang: Literaturwissenschaft) Modul: Research in Anglophone Literary and Cultural Studies (Master Studienfach: Englisch) |
Leistungsüberprüfung | Lehrveranst.-begleitend |
Hinweise zur Leistungsüberprüfung | no more than two absences, weekly readings, active participation |
An-/Abmeldung zur Leistungsüberprüfung | Anmelden: Belegen; Abmelden: nicht erforderlich |
Wiederholungsprüfung | keine Wiederholungsprüfung |
Skala | Pass / Fail |
Wiederholtes Belegen | beliebig wiederholbar |
Zuständige Fakultät | Philosophisch-Historische Fakultät, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
Anbietende Organisationseinheit | Fachbereich Englische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft |