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30499-01 - Seminar: The Spatial Imagination of the Native American Renaissance (3 CP)
| Semester | spring semester 2012 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Philipp Schweighauser (ph.schweighauser@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | In this seminar, we will study and discuss three major Native American novels of the second half of the 20th century: two classics of the Native American Renaissance of the late 1960s and 1970s (James Welch's "Winter in the Blood" and Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony") and a later work, N. Scott Momaday's "The Ancient Child" (1989). We will approach these texts from two different angles (Native American Studies and space theory) to explore issues of ethnicity, interculturality, literacy and orality, cultural performance, and Native American mythology. One important focus of the seminar will be the spatial imagination of these texts. We will probe to what extent ethnographic findings on the one hand and theories of space developed by Western thinkers such as Gaston Bachelard, Michel Foucault, and Henri Lefebvre on the other can be made useful for the study of these intercultural texts. |
| Learning objectives | Students bring their own readings of three major Native American texts into a dialogue with debates within Western space theory and Native American Studies. |
| Bibliography | James Welch's "Winter in the Blood," Leslie Marmon Silko's "Ceremony", and N. Scott Momaday's "The Ancient Child" need to be purchased and read in preparation of the semester. We will begin with "Ceremony". Additional texts are made available on ISIS. |
| Comments | Note that this seminar relates to my lecture course "American Literature Survey IV/IV: Postmodernism and Contemporary". However, attendance of the lecture is not a prerequisite for this seminar. |
| Weblink | ISIS |
| Admission requirements | This seminar is open only to MA students. |
| Course application | Please register on ISIS. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | Online, mandatory |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft (Master's degree subject: Modern German Literature (Start of studies before 01.08.2013)) Modul Allgemeine Literaturwissenschaft (Master's degree subject: German Literature) Modul Aufbaustudium Deutsche Literaturwissenschaft (Master's degree subject: German Literature) Modul English & American Literature (Master's degree subject: English) Modul Neuere Deutsche Literaturwissenschaft I (Master's degree subject: German Language and Literature) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | t.b.a. |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Englische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft |