552.305 (20S) Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo
Overview
- Lecturer
- Course title german Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo
- Type Seminar (continuous assessment course )
- Hours per Week 2.0
- ECTS credits 6.0
- Registrations 11 (25 max.)
- Organisational unit
- Language of instruction English
- possible language(s) of the assessment English
- Course begins on 03.03.2020
- eLearning Go to Moodle course
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Remarks (english)
Attendance of the first class meeting on March 3, 2020 is MANDATORY!
Time and place
Course Information
Intended learning outcomes
Students will further develop their skills in the systematic analysis of literary texts and advance their competence in interpreting texts within their specific socio-cultural and historical contexts. They will broaden their knowledge of several influential U.S. writers of the twentieth century, postmodernism, the historical novel, and historiographic metafiction.
Teaching methodology including the use of eLearning tools
Short input lectures; in-class exploration of primary and theoretical texts through close textual analysis; in-class and group discussion; short oral presentations by students
Course content
Some of the underlying questions shaping contemporary U.S. culture and politics, from Kellyanne Conway’s talk of “alternative facts” to the ongoing impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, involve fundamental issues of representation, truth, and (the production and shaping of reality through) narrative. This seminar reconsiders a genre of postmodern narrative fiction, historiographic metafiction (Hutcheon), that elaborately deals with some of these issues by focusing on history and its representation. Emerging from the 1960s on, in response to increasingly skeptical attitudes toward concepts like truth, fact, history, certainty, or linearity, historiographic metafictions are critically “historiographic” as they – often humorously – (re)create different versions of historical events in order to question the authoritative voice of historiography and subvert claims to authenticity, reliability, and objectivity. At the same time, they are “metafictional” in the sense that they self-reflexively comment on their own production of stories, i.e. self-consciously examine their own modes of construction. Beyond looking at their representation of historical knowledge, we will pay close attention to narrative form and innovations in three key texts, and discuss terms such as postmodernism, intertextuality, genre, or trauma, and questions related to race, class, and gender. Rereading Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five (1969), which blends science fiction with an account of the Dresden bombings, Doctorow’s Ragtime (1975), and DeLillo’s Libra (1988), which speculates about the assassination of John F. Kennedy will broaden our understanding of postmodernism in ways that highlight the continuing relevance of such thought and literature to understanding U.S. culture and society today.
Literature
Required texts
DeLillo, Don. Libra. Any edition.
Doctorow, E.L. Ragtime. Any edition.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. Any Edition.
All other texts will be made available by the course instructor.
Examination information
Grading scheme
Grade / Grade grading schemePosition in the curriculum
- Teacher training programme English (Secondary School Teacher Accreditation)
(SKZ: 344, Version: 04W.7)
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Stage two
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Subject: Advanced Culture Studies
(Compulsory subject)
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SE zu Topics in American Culture Studies (
2.0h SE / 5.0 ECTS)
- 552.305 Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo (2.0h SE / 5.0 ECTS)
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SE zu Topics in American Culture Studies (
2.0h SE / 5.0 ECTS)
-
Subject: Advanced Culture Studies
(Compulsory subject)
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Stage two
- Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies
(SKZ: 612, Version: 15W.3)
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Subject: Fachliches Vertiefungsstudium
(Compulsory subject)
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7.2 (b) Focus on Literature (
0.0h SE / 6.0 ECTS)
- 552.305 Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo (2.0h SE / 6.0 ECTS) Absolvierung im 4., 5. Semester empfohlen
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7.2 (b) Focus on Literature (
0.0h SE / 6.0 ECTS)
-
Subject: Fachliches Vertiefungsstudium
(Compulsory subject)
- Bachelor's degree programme English and American Studies
(SKZ: 612, Version: 10W.3)
-
Subject: Fachliches Vertiefungsstudium
(Compulsory subject)
-
Focus on Literature (
2.0h SE / 7.0 ECTS)
- 552.305 Focus on Literature: American Historiographic Metafiction: Vonnegut, Doctorow, DeLillo (2.0h SE / 7.0 ECTS)
-
Focus on Literature (
2.0h SE / 7.0 ECTS)
-
Subject: Fachliches Vertiefungsstudium
(Compulsory subject)