SoSe 23: Nordamerikastudien

• Geschichte (A) - Geschichte der nordamerikanischen Außenbeziehungen

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  • 32411 Hauptseminar
    Theories and Concepts in International History (Maximilian Klose)
    Zeit: Do 12:00-14:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    What is international history, how do we study foreign relations, and what comprises diplomacy? This theory-based seminar introduces students to the most important developments and approaches in studying the history of US relations with the outside world. We will cover a broad spectrum of topics from national security and border protection to gender, memory, and the role of emotions in foreign relations. In their final papers, students will get the opportunity to apply one or several of those approaches to cases of their choice to develop their own research profile in US international history.

• Geschichte (B) - Gesellschafts- und Kulturgeschichte Nordamerikas

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  • 32413 Hauptseminar
    Independence Movements and Conflicts in North America - The U.S. and Canada in Comparison (David Bosold, Sebastian Jobs)
    Zeit: Mo 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In this interdisciplinary seminar we intend to contrast Canadian and American independence movements in the broadest sense. Following the establishment of a conceptual framework which combines historical insights of competing “voices” and political aspects of representation and constitutional issues, the seminar will study four aspects in-depth: 1) Regional identities – by revisiting the American Civil War (1861-65) and the French presence in North America (Nouvelle-France/Québec/Acadia, 1763-1803) 2) Constitutions as legal forms of independence – by contrasting the American (1788/89) and the Canadian constitution (1867/1982) 3) Self-Determination – by contrasting slavery and black liberation in the US (1790-1865) and indigenous emancipation in Canada (1970-today) 4) Foreign Policy as Independence/Interdependence – by studying landmarks and imaginaries of the bilateral relationship such as the War of 1812, the American Empire, the 49th Parallel and North American Integration (NAFTA/USMCA)

  • 32414 Hauptseminar
    Remembering and Forgetting in U.S. History: Monuments, Archives and Narratives (Sebastian Jobs)
    Zeit: Mo 12:00-14:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    During the recent BLM protests Confederate monuments became a the center of criticism and resistance. While some have maintained that they ‘simply’ represented an image of Southern tradition, manly courage and valor as well as the tragedy of conflict, especially Black activists have read them as a message of conservative defiance, as a symbol of a racist past or, more pointedly, as an ongoing threat against Black political activism. In that these monuments represent a more general conflict over historical memory that constantly takes place in the. U.S. In our seminar we will explore the different layers of remembering certain elements of U.S. history while dismissing or forgetting others. Based on the assumption that historical memory is in itself highly selective we will discuss different sites and practices of memorialization as well as political and cultural claims that are attached to them.

• Geschichte (C) - Nordamerikanische Kolonialgeschichte

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  • 32411 Hauptseminar
    Theories and Concepts in International History (Maximilian Klose)
    Zeit: Do 12:00-14:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    What is international history, how do we study foreign relations, and what comprises diplomacy? This theory-based seminar introduces students to the most important developments and approaches in studying the history of US relations with the outside world. We will cover a broad spectrum of topics from national security and border protection to gender, memory, and the role of emotions in foreign relations. In their final papers, students will get the opportunity to apply one or several of those approaches to cases of their choice to develop their own research profile in US international history.

  • 32412 Hauptseminar
    Violence in 19th and 20th Century America (Kira Alvarez)
    Zeit: Mo 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    Violence in 19th- and 20th-Century America: This seminar provides an overview of the history of violence in America in the 19th and 20th centuries. What was the role of violence in American history? How can we interpret violence historically? This seminar explores these questions using various historiographical sources, and through the lenses of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, religion, and socioeconomic status. By the end of the semester, students will have built a conceptual framework to discuss and write about American violence historically. The course will include sources about the U.S., Canada, and México.

• Kultur (B) - Kultur der Nationalität und Diversität

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  • 32113 Vorlesung
    American Modernities (Frank Kelleter)
    Zeit: Di 16:00-19:00 (Erster Termin: 18.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This lecture course deals with American culture between the 1910s and the 1940s: a period that saw the birth of new technologies of production, representation, and destruction, along with far-ranging revolutions in the organization of knowledge. Sociology, ethnology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines emerged in the early 20th century as institutionalized modes of theorizing modernity. Many of these “modern” transformations can be studied in a prototypical fashion in US history. Our topics in this lecture course include: early film; the New Immigration; the Hollywood studio system; the Great War and modernist aesthetics (fiction, poetry, drama); the “New Negro” movement and the Harlem Renaissance; radio and New Deal culture; the Southern agrarians and anti-modern modernisms. ----- The lecture course serves as “Vorlesung” of Culture-Module C (Kulturgeschichte einzelner Medien und ästhetischer Darstellungsformen) in the M.A. program. Registration: All participants need to be registered via Blackboard and Campus Management by the first session. If you cannot register online, please contact Prof. Kelleter before the beginning of the term. Requirements and Organization: See Syllabus and Course Description in the “Teaching” section of Prof. Kelleter’s JFKI website or on Blackboard (go to “Kursmaterial”; you may have to click on “open Syllabus here” to download it; if this doesn’t work, try a different browser: students have reported problems with the Chrome browser). Please note that this course is listed as a three-hour “Vorlesung mit integriertem Tutorium.” However, participants will gain credit on the basis of the regular two-hour (4-6) lecture slot; attendance of the additional hour (“tutorial” with further time for Q&A, 6-7) is optional. First session: April 18.

  • 32114 Hauptseminar
    Network Nation: Media Change and Media Theory in the United States (in the 20th Century) (Martin Lüthe)
    Zeit: Mi 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 19.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    
  • 32115 Hauptseminar
    Visualizing Freedom: Revolution, Emancipation, Rights (Julia Rosenbaum)
    Zeit: Do 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    Political and cultural revolutions from the eighteenth through the early twentieth centuries ignited debates about basic human rights and equality. How were these rights defined, promoted, and resisted? This course explores the role of visual material in developing discourses of freedom in the Atlantic World of this period. Fundamental to that pursuit were, and are, conceptions of what makes a citizen. We will examine the relationship between art and citizenship through three lenses: revolution, abolitionism, and enfranchisement. The class will address a range of media as well as reflect critically on connections between historical and present-day struggles for political, racial, and gender equity. Please register at: culture@jfki.fu-berlin.de with your name, matriculation number, study program, home university (if applicable), zedat email address or email address of home university, and type of exchange program (if applicable). Deadline for registration is April 17, 2023. Please register on Campus Management as well and as soon as possible.

• Kultur (C) - Kulturgeschichte einzelner Medien und ästhetischer Darstellungsformen

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  • 32110 Vorlesung
    Capitalism, Sectionalism, and American Nationhood (Frank Kelleter)
    Zeit: Mo 16:00-19:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This lecture course deals with American culture in the four decades following the Civil War. Topics include: the failure of Reconstruction; Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; the interlocking of progressivism and imperialism; African American activisms; anarchism (Lucy Parsons, Emma Goldman); the emergence of a capitalist-nationalist imaginary; realism and naturalism as literary modes; the “New Woman”; urbanization and turn-of-the-century media transformations. ----- The lecture course serves as “Vorlesung” of Culture-Module B (Kultur der Nationalität und Diversität) in the Master’s degree program. Registration: All participants need to be registered via Blackboard and Campus Management by the first session. If you cannot register online, please contact Prof. Kelleter before the beginning of the term. Requirements and Organization: See Syllabus and Course Description in the “Teaching” section of Prof. Kelleter’s JFKI website or on Blackboard (go to “Kursmaterial”; you may have to click on “open Syllabus here” to download it; if this doesn’t work, try a different browser: students have reported problems with the Chrome browser). Please note that this course is listed as a three-hour “Vorlesung mit integriertem Tutorium.” However, participants will gain credit on the basis of the regular two-hour lecture slot (4-6); attendance of the additional academic hour (“tutorial” with further time for Q&A, 6-7) is optional. First session: April 17.

  • 32111 Hauptseminar
    Cultures of Contagion (Hannah Spahn)
    Zeit: Mi 12:00-14:00 (Erster Termin: 19.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    From the revolutionary period to today, narratives about epidemics and pandemics have played important roles in US culture. In this seminar, we will combine approaches from intellectual history and cultural history and theory to read these narratives through the lens of changing concepts and metaphors of contagion. Studying newspaper accounts, short stories, novels, autobiographies, and films, we will aim at getting a better understanding of how historically different cultures of contagion, in their oscillation between problems of social cohesion and social disintegration, have informed modern American concepts of personal identity, nationhood, and race.

  • 32112 Hauptseminar
    Before Harlem (Hannah Spahn)
    Zeit: Do 16:00-18:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    The Harlem Renaissance has long been regarded as the period when African American literature first came into its own. However, this period can also be seen as the outcome and culmination point of the rich intellectual, literary, and cultural tradition that preceded it in the long nineteenth century, between the American Revolution and the First World War. In this seminar, we will study concepts of diversity and nationhood in the work of major African American writers “before Harlem,” from Phillis Wheatley and Lemuel Haynes in the late eighteenth to Charles Chesnutt and Pauline Hopkins in the early twentieth century.

• Literatur (A) - Literaturgeschichte

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  • 32204 Vertiefungsseminar
    Flyover Fiction - Poverty, Whiteness, Rurality (Karin Höpker)
    Zeit: Do 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    Historically, figures of the rural have been central to narratives of American national identity and yet, what is conceived of as the American “heartland” often seems to be a blind spot in the collective imagination. Contemporary cultural productions and political discourse have newly focused on the rural. Focusing specifically on issues of class, whiteness, and poverty in the Midwest, Appalachia, and the Ozarks (rather than the Deep South or the West and Southwest), our readings of “flyover fiction” address topics of economic strife, systemic and structural neglect, transgenerational trauma and violence, ecological crisis and the opioid epidemic. Texts like Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff, J.D. Vance’s controversial Hillbilly Elegy, Debra Granik’s adaptation of Winter’s Bone, or Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead will help us explore how and to what extent these texts generate visibility and a differentiated image of rurality as lived experience. We will discuss how texts negotiate the varied perspectives of their audiences, how they engage with the fraught intertext of popular culture (such as the exploitative use of the “hillbilly” in both comedy and horror), and to what extent they manage to avoid the othering of an ethnographic gaze that has so often been cast at the rural.

  • 32212 Hauptseminar
    Epidemic Fiction - Literature in Plagued Times (Karin Höpker)
    Zeit: Mi 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 19.04.2023)
    Ort: 203 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This class focuses on narratives of contagion across a spectrum of US American fiction. We will discuss a range of examples from the early republic and 19th-century gothic imagination to the present. Across media, course materials explore the changing tropes of contagion and epidemic as well as a history of biopolitical thought and techniques. We will discuss fiction in the context of scientific discourses of infection and disease, treatment and containment, and trace the rich archive of an epidemic imaginary informed by hierarchies of privilege and intersectional factors of race, class, and gender. Texts by Brown, Poe, Hawthorne, Wharton, Porter, Tiptree, Whitehead and others will be made available; please acquire: Steward O’Nan A Prayer for the Dying, Philip Roth Nemesis.

  • 32213 Hauptseminar
    Queer Literature (Birte Wege)
    Zeit: Di 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 18.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In this seminar, we will examine key works of queer prose literature of the twentieth century, as well as select queer theory readings. We will discuss literary classics which may be familiar from courses not focused on queer writing, such as Djuna Barnes’ modernist masterpiece ‘Nightwood’ and James Baldwin’s ‘Giovanni’s Room.’ The main focus, however, will be on less mainstream works that explore queer subcultures from the pre-Stonewall era to the experiences of the AIDS pandemic. Authors discussed will include John Rechy, Audre Lorde, Leslie Feinberg, Jane Rule, and Gore Vidal. There will also be a section on genre writing, including queer themed crime, horror, and science fiction.

• Literatur (B) - Literaturtheorie

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  • 32210 Seminar
    Realist Controversies (Karin Höpker)
    Zeit: Mi 08:00-10:00 (Erster Termin: 19.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This course engages with controversies over realist aesthetics, the function of fiction and the future of the novel. While our reading draws on a historic scope of texts to tease out the aesthetic fault lines of the nineteenth century, we specifically focus on realist narrative after postmodernism and on more contemporary debates over mediality, digitalization, and the materiality and practice of reading in a reaction economy. Our text corpus will consist of a combination of theoretical writing and fiction that tackles questions of narrative and verisimilitude, referentiality and affect, why we read and why we don’t. Short texts by Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Richard Powers, Alice Munro and Jennifer Egan will be made available. Please acquire: Don DeLillo Point Omega, Stewart O’Nan The Odds, and Colson Whitehead The Nickel Boys.

• Literatur (C) - Literarische Textanalyse

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  • 32201 Vertiefungsseminar
    Writing History (Birte Wege)
    Zeit: Di 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 18.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In this seminar, we will examine a wide range of literary works that are engaged with recreating historical events and settings, broadly interrogating how we understand the concepts of ‘truth’ and ‘historical accuracy,’ and the role literature can play in shaping perceptions of the past. The course begins with the works of James Fenimore Cooper & early attempts to reach back through America’s short history to shape national identity. The main focus will be on literary works from the twentieth and twenty-first century, however. We will consider the category of historiographic metafiction via such postmodern classics as E.L. Doctorow’s ‘Ragtime,’ and Thomas King’s ‘Green Grass, Running Water’, but also examine other forms engaging with the past, such as graphic narrative memoirs, New Journalist writings, and experimental theatre-poetry hybrids.

  • 32211 Hauptseminar
    Wright and Baldwin (James Dorson)
    Zeit: Mi 16:00-18:00, zusätzliche Termine siehe LV-Details (Erster Termin: 19.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This class revisits one of the most widely publicized literary controversies of the twentieth century, the rivalry between Richard Wright and James Baldwin. Seminal to the development of African American literature, their essays, stories, and novels represent divergent lineages for literary explorations of race and inequality in Black expressive culture today. Through close readings of select essays and their four most important novels—Wright’s Native Son (1940) and Black Boy (1945) and Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) and Another Country (1962)—this class explores the aesthetic and political resonances and divergences in their treatment of racial tensions in the US.

  • 32204 Vertiefungsseminar
    Flyover Fiction - Poverty, Whiteness, Rurality (Karin Höpker)
    Zeit: Do 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    Historically, figures of the rural have been central to narratives of American national identity and yet, what is conceived of as the American “heartland” often seems to be a blind spot in the collective imagination. Contemporary cultural productions and political discourse have newly focused on the rural. Focusing specifically on issues of class, whiteness, and poverty in the Midwest, Appalachia, and the Ozarks (rather than the Deep South or the West and Southwest), our readings of “flyover fiction” address topics of economic strife, systemic and structural neglect, transgenerational trauma and violence, ecological crisis and the opioid epidemic. Texts like Donald Ray Pollock’s Knockemstiff, J.D. Vance’s controversial Hillbilly Elegy, Debra Granik’s adaptation of Winter’s Bone, or Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead will help us explore how and to what extent these texts generate visibility and a differentiated image of rurality as lived experience. We will discuss how texts negotiate the varied perspectives of their audiences, how they engage with the fraught intertext of popular culture (such as the exploitative use of the “hillbilly” in both comedy and horror), and to what extent they manage to avoid the othering of an ethnographic gaze that has so often been cast at the rural.

  • 32212 Hauptseminar
    Epidemic Fiction - Literature in Plagued Times (Karin Höpker)
    Zeit: Mi 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 19.04.2023)
    Ort: 203 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This class focuses on narratives of contagion across a spectrum of US American fiction. We will discuss a range of examples from the early republic and 19th-century gothic imagination to the present. Across media, course materials explore the changing tropes of contagion and epidemic as well as a history of biopolitical thought and techniques. We will discuss fiction in the context of scientific discourses of infection and disease, treatment and containment, and trace the rich archive of an epidemic imaginary informed by hierarchies of privilege and intersectional factors of race, class, and gender. Texts by Brown, Poe, Hawthorne, Wharton, Porter, Tiptree, Whitehead and others will be made available; please acquire: Steward O’Nan A Prayer for the Dying, Philip Roth Nemesis.

  • 32213 Hauptseminar
    Queer Literature (Birte Wege)
    Zeit: Di 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 18.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In this seminar, we will examine key works of queer prose literature of the twentieth century, as well as select queer theory readings. We will discuss literary classics which may be familiar from courses not focused on queer writing, such as Djuna Barnes’ modernist masterpiece ‘Nightwood’ and James Baldwin’s ‘Giovanni’s Room.’ The main focus, however, will be on less mainstream works that explore queer subcultures from the pre-Stonewall era to the experiences of the AIDS pandemic. Authors discussed will include John Rechy, Audre Lorde, Leslie Feinberg, Jane Rule, and Gore Vidal. There will also be a section on genre writing, including queer themed crime, horror, and science fiction.

• Politik (A) -Theorien und Methoden der Politikwissenschaft

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  • 32514 Seminar
    Analyzing Right-Wing Media Content (Curd Benjamin Knüpfer)
    Zeit: Mi 18:00-20:00 (Erster Termin: 19.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This MA-level seminar in the field of political communication will introduce students to qualitative and quantitative methods of text-based content analysis. Students will be provided with the practical skillset to formulate their own research questions and construct an original research design. Substantively, the seminar will focus on the topic of right-wing news in the United States. The goal is to apply methodological approaches to studying the defining features of this field of journalistic production. The semester will be structured around four blocks: first, we will look at examples of existing (content analytical) studies which centered on right-wing news content. Second, we will gain an introductory understanding of content analytical approaches as a method in political communication. Third, we will learn how to systematically evaluate texts, using the software MAXQDA. Fourth, students will learn to structure and present their research designs and (initial) results. Participating students are expected to regularly complete tasks by themselves, the results of which might be openly demonstrated and communicated in class. To obtain full credit, students must submit a 20-page term paper, based on the research design they develop throughout the semester. PLEASE NOTE: This will be a work-intensive, interactive class. Please do not take this lightly – the point here is to acquire and then apply new methodological approaches. Next to completing the required readings, you will be expected to install and learn new software on your computer – or by using the library work pool, if you are unable to access a device otherwise. You will also be expected to demonstrate your new skills via regular participation and demonstrations in class. (The course will take place in person, at the JFKI).

• Politik (B) - Institutionen, Akteure und Prozesse

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  • 15483 Seminar
    The Politics of Redistribution in the US (Christian Lammert)
    Zeit: Do 10-12 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In the seminar "The Politics of Redistribution: The United States in Comparative Perspective," students will delve into the complex topic of income redistribution in the American political system. Through a comparative lens, students will explore how the United States compares to other developed democracies in terms of policies aimed at reducing income inequality, and what factors have contributed to these differences. Topics covered in this seminar may include the historical development of redistributive policies in the United States, the role of interest groups and political parties in shaping policy outcomes, and the impact of globalization and technological change on the distribution of income. Students will also analyze case studies of specific policies, such as progressive taxation, social security, and welfare programs. By the end of the seminar, students will have gained a deeper understanding of the politics of redistribution in the United States, as well as the broader implications of income inequality for democratic governance and social stability.

  • 15494 Seminar
    International Organizations in Times of Crisis (Lora Anne Viola)
    Zeit: Di 12-14 (Erster Termin: 18.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    International organizations (IOs) play a significant role in governing a wide range of global issues that affect us all, including security, climate change, finance, trade, and health. Nevertheless, IOs and multilateral cooperation appear to be under fire from a number of corners, not least from the United States. Given the current poly-crisis environment of global politics combined with the apparent crisis of IOs themselves, this course re-examines the reasons states have to cooperate (or not) through IOs and what role these organizations play in providing global public goods. In Part I, the course will address different theories of international organization and consider how to engage with different methodological approaches present in the field. In Part II, the course will combine theoretical readings with an empirical focus on specific issue-areas and organizations. It will also consider how domestic politics, polarization, and populism affect the functioning of international organizations.

  • 32512 Seminar
    Multilateralism in Canadian Foreign Policy (David Bosold)
    Zeit: Di 08:00-10:00 (Erster Termin: 18.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In this class, we will analyze Canada’s role in international politics by focusing on the country’s membership in international organizations (UN, NATO, G7, G20). We will also scrutinize more recent diplomatic efforts as the ban on landmines (Ottawa Treaty) and international bodies created by Canada such as the Arctic Council . The seminar will include a visit to the Canadian Embassy in Berlin as part of a so-called “practitioner session”.

  • 32511 Hauptseminar
    Philanthropic Foundations in the Americas: (Social) Sciences, Development Aid, Global Health, and Human Rights (Álvaro Morcillo Laiz)
    Zeit: Mi 14:00-18:00 (Erster Termin: 07.06.2023)
    Ort: 305 Konferenzraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    Philanthropic foundations have received almost no attention from International Relations scholars, but they have been and still are crucial actors in almost every policy field relevant for the discipline: human rights promotions, development aid, global health, research, cultural diplomacy, and even security. In some of these fields, philanthropic foundations have been pioneers, as when the Rockefeller Foundation inaugurated the first global campaign against malaria, and are still central actors nowadays, as in the case of the Gates Foundation’s campaign against HIV. In the case of human rights activism, its global diffusion enormously benefitted from the Ford Foundation’s program in Latin American in the 1970s and 1980s. Later the Ford and George Soros’ philanthropies funded human rights in Eastern Europe, Russia, and South Africa. This course aims to explain what US and European foundations are and make visible their inputs into a number of global policies. At the same time, the courses explores crucial conceptual questions such as whether foundations are autonomous, as liberal IR scholars claim or a privatized arm of their respective governments, as Gramscian critics have claimed. The course includes case studies focused on individual policy fields, taken from the last hundred years: from the interwar period to the COVID19 pandemic. In addition to learning lessons on foundations as transnational actors, the course introduces the students into a range of theoretical lenses to understand philanthropic foundations; it runs the gamut from IR’s scholarship on transnational actors to Bourdieu’s field theory, Weber’s concept of Herrschaft, and Gramsci’s egemonia.

• Politik (C) - Politikbereiche/Policy-Forschung

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  • 15483 Seminar
    The Politics of Redistribution in the US (Christian Lammert)
    Zeit: Do 10-12 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In the seminar "The Politics of Redistribution: The United States in Comparative Perspective," students will delve into the complex topic of income redistribution in the American political system. Through a comparative lens, students will explore how the United States compares to other developed democracies in terms of policies aimed at reducing income inequality, and what factors have contributed to these differences. Topics covered in this seminar may include the historical development of redistributive policies in the United States, the role of interest groups and political parties in shaping policy outcomes, and the impact of globalization and technological change on the distribution of income. Students will also analyze case studies of specific policies, such as progressive taxation, social security, and welfare programs. By the end of the seminar, students will have gained a deeper understanding of the politics of redistribution in the United States, as well as the broader implications of income inequality for democratic governance and social stability.

  • 32512 Seminar
    Multilateralism in Canadian Foreign Policy (David Bosold)
    Zeit: Di 08:00-10:00 (Erster Termin: 18.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In this class, we will analyze Canada’s role in international politics by focusing on the country’s membership in international organizations (UN, NATO, G7, G20). We will also scrutinize more recent diplomatic efforts as the ban on landmines (Ottawa Treaty) and international bodies created by Canada such as the Arctic Council . The seminar will include a visit to the Canadian Embassy in Berlin as part of a so-called “practitioner session”.

  • 32513 Seminar
    Postcolonial Perspectives on American IR (Anam Soomro)
    Zeit: Do 14:00-18:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 2 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 5)
    

    Kommentar

    The purpose of this block seminar course is to introduce students to a rich and varied tradition of postcolonial and decolonial thought in the study of American international relations. The seminars will engage with prominent texts of postcolonial scholarship over the decades, and introduce students to the limits and possibilities of critique as a mode of engaging international politics beyond the scope of a Western centric or an American dominated social science. Students will be familiarised with major thinkers, map key debates and concerns that have animated postcolonial international relations thought, and be in the position to appreciate the diversity of research agendas and methodological positions that sit under the umbrella of postcolonial/decolonial IR. The course is divided into the following sections: What need exists for a postcolonial or decolonial International Relations? Eurocentrism, Imperialism and Racism: A Debate Thinking Beyond the State-Centric ‘Inclusion Thesis’ Bandung and the Third World Project Exclusion, Subordination, and the Productive effects of Power The Possibilities of a Decolonial Science

• Soziologie (A) - Soziologische Theorien Nordamerikas

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  • 32614 Hauptseminar
    Get Thee to a Big City? Queer Mobilities and Theories of Identity and Space (Alexander Niessen)
    Zeit: Fr 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 21.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    One popularly held belief is that queer people must leave their rural childhood homes in order to emancipate themselves and live free of discrimination. Increasingly, however, social researchers and theorists acknowledge this as a bias and reconceptualize what it means to be queer in all spaces and places. Simulataneously, however, the social organization of spaces can still be viewed as impacting the ways in which constructions of self and identity are formulated. Spaces and places, at the same time, are shaped by those who occupy them. This course aims at entering this debate and address the reciprocal relationship between constructions of self, notions of identities, and the social and material conceptualizations of space and place from a queer, feminist, and intersectional perspective. Moreover, the course will investigate histories of social spaces in the United States. It seeks to address the question what impact physical mobility and relocation has on how individuals and groups formulate definitions of self, and assess existing theories critically.

• Soziologie (B) - Soziale Systeme, Institutionen und Ordnungen - Sinn und Funktion

  0024dA5.2
  • 32610 Seminar
    Temporalities of Capital and Labor (Markus Kienscherf)
    Zeit: Fr 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 21.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This seminar will not only introduce you to the sociology of time but will also examine how capitalism has structured social time according to its own logic. In this seminar, we will interrogate the contradictory temporalities of capital, labor and the environment in the past and present to help us think about alternative futures.

  • 32611 Hauptseminar Abgesagt
    Abgesagt
    Zeit: -
    Ort: keine Angabe
    
  • 32612 Hauptseminar
    Race, Racialisation & Identity (Johanna M. Lukate)
    Zeit: Fr 12:00-14:00, zusätzliche Termine siehe LV-Details (Erster Termin: 21.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Hinweise für Studierende

    Blocked seminar on 6 Fridays fom noon - 2 p.m. and on Sat July 8 and Sun July 9

    Kommentar

    This course takes a comparative lens towards studying race, racialisation, and racialised identities in North America and Europe. The course brings together sociological and social psychological theories and methods, and theoretical and practical exercises encourage students to centre and develop their own research interests and projects over the course of the semester.

  • 32613 Hauptseminar
    Reassembling the American Diet (Harald Wenzel)
    Zeit: Do 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    It’s complex. In this course we will investigate the way Americans eat. A rather narrow approach on the “sociology of the meal” and commensality would exclude the complexity of the social food system by ignoring primarily economic and ecological aspects. It would lack a sociological concept of “nature” that is providing us with food. But is this really true? In which way is “nature” here still involved? ----- It might be possible to reconstruct – or, in terms of Bruno Latour – to “reassemble” at least crucial steps in the buildup of the current complexity of the American food system/diet. Take corn and the success story of HFCS (high fructose corn sirup) or California-grown pistachios – and “nature” can no longer be disregarded as a structure of affordances and limitations. ----- The aim of this course is – on the one hand – to understand the current state of the American food system in its complexity, e.g. including it repercussions on public health. On the other hand, this is an effort to give up the distinction between “social” and “non-social” (i.e. natural) elements and see the role of nature in the way we organize our living together in a more adequate way (which issues in a theoretical or even meta-theoretical reflection). ----- To familiarize yourself with the topic the following two books are recommended. Try to read at least Michael Pollan’s story of the first meal (a burger at MacDonalds). ----- Michael Carolan, A Decent Meal: Building Empathy in a Divided America, Stanford: Stanford UP 2021. ----- Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. A Natural History of Four Meals, New York 2016 (2006): Penguin.

• Soziologie (C) - Die Erforschung des sozialen Prozesses - Problem, Konflikt, Krise

  0024dA5.3
  • 32613 Hauptseminar
    Reassembling the American Diet (Harald Wenzel)
    Zeit: Do 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    It’s complex. In this course we will investigate the way Americans eat. A rather narrow approach on the “sociology of the meal” and commensality would exclude the complexity of the social food system by ignoring primarily economic and ecological aspects. It would lack a sociological concept of “nature” that is providing us with food. But is this really true? In which way is “nature” here still involved? ----- It might be possible to reconstruct – or, in terms of Bruno Latour – to “reassemble” at least crucial steps in the buildup of the current complexity of the American food system/diet. Take corn and the success story of HFCS (high fructose corn sirup) or California-grown pistachios – and “nature” can no longer be disregarded as a structure of affordances and limitations. ----- The aim of this course is – on the one hand – to understand the current state of the American food system in its complexity, e.g. including it repercussions on public health. On the other hand, this is an effort to give up the distinction between “social” and “non-social” (i.e. natural) elements and see the role of nature in the way we organize our living together in a more adequate way (which issues in a theoretical or even meta-theoretical reflection). ----- To familiarize yourself with the topic the following two books are recommended. Try to read at least Michael Pollan’s story of the first meal (a burger at MacDonalds). ----- Michael Carolan, A Decent Meal: Building Empathy in a Divided America, Stanford: Stanford UP 2021. ----- Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. A Natural History of Four Meals, New York 2016 (2006): Penguin.

• Aktuelle Themen und Forschungsfelder der Nordamerikastudien 1

  0024dA7.1
  • 32413 Hauptseminar
    Independence Movements and Conflicts in North America - The U.S. and Canada in Comparison (David Bosold, Sebastian Jobs)
    Zeit: Mo 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In this interdisciplinary seminar we intend to contrast Canadian and American independence movements in the broadest sense. Following the establishment of a conceptual framework which combines historical insights of competing “voices” and political aspects of representation and constitutional issues, the seminar will study four aspects in-depth: 1) Regional identities – by revisiting the American Civil War (1861-65) and the French presence in North America (Nouvelle-France/Québec/Acadia, 1763-1803) 2) Constitutions as legal forms of independence – by contrasting the American (1788/89) and the Canadian constitution (1867/1982) 3) Self-Determination – by contrasting slavery and black liberation in the US (1790-1865) and indigenous emancipation in Canada (1970-today) 4) Foreign Policy as Independence/Interdependence – by studying landmarks and imaginaries of the bilateral relationship such as the War of 1812, the American Empire, the 49th Parallel and North American Integration (NAFTA/USMCA)

  • 32616 Hauptseminar
    Police and Prison Abolition in the Americas (Markus Hochmüller, Markus Kienscherf)
    Zeit: Do 12:00-14:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This seminar examines practices of policing and punishment from an abolitionist perspective. The seminar, first, provides a historical overview of abolitionist scholarship and activism from the anti-slavery movements to radical contemporary perspectives on state and society. In a second step, we discuss topics including policing and militarization; mass incarceration; urban marginality; racism and gender-based discrimination; violence and criminalization; and authoritarian neoliberalism. We will draw on case studies from the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean and advance an intersectional analytical perspective (informed by postcolonial security studies, critical theory, gender studies, critical theories on race and ethnicity, and abolitionist modes of resistance and democratic reconstruction).

• Aktuelle Themen und Forschungsfelder der Nordamerikastudien 2

  0024dA7.2
  • 32413 Hauptseminar
    Independence Movements and Conflicts in North America - The U.S. and Canada in Comparison (David Bosold, Sebastian Jobs)
    Zeit: Mo 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 340 Hörsaal (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    In this interdisciplinary seminar we intend to contrast Canadian and American independence movements in the broadest sense. Following the establishment of a conceptual framework which combines historical insights of competing “voices” and political aspects of representation and constitutional issues, the seminar will study four aspects in-depth: 1) Regional identities – by revisiting the American Civil War (1861-65) and the French presence in North America (Nouvelle-France/Québec/Acadia, 1763-1803) 2) Constitutions as legal forms of independence – by contrasting the American (1788/89) and the Canadian constitution (1867/1982) 3) Self-Determination – by contrasting slavery and black liberation in the US (1790-1865) and indigenous emancipation in Canada (1970-today) 4) Foreign Policy as Independence/Interdependence – by studying landmarks and imaginaries of the bilateral relationship such as the War of 1812, the American Empire, the 49th Parallel and North American Integration (NAFTA/USMCA)

  • 32616 Hauptseminar
    Police and Prison Abolition in the Americas (Markus Hochmüller, Markus Kienscherf)
    Zeit: Do 12:00-14:00 (Erster Termin: 20.04.2023)
    Ort: 319 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This seminar examines practices of policing and punishment from an abolitionist perspective. The seminar, first, provides a historical overview of abolitionist scholarship and activism from the anti-slavery movements to radical contemporary perspectives on state and society. In a second step, we discuss topics including policing and militarization; mass incarceration; urban marginality; racism and gender-based discrimination; violence and criminalization; and authoritarian neoliberalism. We will draw on case studies from the US, Latin America, and the Caribbean and advance an intersectional analytical perspective (informed by postcolonial security studies, critical theory, gender studies, critical theories on race and ethnicity, and abolitionist modes of resistance and democratic reconstruction).

• Kolloquium Nordamerikastudien

  0024dA8.1
  • 32214 Colloquium
    M.A. Colloquium Literature/Culture (James Dorson)
    Zeit: Mo 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    This colloquium is primarily designed for M.A. students getting ready to write a thesis and complete the same within the next semester. If you are not ready to prepare yourself for this task, you should not yet sign up for this course.

  • 32410 Colloquium
    MA Colloquium History (Sebastian Jobs)
    Zeit: Mo 18:00-20:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 201 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    
  • 32515 Colloquium
    M.A. Colloquium Political Science (Lora Anne Viola)
    Zeit: Mo 12:00-14:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: 203 Seminarraum (Lansstr. 7 / 9)
    

    Kommentar

    The MA colloquium reviews the basics of research design and provides constructive feedback for developing the MA thesis. During the colloquium students will present and workshop drafts of their own work and provide feedback on the projects of other participants.

  • 32615 Colloquium Abgesagt
    Abgesagt
    Zeit: -
    Ort: keine Angabe
    
  • 32714 Colloquium
    MA-Colloquium Economics (Max Steinhardt)
    Zeit: Mo 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2023)
    Ort: keine Angabe
    

• Module ohne Lehrangebot in diesem Semester

  5 Module
  • Kultur (A) - Amerikanische Ideengeschichte und Theorien amerikanischer Kultur 0024dA2.1
  • Wirtschaft (A) - Nordamerikanische Wirtschaftspolitik in historischer Dimension 0024dA6.1
  • Wirtschaft (B) - US-Binnenwirtschaftspolitik 0024dA6.2
  • Wirtschaft (C) - US-Außenwirtschaftspolitik 0024dA6.3
  • Aktuelle Themen und Forschungsfelder der Nordamerikastudien 3 0024dA7.3