SoSe 25  
 Philosophy and ...  
 30 cp English L...  
 Course

Institute for English Language and Literature

30 cp English Language and Literature (SPO WS 15/16)

0146d_m30

  • Advanced Module I: Surveying English Literatures

    0042eB1.1
    • 17314 Basic Course
      GK-Surveying English Literatures (Cordula Lemke)
      Schedule: Di 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: Hs 2 Hörsaal (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This lecture aims at giving an introduction to the large variety of English literatures. It will present a comprehensive survey from the beginnings of English literatures to the present day, it will look at questions of genre, periods, background and reception as well as offer readings of representative works from the different periods.
    • 17315 Proseminar
      PS-Surveying English Literatures: Scottish Nature Writing (Cordula Lemke)
      Schedule: Do 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-17)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Today's image of Scotland is still dominated by the myths of peaty and moss-covered Highlands and their tartan-wearing inhabitants who entertain weary travellers with tales of ghosts and murderers; myths that were invented at the end of the eighteenth century and whose legacy still endures – albeit with a twist. New nature writing has changed romantic images by questioning how we appropriate nature and by contesting our own place in nature. In this seminar we will look at how nature was depicted at the end of the eighteenth century and where short stories, poems and novels take us today.

      Texts:

      Most texts will be available on Blackboard.

      Please purchase Donald Smith, Storm&Shore
    • 17316 Proseminar
      PS-Surveying English Literatures: Queer Spatiotemporalities in the Modernist Metropolis (Karoline-Rosina Strauch)
      Schedule: Fr 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-25)
      Location: KL 29/208 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Modernist cities were sites of rapid transformation in the early 20th century, offering new possibilities for movement, identity, and desire. For many queer writers and artists, the metropolis became both a refuge and a site of alienation – shaping how queer lives were imagined and lived. This seminar explores how modernist literature by expatriate writers engages with queer spatiotemporalities (space & time) that diverge from heteronormative structures of chronology, domesticity, and progress.

      In recent decades, queer temporality and spatiality have become central concerns in literary and cultural theory, offering new ways of understanding marginality, resistance, and alternative modes of living. Drawing on theoretical frameworks by Jack Halberstam, Elizabeth Freeman, Lee Edelman, and others, we will analyse and discuss how queer modernist authors, and their characters, navigated urban space, challenged normative life trajectories, and resisted dominant temporal logics.

      In addition to material made available on Blackboard during the semester, we will read:

      • Isherwood, Christopher. Goodbye to Berlin. Vintage Classics, 2011. (Alternatively, you may also buy Isherwood, Christopher. The Berlin Novels. Vintage Classics, 1993 – it has both Berlin Novels in there and is only a few Euros more expensive.)
      • Mirrlees, Hope. Paris: A Poem. Faber & Faber, 2020.
      • Barnes, Djuna. Nightwood. Faber & Faber, 2007


      Please note that this is a reading-intensive course – it is a literature seminar which means that you will have to read either a novel or academic articles each week. The means of assessment is a 2000-word essay on a primary text we discussed in class.

    • 17317 Proseminar
      PS-Surveying English Literatures: The Grand Tour (James Daniel Mellor)
      Schedule: Do 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-17)
      Location: J 32/102 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      The Grand Tour began in the seventeenth century as a coming-of-age trip for wealthy young men to visit the primary sites of cultural heritage in Europe. In its wake, and with the rise of the middle class, people from many backgrounds embarked on touring as a way to see the cultural legacy and ruins of classic antiquity. By the late nineteenth century “Cook’s Tours” ushered in mass tourism, guide books, and souvenirs. In this century, cheap flights and the wish to go on “vacation” has made the original search for experience almost irrelevant. Yet the varieties of travel, writing, and ways of reading the world that have percolated down the ages continue to represent cultural encounters as way of imbuing oneself with knowledge or distinction. This course will survey the three centuries of touring to investigate the ways travel, reading, and writing continue to shape our notions of what “grand” experiences entail. This course is a literary course and will consist of extensive reading, so please only sign up if you have an interest in reading, and not just because it fits in with your timetable. Before the first session please read Turgenev’s The Torrents of Spring (sometimes entitled Spring Torrents).
    • 17318 Proseminar
      PS-Surveying English Literatures: Writing Modernism (Cordula Lemke)
      Schedule: Do 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-17)
      Location: KL 32/202 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      The period of Modernism distrusts and questions the claim of human reason to be a reliable means for understanding and controlling the world. The continuous process of decentring the subject which philosophers, theologians, psychologists and scientists alike described and perpetuated at the end of the nineteenth century led to new ways of writing and story telling at the beginning of the twentieth century. Narrative strategies were reconsidered within a newly structured world, textual experiments were celebrated as empowering spaces for the shaken subject, textual patterns were emphasised in order to compensate for the loss of a more tangible world order. Textual representation served as a 'hyper-realist' depiction of the chaotic state of decay whereas story telling provided a potential panacea in a world devoid of meaning. In this seminar we will look at the close relationship of textuality, story telling and subjectivity in three canonical modernist texts.

      Texts:

      • Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
      • James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
      • Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
    • 17319 Proseminar
      PS-Surveying English Literatures: The Location of Culture in English Popular Poetry and Song (Jordan Lee Schnee)
      Schedule: Mi 16:00-18:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: J 32/102 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      In this class we will examine the relationship between poetry and song, challenging the traditional separation between “high” literature and popular or folk forms. We will analyze how poetic structures such as the ballad and sonnet tie to (contemporary) English musical practice, seeing how poetry and song function as both aesthetic artifacts and contested sites of cultural negotiation.

      A central focus will be interrogating the cultural and power dynamics that shape the distinction between elite and vernacular forms. Drawing on Homi K. Bhabha’s The Location of Culture (1994), we will attend to the relationship between hegemonic “centers” like London and peripheral spaces, exploring how English artistic production is influenced by (neo)colonialism, cultural hybridity, and asymmetrical power structures.

      Additional theoretical readings will come from Stephen Roud’s Folk Song in England (2017) and Dave Harker’s Fakesong (1994). Applying the theory to primary texts, we will critically examine the ethics of collecting, recording, and commodifying folk traditions, questioning the construction of “authenticity” in literary and musical spaces.

  • Advanced Module II: Introduction to Cultural Studies

    0042eB1.2
    • 17321 Proseminar
      PS-Introduction to Cultural Studies: Scottish Witches (Cordula Lemke)
      Schedule: Fr 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-25)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Scottish folktales have always been haunted by ghosts, murderers and the odd witch. Tales of witchcraft and magic have been part of the Scottish cultural memory since James VI of Scotland became James I of England and Scotland. His reign started a veritable witch craze when he accused Scottish women of riding the waves in sieves and conjuring up a storm that almost led to his and his new Danish wife’s death by drowning on their passage home to Scotland. From then on around 3000 women and men died being accused of witchcraft. Today, the campaign “Witches of Scotland” has made it their goal to remember all these women and men who died for acting as healers, for being loud or uncomfortable, or for simply being different. The texts of this seminar play a part in preserving the memory of these so-called witches. We are going to look at the various topics the texts address, at how witches are presented today and finally at the role Harry Potter plays in the debate.

      Texts:

      • Kate Foster, The King’s Witches
      • Philip Paris, The Last Witch of Scotland
      • J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
    • 17322 Proseminar
      PS-Introduction to Cultural Studies: Adapting Queer Stories from the Page to the Screen (Karoline-Rosina Strauch)
      Schedule: Mi 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      “Both adaptation and queerness suffer from the stereotype of being secondary: to identify something as an adaptation is to recognize it in relation to something else that seems more original, more authentic. Similarly, to identify something as queer is to place it in relation to what is assumed to be ‘normal’ or ‘straight’,” states Pamela Demory in Queer/Adaptation. This course explores the intersection of adaptation studies and queer narratives, examining how LGBTQIA+ stories are adapted from the page to the screen. Through close readings of novels and their cinematic adaptations, we will examine how form, medium, and context shape the representation of queer identities and relationships. Alongside our primary texts (listed below) we will read influential theories in film studies, e.g. the concept of the male gaze or haptic visuality, and we will examine how literary narratives are transformed into audio-visual experiences.

      In addition to material made available on Blackboard during the semester, we will read:

      • Forster, E.M. Maurice. Penguin Classics, 2005.
      • Highsmith, Patricia. Carol. Bloomsbury, 2015. (There are several editions of the novel available some are published as Carol some as The Price of Salt they are the same text)
      • Aciman, André. Call Me By Your Name. Atlantic Books, 2008.

      We will watch the following film adaptations:

      • Carol directed by Todd Haynes, 2015.
      • Call Me By Your Name directed by Luca Guadagnino, 2017.
      • Maurice, directed by James Ivory, 1987.

      No prior experience in film studies is required, but students should be prepared for intensive reading, viewing, and discussion. The means of assessment is a 2000-word essay on an adaptation we discussed in class.
    • 17323 Proseminar
      PS-Introduction to Cultural Studies: National Affects: Structures of Feeling in Contemporary Britain (Matilda Jones)
      Schedule: Mo 16:00-18:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This module analyses the past thirty years of British culture through a lens of emotion and feeling. Paying tribute to Raymond Williams’ concept of ‘structures of feeling’ (1977), we will begin with a brief introduction to affect theory in relation to national culture. Subsequently, we will trace various affective states that have come to define some specific time periods, such as: the joy of 90s rave; the optimism of Cool Britannia; the imperial nostalgia of the Brexit years; the grief of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing; and the contemporary angst of climate breakdown. Following Sara Ahmed’s provocation ‘What do emotions do?’ (2013), we will ask: How do national affects correspond to periods of economic growth or downturn? How can we decipher counter-cultural affects from mainstream or hegemonic impositions of national feeling? What role does affect play in the process of social inclusion/exclusion? Addressing these questions and more, students will become well-versed in central thematic and methodological aspects of Cultural Studies whilst honing key skills in critical reading and analysis, argumentation, and academic writing.

    • 17324 Proseminar
      PS-Introduction to Cultural Studies: Museums and Cultural Studies (Claudia Lorraine Rumson)
      Schedule: Di 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Museums: they’re some of the most popular tourist attractions in any given city, they house priceless treasures, they provide some of the only jobs that students in history can imagine getting with their degrees. Why is it like this? How did museums become a standard feature of our landscape? Why do they look the way they do?

      This course explores the cultural histories and traditions of the museum, the colonial and psychic roots of British museum culture, and teaches students how to analyse not just the things inside museums, but the way in which those things are curated, displayed, and described. We will practice critical examination of museum exhibits and understand those exhibits as products of cultural trends and preoccupations. 

      Using museums as a tool, we will practice critical reading and analysis, argumentation, and academic writing skills. Full credit can be obtained on the basis of participation in class discussions, informal writing assignments, mini-presentations, and the eventual submission of a research paper of approximately 2000 words.
    • 17325 Proseminar
      PS-Introduction to Cultural Studies: Botanical Aesthetics and the British Cultural Imagination (Lenka Filipova)
      Schedule: Mo 16:00-18:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: J 32/102 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Recent years have seen a surge of interest in plants across disciplines, from science and philosophy to art and literature. Concepts like the ‘wood wide web,’ mother trees, and plant-fungal networks—alongside debates on plant ‘intelligence,’ ‘sentience,’ ‘agency’ or even ‘consciousness’—have captivated both scholars and the public. While these ideas have sparked enthusiasm, they have also been met with scepticism, as some researchers question both their empirical accuracy and whether they reveal more about plants themselves or human projections onto them. In any case, plants are having a cultural moment. While this fascination is partly driven by ecological concerns, it also builds on a long history of botanical aesthetics and cultural significance. Plants have shaped artistic practices, scientific inquiry, and symbolic meaning for centuries.

       

      This course will examine case studies from the 18th century to the present, exploring the significance of plants and botanical aesthetics in British culture. How have different artistic forms represented the relationship between plants and humans, and how do floral narratives shape our perception of both botanical and human life? What can plants, when viewed as historical archives, reveal about trade, ecological shifts, and artistic traditions? In what ways do botanical aesthetics intersect with colonial histories and power structures? What ethical and philosophical challenges arise when considering plants as sentient or agential beings? What political and ecological stakes are involved in representing plants in the Anthropocene?

       

      We will explore plants’ roles in artistic and material cultures, from botanical motifs in textiles and design to the economic and political significance of natural dyes, such as indigo, cochineal, madder and saffron. We will consider how plants acquire symbolic meanings—such as joy, excess, horror, toxicity—and how these shifting associations have influenced literature, art, and science. Furthermore, we will examine how botanical aesthetics have reinforced and, at times, destabilised racial and gendered hierarchies, linking natural history with imperial expansion and the commodification of beauty. Through visual art, literature, and film, we will trace how plants have been represented in British culture over time, questioning both their aesthetic appeal and their entanglements with history, science, and ideology.

  • Advanced Module III: Medieval English Literatures

    0042eB1.3
    • 17326 Basic Course
      GK-Medieval English Literatures: Middle English Poetry (Wolfram Keller)
      Schedule: Mo 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: Hs 1a Hörsaal (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This lecture familiarizes students with Middle English literature, that is, vernacular literature written in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. While the focus of the lecture will be on late fourteenth-century and early fifteenth-century literature – on authors like Geoffrey Chaucer (dream poetry, Troilus and Criseyde, Canterbury Tales) and John Lydgate (Temple of Glass, Troy Book) – students will also be introduced to earlier Middle English renditions of Anglo-Norman romances and Breton lays, such as King Horn and Sir Launfal, as well as to late fifteenth and early sixteenth-century poetry, like Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid and Gavin Douglas’s Palice of Honour.
    • 17327 Proseminar
      PS-Medieval English Literatures: The Canterbury Tales (Wolfram Keller)
      Schedule: Di 08:00-10:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This seminar shall introduce students to one of Geoffrey Chaucer’s most well-known works, his Canterbury Tales. A few introductory sessions will be devoted to questions concerning periodization and the ‘literariness' of medieval literature. Next, we shall turn to Chaucer as a medieval author and to the genre of frame-tale narratives. During the remainder of the semester, we shall read several tales, including the General Prologue, the Miller’s Tale, the Clerk’s Tale, and the Wife of Bath’s Tale. A detailed reading list will be available at the beginning of the semester.
    • 17328 Proseminar
      PS-Medieval English Literatures: Medieval Literature in/and Children’s Books: Modern Re-Tellings of Beowulf and Arthurian Legend (Peter Löffelbein)
      Schedule: Mi 16:00-18:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: J 27/14 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Medieval literature is constantly being adapted for modern readerships. Very popular, but often neglected, are retellings for children. Contrary to assumptions of simplicity, such adaptations present particular challenges related to adaptation theory, to the interplay between text and image/illustrations, and to the difficulties that reimagining the medieval past entails. The perceived didactic nature of children's literature draws special attention to questions about the cultural and ideological paradigms these adaptations endorse or critique.

      Exploring these challenges, this seminar will focus on two of the most famous English literary works from the Middle Ages: the Old English verse epos Beowulf and Thomas Malory's Middle English Le Morte D'Arthur. Together, we shall familiarise ourselves with these texts and compare them with select modern versions for children. In what ways do they transform medieval literature for a child readership, and to what effect? How do they incorporate or modify tropes, narrative structures, and distinct aesthetic or poetic qualities? How do they navigate the presumed educational goals for their young audience? What ideological underpinning do they uphold or criticize? How do they relate themselves to the medieval past, and what understanding of the Middle Ages and medieval literature in general may they (re-)produce?

      Please note that course participation is limited.
    • 17329 Proseminar
      PS-Medieval English Literatures: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Andrew James Johnston)
      Schedule: Do 16:00-18:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-17)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      The anonymous Pearl Poet’s (aka Gawain Poet) works are amongst the most enigmatic and fascinating – and also the most beautiful and polished – literary texts transmitted to us from the English later Middle Ages. This course will take a closer look at what is arguably his most famous composition, the chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an Arthurian tale of love and adventure with a more than surprising sting in the tale.

      The text will make it possible for the class to gain insights into a wide variety of issues central to medieval literature in general and to Middle English literature in particular as well as into the problem of how modern scholars deal with literary texts from an age very different from our own. We will ask questions such as: How does the text respond to the aristocratic values of its time? How does the romance construct its perspective on subjectivity? How does its concept of beauty matter socially and politically? What notions of gender and sexuality are discussed by the poem? What do modern readers have to do to understand medieval literature? How can a text more than 600 years old matter to a twenty-first century audience?

      Participants in this class are required to use the following facing-page edition (Middle English and Modern English): W. R. J. Barron (ed. & trans.): Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.
    • 17330 Proseminar
      PS-Medieval English Literatures: King Arthur in Middle English Texts (Jan-Peer Hartmann)
      Schedule: Mo 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Among the many characters who populated medieval literature, King Arthur is perhaps the one whose popularity never really waned across the centuries and who still features regularly in contemporary works of fiction.

      In this class, we will look at the medieval origins of Arthurian literature, with a particular focus on Middle English texts of the later Middle Ages. Although King Arthur was regarded as a historical figure (as he still is in some quarters), he featured in two largely distinct literary traditions: the ‘historical’ tradition based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, which described Arthur as a power-hungry conqueror who eventually came to challenge the power of the Roman Emperor, and the ‘romance tradition’ based on Old French literary models, where Arthur played the part of the jovial, if slightly weak, king presiding over an idealised chivalric society – the knights of the round table – whose claims to earthly perfection are constantly challenged from outside.

      We will read excerpts from historiographical Latin works (in modern English translation) as well as a few Middle English texts (in the original Middle English). All of these will be made available on Blackboard. Please make sure to subscribe to the Blackboard course, as all communication will be conducted via that platform.

      The course is also designed to introduce students to the writing of term papers, and special emphasis will be placed on the necessary techniques (close reading, literary analysis, coming up with and structuring arguments, researching and using secondary literature). Credit requirements include regular and active participation and a 2,000-word paper to be handed in after the end of the class.

  • Advanced Module IV: Levels of Linguistic Analysis

    0042eB1.4
    • 17335 Lecture
      V-Levels of Linguistic Analysis: Structures and Functions of Language (Anatol Stefanowitsch)
      Schedule: Mi 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: Hs 1a Hörsaal (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)
    • 17336 Proseminar
      PS-Levels of Linguistic Analysis: From Lexicon to Grammar (Rosa Hesse)
      Schedule: Di 10:00-12:00, zusätzliche Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      In this seminar, you will investigate the concepts learned in the Introduction to English Linguistics using authentic language data. You will also learn how to critically read and evaluate research papers and acquire the methodological knowledge to conduct corpus linguistic studies on your own. By the end of the lecture period, you will have modelled your own small corpus study, which will form the basis of your term paper.
       
      In preparation for the first session, read the first chapter (Why do I need corpora and how do I access them?) in https://t1p.de/cqpguide. Please bring a laptop to class.
    • 17337 Proseminar
      PS-Levels of Linguistic Analysis: From Lexicon to Grammar (Elif Kara)
      Schedule: Mo 08:00-10:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This seminar teaches you how to apply the terminological concepts learned in Introduction to English Linguistics to the analysis of linguistic usage patterns. You will learn how to analyse the forms and meanings of authentic linguistic data, as well as to model linguistic research. The module examination will be a collaborative project involving a small-scale empirical study on a linguistic topic of your choice, with a subsequent oral presentation plus a written component. At the end of the course, you will be equipped with the basic skillset required for scientific research in linguistics.

      In preparation for the first session, read the first chapter (Why do I need corpora and how do I access them?) in https://t1p.de/cqpguide. You will need to bring a laptop to class from week 1.

      This seminar is complemented by the module lecture and the tutorial.
    • 17338 Proseminar
      PS-Levels of Linguistic Analysis: From Lexicon to Grammar (Arne Werfel)
      Schedule: Mo 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: KL 29/208 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      In this seminar, you will investigate the concepts learned in the Introduction to English Linguistics using authentic language data. You will also learn how to critically read and evaluate research papers and acquire the methodological knowledge to conduct corpus linguistic studies on your own. By the end of the lecture period, you will have modelled your own small corpus study, which will form the basis of your term paper.

      In preparation for the first session, read the first chapter (Why do I need corpora and how do I access them?) in https://t1p.de/cqpguide. Please bring a laptop to class.
    • 17339 Proseminar
      PS-Levels of Linguistic Analysis: From Lexicon to Grammar (Anatol Stefanowitsch)
      Schedule: Mo 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: KL 32/202 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)
    • 17340 Proseminar
      PS-Levels of Linguistic Analysis: From Lexicon to Grammar (Berit Johannsen)
      Schedule: Do 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-17)
      Location: KL 29/208 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This seminar teaches you how to apply the terminological concepts learned in Introduction to English Linguistics to the analysis of linguistic usage patterns. You will learn how to analyse the forms and meanings of authentic linguistic data, as well as to model linguistic research. The module examination will be a collaborative project involving a small-scale empirical study on a linguistic topic of your choice, with a subsequent oral presentation plus a written component. At the end of the course, you will be equipped with the basic skillset required for scientific research in linguistics.

      In preparation for the first session, read the first chapter (Why do I need corpora and how do I access them?) in https://t1p.de/cqpguide. You will need to bring a laptop to class from week 1.

      This seminar is complemented by the module lecture and the tutorial.
    • 17341 Proseminar
      PS-Levels of Linguistic Analysis: From Lexicon to Grammar (Kirsten Middeke)
      Schedule: Mi 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This seminar teaches you how to apply the terminological concepts learned in Introduction to English Linguistics to the analysis of linguistic usage patterns. You will learn how to analyse the forms and meanings of authentic linguistic data, as well as to model linguistic research. The module examination will be a collaborative project involving a small-scale empirical study on a linguistic topic of your choice, with a subsequent oral presentation plus a written component. At the end of the course, you will be equipped with the basic skillset required for scientific research in linguistics.

      In preparation for the first session, read the first chapter (Why do I need corpora and how do I access them?) in https://t1p.de/cqpguide. You will need to bring a laptop to class from week 1.

      The seminar is complemented by the module lecture and a tutorial.

  • Advanced Module V: History of English

    0042eB1.5
    • 17343 Lecture
      V-History of English (Ferdinand von Mengden)
      Schedule: Di 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: J 32/102 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This lecture will provide an overview of the history of the English language. We will start off in the pre-history of English, long before its earliest written attestations, and see what English was like before it became English and how we gain access to these pre-historic stages. The journey will then bring us to the early Middle Ages when, in the course of the Migration Period, Germanic tribes settled in Britain. We will observe the English language developing over time and explain the enormous changes that English has undergone ever since. We will see how the English language eventually spreads in almost all parts of the world, bringing forth new linguistic practices that are seen as different Englishes. As the historically most recent step, we will eventually watch English conquering new media rather than new lands and becoming the most important language of global communication.

      This lecture forms an essential part of the module History of English together with the parallel seminars (Proseminare). The more specialized discussions in these seminars are based on, and therefore require the background knowledge from this lecture.

      Because not all regular students are registered in Campus Management, there will be a special enrolment for this lecture in the first week of term. Students who cannot attend the first session are kindly asked to notify me before the beginning of the lecture period.

       
    • 17344 Proseminar
      PS-History of English: Historical Linguistics (Ferdinand von Mengden)
      Schedule: Fr 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-25)
      Location: KL 32/202 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      For studying the history of a language, a mere description of its development, i.e., treating history as a story, is not sufficient. If we wish to understand why and under which circumstances English developed the way it did, we will have to understand how language changes and which factors influence language in which way.

      As we will see, the mechanisms underlying the historical development of English do not only vary considerably with respect to the different levels of linguistic description – phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics – but individual processes can also conflict with each other and / or mutually reinforce each other. A closer look at all historical periods of English will reveal how subtle digressions from an established grammatical system, in the long run, cause completely new structures to emerge.

      Accompanied by the lecture on the History of English, we will focus on individual processes and problems in their description and their analysis. The participants of this seminar will thus profit from an introduction into the methods and aims of Historical Linguistics as a central branch of linguistics and at the same time extend and intensify their knowledge on the history of English provided in the lecture.

      Requirements are a short term paper, an oral presentation in class and regular and active participation. The seminar starts in the first week of term. Students who are interested in the class but cannot come in the first week, are kindly asked to notify me via email before the start of the lecture period.
    • 17345 Proseminar
      PS-History of English: English Historical Pragmatics (Sofia Rüdiger)
      Schedule: Mi 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This course shows how the fields of historical linguistics and pragmatics come together to investigate communicative patterns of the past. Students will gain insights into different types of historical data and how they are used to study pragmatic phenomena throughout the history of English. These include, among other, discourse markers, terms of address, politeness and impoliteness, speech acts, genre and text types, and narrative patterns.

    • 17346 Proseminar
      PS-History of English: Lexical Changes in the History of English (Berit Johannsen)
      Schedule: Mo 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Words come and go, spread from and to different speech communities, and people may use them in different ways over time and at different places. In this class, we will focus on such developments in the history of English and its varieties.

      You will learn about the creation, diffusion and establishment of words, how words can be related in lexical fields and about different ways of extending lexical resources: combining existing morphemes and words (word-formation), copying words from other languages (borrowing), or using an existing word with a different meaning (semantic change). In addition, you will learn how researchers have studied specific aspects of these topics empirically and you will be introduced to different data sources (corpora, text collections, dictionaries, thesauruses) and methods of analysis, which will allow you to conduct your own small case studies of lexical changes in the history of English.

      Regular and active participation in this class includes working on a small case study and presenting the project design in a brief elevator pitch at the end of the semester. The module exam consists of a term paper (2000 words) about your case study.

      This seminar is complemented by the module lecture.
    • 17347 Proseminar
      PS-History of English: Migration and the History of English (Berit Johannsen)
      Schedule: Mo 16:00-18:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      The English language and its varieties have been shaped in various ways by different migration movements in the past 1500 years. In this class, we will look at what can happen to language when people move to a different place.

      You will learn about important migration movements in the history of English, as well as basic concepts in sociolinguistics and the study of language and dialect contact. More specifically, you will learn about processes such as borrowing and code-switching, language transfer, dialect levelling and how new varieties and dialects are formed. In addition, you will learn how researchers have studied specific aspects of these topics empirically and you will be introduced to different data sources (corpora, text collections, dictionaries) and methods of analysis, which will allow you to conduct your own small case studies of migration-related linguistic phenomena in the history of English.

      Regular and active participation in this class includes working on a small case study and presenting the project design in a brief elevator pitch at the end of the semester. The module exam consists of a term paper (2000 words) about your case study.

      This seminar is complemented by the module lecture.
    • 17348 Proseminar
      PS-History of English: Lexical Changes in the History of English (Janel Zoske)
      Schedule: Mo 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: J 27/14 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)
    • 17349 Proseminar
      PS-History of English: How to Become a Global Language (Antje Wilton)
      Schedule: Mi 08:00-10:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: KL 32/102 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This seminar will explore the processes that led to English becoming a global language in the last few centuries. To widen the perspective, we will apply a comparison with Latin where appropriate, to investigate sociolinguistic aspects of language spread, linguistic imperialism, language contact and multilingualism as core processes in the acquisition of global language status. Furthermore, we will address the issue of lingua franca use and the development of local and regional varieties.

  • Specialization Module A1: Modernity and Alterity in the Literatures of Medieval Britain

    0042eC1.1
    • 17351 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Literatures of Medieval Britain: Authorship (Wolfram Keller)
      Schedule: Mo 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: KL 29/208 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      The question as to what it means to be an author has been fueled in recent years by the omnipresence of texts generated by Large Language Models such as ChatGPT. In this seminar, we shall look into the history of authorship to see how writers in the (late) Middle Ages and the early modern period thought about authorship, about literary innovation and about individuality. At the beginning of the semester, we shall reconsider the history of – and theories about – authorship, especially the debates concerning the death (and resurrection) of the author. We will then consider recent work focused particularly on medieval and early modern authorship, before we shall turn to medieval and early modern literary texts – selected on the basis of the participants’ interests – to see how writers represent conceptualizations of literary authorship within their works.   
    • 17352 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Literatures of Medieval Britain: Dark-Age Britain (Wolfram Keller)
      Schedule: Di 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: KL 29/208 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This seminar focuses on beginnings – more specifically on the question of the beginnings of Britain. One of the key ‘historical’ texts for the history of Britain in the late Middle Ages and the ‘Renaissance' is Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britanniae, in which Geoffrey recounts how Britain was first founded by the Trojan Brutus. The Trojan origins of Britain are not the only (invented and inventive) episode within the Historia that inspired English authors to reflect about the history of Britain, the story of the legendary King Leir, re-staged, as it were, in William Shakespeare’s King Lear being another. The latter is one of several Shakespeare plays which is set in what one could refer to as dark-age Britain. In the course of the semester, we shall read theses plays – King Lear, Macbeth, Hamlet – with a view to how they construct ‘medieval’ ‘English' history and the ways in which these constructions become poetologically productive.             

  • Specialization Module A2: Literary Studies: Periods - Genres - Concepts

    0042eC1.2
    • 17353 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Periods - Genres - Concepts: Modernism and the Animal (Jennifer Wawrzinek)
      Schedule: Mo 16:00-18:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-14)
      Location: JK 31/124 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      In 1871 Charles Darwin published his ground-breaking theory of evolution, The Descent of Man, in which he describes human evolution as arising from processes of biological adaptation and natural selection. In positing that all species of life have descended from common ancestors, Darwin destabilised the distinction between human and nonhuman beings, thus radically undermining the assumption of human privilege within the natural world. Although the Victorian attitude toward Darwinism maintained an attempt to sustain a humanist worldview, Modernist writers in the early twentieth century can be seen to invert the traditional humanist position by valuing and embracing animal force or animal consciousness. This course will examine the role of the animal and the relation between human and animal in key texts by Modernist writers in the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning with Darwin’s theories of evolution, students will read novels and poems by writers such as Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, T.S. Eliot and Ted Hughes, in order to examine the ways in which Modernist writers have engaged with the paradoxical status of the human as both primate, material body and abstract intellectual mind. Students will be encouraged to ask questions around the role of the animal in Modernist writing as either a critique of, and/or potential answer to the alienation that many writers of the period felt as the primary condition of Moderntiy.

      Set Texts: 

      • Woolf, Virginia. Flush.
      • Lawrence, D.H. The Fox.

      A Course Reader will be made available on Blackboard prior to the beginning of semester.

      Assessment: one 4000-word essay due after the end of semester

       
    • 17354 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Periods - Genres - Concepts: Shakespeare's Romances (Stephan Laqué)
      Schedule: Mi 16:00-18:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Shakespeare’s late plays form a fairly distinct group of texts whose artificial and often incoherent plotlines, improbable changes of events and less-than-subtle spectacle seem to jar with the seriousness and craftsmanship of his revered comedies and tragedies. We will look at these ‘Romances’ not as a finale to Shakespeare’s work, but as plays which cut across different genres, philosophical concerns and textual strategies. Central issues will be strangeness, magic, suffering and movement. Please purchase print editions of the following texts (preferably Arden or the Norton Shakespeare) which we are going to read in this order: Cymbeline, Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest.
    • 17355 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Periods - Genres - Concepts: Scotland's HisStories (Cordula Lemke)
      Schedule: Fr 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-25)
      Location: KL 29/208 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Today's image of Scotland is still dominated by the myth of peaty and moss-covered Highlands and their tartan-wearing inhabitants who entertain weary travellers with tales of ghosts and murderers. These apparently old and authentic traditions can often be traced back to the need to create a Scottish national identity in the eighteenth century and many of them were reshaped and invented by the highly prolific writer Sir Walter Scott who can indeed be seen as one of the main sources of this mythical image of Scotland – or “Scott-land”. Not only have these inventions found their way into the novels of Scott’s time, but their legacy still remains today. In this seminar we will look at the myths Scott created, at how these inventions affect the image of Scotland today and how and whether the myths are contested by today’s rewritings.

      Texts:

      • Walter Scott, Waverley (Penguin Classics)
      • Alan Warner, Nothing Left to Fear from Hell
      • Val McDermid, Queen Macbeth
    • 17356 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Periods - Genres - Concepts: Poetry and Prose of the Romantic Period (Susanne Schmid)
      Schedule: Termine siehe LV-Details (Class starts on: 2025-05-10)
      Location: J 27/14 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      The Romantic age, the period between 1760 and 1830, was not only a politically rebellious phase but also rich in literature, particularly in a poetry that departed from previous rules. Among the themes of this new poetry were the miraculous, the fantastic, the monstrous, sublime and beautiful nature as well as the rebellious and solitary individual. We will read and discuss poems by William Blake, William Wordsworth, S.T. Coleridge, Lord Byron, Percy B. Shelley, John Keats, the 'big six', but also by well-known women poets, for example Charlotte Smith and Mary Robinson. In addition, we will look at prose texts, ranging from fiction to essay writing.

      Our central prose text will be William Godwin's forceful novel Things as They Are; or the Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794), which famously highlights the topics of justice and power. Shorter poetological texts as well as documents about the wider political context (the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars) will round off the picture. Besides, we will look into Romantic-period print culture.

      Course requirements: regular and active attendance, oral presentation, term paper (Hausarbeit).

      Reading:

      • William Godwin, Caleb Williams, ed. Maurice Hindle (London: Penguin Classics, 2003).

      Further information about the poems will be made available.

      Recommended background reading:

      • Frederick Burwick, A History of Romantic Literature (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2019).
      • Romanticism: An Anthology, ed. Duncan Wu, 3rd or 4th ed. (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2006 / 2012). This book contains most of the shorter text we will be reading as well as very useful introductions to authors and contexts. You may want to look at it.

       
    • 17430 Seminar
      Wikipedia und Wikidata in der Literaturwissenschaft (Frank Fischer)
      Schedule: Do 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-17)
      Location: JK 31/125 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Information for students

      In Zusammenarbeit mit Viktor J. Illmer (EXC Temporal Communities)

      Comments

      Seit Gründung der Online-Enzyklopädie im Jahr 2001 hat sich die Wikipedia mit ihren weit über 300 Sprachversionen weltweit zum Standardnachschlagewerk entwickelt. In den verschiedenen Wikipedias wird auch mannigfaltiges Wissen über Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft enzyklopädisch aufbereitet. Im Seminar sollen diese Inhalte systematisch in Augenschein genommen und kritisch betrachtet werden, Artikel zu Autor*innen und Werken, zu Epochen und Gattungen. Der auf Fließtexten und multimedialen Elementen basierenden Wikipedia wird als parallele Entwicklung die Faktendatenbank Wikidata gegenübergestellt. Darüber hinaus wird auch der praktische Umgang geübt, nicht nur das Rezipieren bestehender Inhalte, sondern auch das Erstellen von Inhalten und komplexe Abfragen, die neue Zugänge zu diesen Wissensdatenbanken ermöglichen. Das Seminar richtet sich an Studierende der philologischen Institute sowie explizit auch an Studierende der Institute für Philosophie und Theaterwissenschaft.

  • Specialization Module A3: Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures

    0042eC1.3
    • 17358 Lecture
      V-Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures: Postcolonial Theory (Stephan Laqué)
      Schedule: Do 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-17)
      Location: Hs 1b Hörsaal (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Postcolonial theory analyses the lingering effects of colonial expansion and oppression and thereby addresses pivotal issues of our globalised world. It has adopted terms such as ‘hybridity’ and ‘mimicry’ from other disciplines and turned them into new and influential concepts. Starting from Edward Said's seminal book Orientalism, this lecture will follow the trajectory of Postcolonial Studies from the late 1970s to the present day.
    • 17359 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures: Australian Literatures (Caroline Kögler)
      Schedule: Di 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This seminar delves into current Australian literature with a particular eye for indigenous and/or queer perspectives. In addition to taking the texts in question seriously as literary forms with specific aesthetic properties, we will pay attention to the socio-political and cultural conditions into which these texts have emerged and in which they are entangled. This will include an angle on the Australian publishing industry and those conventions and forces that have rendered (some of) these texts and authors “prizeworthy” in the eye of different Australian prizing committees and readers.

      Following an initial session in the first week of term (15th April), the second week (22nd) will be a reading/group work week in preparation for a first reading quiz on April 29th, which will focus on Gadsby’s and Lonesborough’s texts. Later in the term, we will have another quiz on Lucashenko’s novel and the Boochani excerpts. Each quiz is to ensure that we have a foundation for informed and active class participation.

      Mandatory reading:

      • Hannah Gadsby, Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation (2022)
      • Hannah Gadsby “Nanette” (2018) [stand-up comedy film / Netflix]
      • Gary Lonesborough, The Boy from the Mish (2021)
      • Melissa Lucashenko, Edenglassie (2023)
      • Behrouz Boochani, No Friend but the Mountains (2018) [excerpts]
    • 17360 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures: Transcultural Memoirs – Postcolonial and Queer Perspectives (Caroline Kögler)
      Schedule: Di 18:00-20:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This seminar delves into current transcultural memoirs within an intersecting queer and postcolonial framework. In addition to taking the texts in question seriously as literary forms with specific aesthetic properties, we will pay attention to the socio-political and cultural conditions into which these texts have emerged and in which they are entangled.

      Following an initial session in the first week of term (15th April), the second week (22nd) will be a reading/group work week in preparation for a reading quiz on April 29th. This first quiz will be about the texts by Evaristo and Gyasi. Later in the term, we will have a quiz on the works by Habib and Gadsby. Each quiz is to ensure that we have a foundation for informed and active class participation.

      Mandatory reading:

      • Bernardine Evaristo, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up (2021)
      • Yaa Gyasi, Home Going (2016)
      • Kama La Mackerell, Zom-Fam (2020) [poetry; excerpts will be provided]
      • Salma Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir (2019)
      • Hannah Gadsby, Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation (2022)
      • Hannah Gadsby “Nanette” (2018) [stand-up comedy film / Netflix]

  • Specialization Module A4: Culture - Gender - Media

    0042eC1.4
    • 17361 Lecture
      V-Culture - Gender - Media: Shakespeare in Contemporary Culture (Sabine Schülting)
      Schedule: Mi 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: Hs 1b Hörsaal (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Information for students

      Der Termin am 30.04. findet ausnahmsweise im Henry-Ford-Bau, Hörsaal A, statt.

      Comments

      This lecture series will introduce students to the broad scope of contemporary engagements with Shakespeare’s plays and poetry: in literary texts, on stage, in film, and in other media. We will consider various strategies of dealing with Shakespeare, such as adaptation, translation, quotation, rewriting, appropriation, etc. Lectures will consider the potential tension between popular culture and Shakespeare’s high canonicity, and explore the ways in which Shakespeare’s plays and poems have been used to address contemporary debates about gender and sexuality, race, and political power. Students will also be introduced to relevant approaches in Shakespeare Studies.

      The course will be organized as a lecture series with discussion. In most weeks, the focus will be on one Shakespeare play and its adaptations and/or rewritings. Students will be encouraged to prepare for the discussion by reading the respective play. More details about the syllabus will be provided in the first week of class.

      Exchange students are of course welcome. You can get 2 ECTS for participation. There is no exam in this course.

    • 17362 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Culture - Gender - Media: Cyborgs, Androids and AIs: Re-Imagining the Human (Sabine Schülting)
      Schedule: Di 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      At the end of the 20th century, several scholars famously pronounced that we had become “posthuman” (N. Katherine Hayles) and that “we are cyborgs” (Donna Haraway). Two and a half decades later, this diagnosis seems even more accurate: cyborgs, androids, and artificial intelligence populate literature and film; ‘cyborg’ technology in medicine can replaces limbs, organs, and senses; and artificial intelligence assists us in various ways in our daily lives, from applications in our phones to digital assistants and chatbots. What are the implications of these developments for a traditional understanding of the human and the relationship between humans and machines? How do these transformations impact ideas about, and representations of, the human body and embodiment? What ethical and socio-political issues are at stake?

      We will explore these questions with the help of theoretical approaches from the fields of Posthumanism, Gender Studies and Critical Race Studies, as well as literary texts and films. We will read two contemporary novels – Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein (2019) and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021) – and watch two films – Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2014) and Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012). We will also have a chat with Chat GPT.

      Texts: Students should purchase and read Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein (2019) and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021). Both novels are available in inexpensive paperback editions. Shorter texts will be uploaded on Blackboard.

      Assessment will be on the basis of regular attendance, active participation in class activities (such as short presentations, group work, short written assignments etc.) and the submission of an essay (of c. 4000 words). Exchange students with a background in English and/or Cultural Studies are of course welcome; your proficiency in English should be at least B2. Exchange students can get up to 10 ECTS for this course.
    • 17363 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Culture - Gender - Media: The London Flâneur (Jennifer Wawrzinek)
      Schedule: Di 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: KL 32/202 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      In his 1863 essay “The Painter of Modern Life”, Charles Baudelaire describes the figure of the flâneur as the archetypal observer of Modernity, strolling the streets of Paris to transmute experience into art. Walter Benjamin later describes the flâneur as a modern artist-poet, keenly aware of the bustle of modern life, an amateur detective and investigator of the city, but also a sign of the city and of capitalism. For Baudelaire and Benjamin, the flâneur is not only a literary figure, but one that is distinctly French, male, and associated with a burgeoning Parisian urban culture. Yet by the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was London, not Paris, that was the largest urban centre within Europe, counting over one million citizens by 1801 and expanding to one and a half million within the first decade of the century. It is no surprise, therefore, that London writers also explored the changing shape of the city and its burgeoning consumer cultures through the figure of the stroller, who explores the streets of London to reflect on the changing shape of the city and its relationship to the emerging British Empire. Using Benjamin’s concept of the flâneur, and Ranciére’s concept of ‘the shop of history’, this course will examine writings by early-nineteenth-century urban peripatetics who took to the streets of London as observers of everyday life. Students will be asked to consider the ways in which strolling, walking and loitering can be seen in these texts as disruptions and/or refigurations of the space-time of the burgeoning British nation and its consolidation of national and imperial identity, inscriptions and/or destabilisations of urban space in terms of gender and class, as well as negotiations of emerging forms of commodity capitalism.

      Set Texts:

      • Charles Dickens, Night Walks.
      • Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
      • Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia.

      A Course Reader will be made available on Blackboard prior to the beginning of semester.
    • 17364 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Culture - Gender - Media: Unreliable Narration (Lukas Lammers)
      Schedule: Mi 14:00-16:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This course aims to provide insights into concepts and examples of unreliable narration across a variety of genres and media. Narrators wield enormous power: they build worlds and guide readers in numerous ways (not least morally and emotionally). But what if the narrator abuses this power to create and guide? What if the narrator does not tell the truth, or at least ‘bends it’? And what is the truth of/in fiction anyway? How would we be able to establish the fictional truth of a text? What makes us trust or distrust a narrator? In this course, we want to explore the phenomenon of unreliable narration and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. This will lead us to consider some fundamental questions about literature and interpretation and to read some fascinating texts.

      We will start with William C. Booth’s classic definition of the term in his book The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) to discuss its insights and possible shortcomings. In the course of the semester, we will then explore alternative concepts of unreliability, including cognitive, rhetorical, and genre-based approaches. This will allow us to analyse techniques used by authors to create unreliable narrators in literature and film and examine the ways in which unreliable narration challenges traditional notions of truth and reality.

      Close readings will be essential to our discussion. We will study two novels, extracts from several other novels, selected short fiction, as well as a few examples from film and discuss how far unreliability is bound up with notions of gender, race, class, and genre. What leads us to suspect that something is amiss? Is it the text itself? Is it more widely shared ‘frames’? What about texts narrated by machines?

      Students wishing to participate must have completed the AM Surveying English Literatures. Assessment will be on the basis of short contributions to a Blackboard forum/wiki, a short presentation in class (‘aktive Teilnahme’) and a final essay of 4000 words to be submitted after the end of class. One of the core readings for this seminar is Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day. Students wishing to participate might want to acquire the book before the start of term (Recommended: Ishiguro, Kazuo. The Remains of the Day. 1988. London: Faber and Faber, 2010).

  • Specialization Module A5: Sociolinguistics and Varieties of English

    0042eC1.5
    • 17365 Practice seminar
      Ü-Socioling. and Varieties of English: Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Antje Wilton)
      Schedule: Mi 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: KL 29/208 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      This lecture will provide an overview over the most important issues, approaches and methodologies in contemporary Sociolinguistics, addressing aspects of social, regional and functional variation, standardization, genre & register, gender, conversation and discourse, and multilingualism. We will put particular emphasis on the English language, investigating variation and change in its use and relevance for speech communities around the world.
    • 17366 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Socioling. and Varieties of English: Asian Englishes (Sofia Rüdiger)
      Schedule: Di 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-15)
      Location: JK 27/106 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      English is spoken around the world, but, in this course, we will focus on one specific regional context: Asia. The contexts of use of English in Asia are dynamic, vibrant, and complex. Drawing on a diverse range of materials and previous research, we will explore, among others, the Englishes of India, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Besides the linguistic description of different Asian English varieties, this course will also consider the role of English in the linguistic landscape, language policies, cultural artefacts (such as K-pop), and language attitudes.

  • Specialization Module A6: Structure of English

    0042eC1.6
    • 17367 Practice seminar
      Ü-Structure of English: Construction Grammar (Kirsten Middeke)
      Schedule: Do 10:00-12:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-17)
      Location: KL 29/207 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Comments

      Construction Grammar is a family of cognitive linguistic theories that assume that constructions – form-meaning pairings of varying size and complexity, from individual morphemes to entire sentences – are the basic units in which language is represented in the minds of speakers, and that the description of grammar should therefore consist of nothing but its inventory of constructions. Construction grammar, that is, does not believe in rules, only in constructions.

      In this seminar, after an overview on alternative approaches to language (historical comparative linguistics, structuralism, generativism), you will be introduced to the basic ideas typically associated with cognitive linguistics in general and construction grammar in particular – the usage based model of language, prototype and frame semantics, constructional meaning and coercion – and to the different schools of construction grammar. We will then study applications of these ideas to concrete linguistic phenomena in different areas of research, e.g. child language acquisition, second language acquisition, didactics, phraseology, morpho-syntax, comparative linguistics, diachronic linguistics and discourse analysis.

      To prepare for the first sessions, please review your knowledge of basic terms and concepts in morpho-syntax.
    • 17368 Advanced Seminar
      VS-Structure of English: The Lexicon in Construction Grammar (Anatol Stefanowitsch)
      Schedule: Mi 12:00-14:00 (Class starts on: 2025-04-16)
      Location: JK 31/239 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

  • Modules w/o courses in this semester

    4 Modules
    • Introductory Module I: Introduction to Literary Studies 0042eA1.1
    • Introductory Module II: Introduction to English Linguistics 0042eA1.2
    • Specialization Module A7: Semantics and Pragmatics 0042eC1.7
    • Specialization Module A8: Language Change 0042eC1.8