Courses :: CULS C701 Topic: Introduction to Theories and Methodologies in the Study of German Literature and Culture
This course is intended to serve as a roadmap to critical theory and methodology. It is designed to be accessible to ‘beginners’ (without prior graduate-level exposure to literary and cultural theory), but simultaneously hopes to offer something to more advanced students who would like to refresh their knowledge of basic texts, improve their navigational skills in a ‘jungle’ (… yes, we will also discuss different approaches to metaphor J) of overlapping vocabularies and hidden intertextualities, and deepen their understanding of historical as well as current debates. In particular, my plan for this spring is to focus on dialogues between (older) ‘foundational’ texts and recent theoretical contributions from the 2000s (many of which have returned to such older, e.g. hermeneutical and phenomenological, approaches), albeit without forgetting the crucial interventions made by deconstruction as well as cultural studies in the late twentieth century. Inspired by, although not strictly following, Jonathan Culler’s Literary Theory: A very short introduction, we will develop these dialogues through a thematic approach, assembling texts from different schools around questions like, ‘What is literature, and how do we conceptualize its relationship to culture at large?’, and topics like intermediality, identification and the subject, meaning and interpretation, narrative, rhetoric, performativity, ethics and aesthetics.
While theory is the focus of our investigations in this course, we will explore its uses by connecting different contributions to a small set of primary works that will accompany us throughout the semester (a novel, a couple of shorter literary pieces and films as well as a material culture object). The course is jointlisted with Cultural Studies. All materials will be available in English or with English subtitles. However, if you are in Germanic Studies or taking this course to fulfill some German language requirement, you are expected to read originally German works in that language.
Readings: Almost all readings will be on oncourse, but please acquire a copy of the following. German books are best ordered through IBIS (www.ibiservice.com; 1-800-277-4247), but it may take them up to four weeks to deliver the ordered items.
1. Culler, Jonathan: Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (August 11, 2011) ISBN-10: 0199691347/ISBN-13: 978-019969134 (paperback).
2. Alfred Döblin: Berlin Alexanderplatz. Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf. Roman. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1965ff; ISBN-10: 3423002956/ISBN-13: 978-3423002950. English edition (alternative editions are fine): Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf Continuum (January 21, 2005; ISBN-10: 0826477895; ISBN-13: 978-0826477897).
