Lehrveranstaltungen SoSe 2013

As this is a continuation of the foundation module course "Introduction to English Literatures, Part I", students will be asked to review the methodology of poetry, drama and narrative analysis. Having gathered historical and textual skills in dealing with various genres, this course will explore theoretical key concepts in literary and cultural studies.

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP).

Required reading materials (you will need a copy of these books for class):

Berensmeyer, Ingo. Literary Theory: An Introduction to Approaches, Methods and Terms. Stuttgart: Klett, 2009.

Pope, Rob. Studying English Literature and Language: An Introduction and Companion. 3rd Edition. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

Copies of the texts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: http://www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Assessment:

-regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion,
-in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material,
-homework assignments,
-presentation of group project with hand-out.

Students will take a final written exam.

As this is a continuation of the foundation module course "Introduction to English Literatures, Part I", students will be asked to review the methodology of poetry, drama and narrative analysis. Having gathered historical and textual skills in dealing with various genres, this course will explore theoretical key concepts in literary and cultural studies.

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP).

Required reading materials (you will need a copy of these books for class):

Berensmeyer, Ingo. Literary Theory: An Introduction to Approaches, Methods and Terms. Stuttgart: Klett, 2009.

Pope, Rob. Studying English Literature and Language: An Introduction and Companion. 3rd Edition. Abingdon: Routledge, 2012.

Copies of the texts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: http://www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Assessment:
-regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion,
-in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material,
-homework assignments,
-presentation of group project with hand-out.

Students will take a final written exam.

As this is a continuation of the Basismodul class Introduction to English Literatures, Part 1 from last semester, students will be asked to review what we did in the Winter Term, especially with regards to the Introduction to the Study of English and American Literature by Vera and Ansgar Nünning. Having gathered historical and textual skills in dealing with various genres, we will now be looking in greater depth at theoretical concepts in literary and cultural studies.
Requirements:
active participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
presentation and handout
Students will take a final written exam on the set texts.
Set Texts:
Students must buy and read the following texts, preferably before the semester begins:
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby.
Müller, Klaus Peter, ed. Contemporary Canadian Short Stories. (Reclam)
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. 2nd ed.

Copies of the texts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung).

This course continues the general introduction to English Linguistics from last semester, focusing on how to do empirical work in linguistics. Students will be introduced to the different ways, methods and tools to obtain, process and analyze linguistic data. The following topics will be covered: research methodology and design, types of data collection, experiments, corpus linguistics, online dictionaries, field methods, transcription, and basic statistics.

Coursework and assessment:
Students are expected to read and prepare selected texts for each session. The coursework will focus on real-life linguistic data and exercises which are designed to help students apply the methods and tools and critically discuss their usefulness. Participants are required to submit a term paper based on two (out of three) different data-based tasks ("worksheets") that will be worked on in the course of the semester.

Basic introductory textbooks

Sealey, A. (2010), Researching English Language. A resource book for students. London: Routledge.
Wray, A. & A. Bloomer (2012), Projects in Linguistics and Language Studies. 3rd edition. London: Hodder Education.
Lindquist, H. (2009), Corpus Linguistics and the Description of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Overview collections

Litosseliti , L., ed. (2010), Research Methods in Linguistics. London: Continuum.
Mackey, A. & S.M. Gass, eds. (2011), Research Methods in Second Language Acquisition. A practical guide. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Paltridge, B. & A. Phakiti, eds. (2010), Continuum Companion to Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. London: Continuum.

This course continues the general introduction to English Linguistics from last semester, focusing on how to do empirical work in linguistics. Students will be introduced to the different ways, methods and tools to obtain, process and analyze linguistic data. The following topics will be covered: research methodology and design, types of data collection, experiments, corpus linguistics, online dictionaries, field methods, transcription, and basic statistics.

Coursework and assessment:
Students are expected to read and prepare selected texts for each session. The coursework will focus on real-life linguistic data and exercises which are designed to help students apply the methods and tools and critically discuss their usefulness. Participants are required to submit a term paper based on two (out of three) different data-based tasks ("worksheets") that will be worked on in the course of the semester.

Basic introductory textbooks

Sealey, A. (2010), Researching English Language. A resource book for students. London: Routledge.
Wray, A. & A. Bloomer (2012), Projects in Linguistics and Language Studies. 3rd edition. London: Hodder Education.
Lindquist, H. (2009), Corpus Linguistics and the Description of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Overview collections

Litosseliti , L., ed. (2010), Research Methods in Linguistics. London: Continuum.
Mackey, A. & S.M. Gass, eds. (2011), Research Methods in Second Language Acquisition. A practical guide. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Paltridge, B. & A. Phakiti, eds. (2010), Continuum Companion to Research Methods in Applied Linguistics. London: Continuum.

In this lecture, the students get an introduction to the history of English beginning with Old English, Middle English and Early Modern English. From there they learn about the major varieties of African, Asian, European, and North American Englishes with a focus on their structural and phonological features. Further topics include the sociolinguistic contexts of varieties of English in the inner, outer, and expanding circles of its users; the ranges of functional domains in which these varieties are used; the place of English in language policies and language planning; and debates about English as a cause of language death and English in the context of globalization and migration.

In this lecture, the students get an introduction to the history of English beginning with Old English, Middle English and Early Modern English. From there they learn about the major varieties of African, Asian, European, and North American Englishes with a focus on their structural and phonological features. Further topics include the sociolinguistic contexts of varieties of English in the inner, outer, and expanding circles of its users; the ranges of functional domains in which these varieties are used; the place of English in language policies and language planning; and debates about English as a cause of language death and English in the context of globalization and migration.

University Language Skills 2 is the second half of the two-semester Basismodul Sprachpraxis (SP-1). In this class, second-semester students of English-Speaking Cultures have an opportunity to broaden and refine their lexico-grammatical resources and improve their academic writing skills, building on the concepts and skills acquired in ULS 1.

The class is not recommended for transfer students, students who for whatever reason did not attend ULS 1 or, as a rule, for ERASMUS students. ERASMUS students wishing to attend ULS 2 need to see Janet Sutherland before joining a class.

Specifically, you will...
> continue to practice your writing and to develop your proficiency as a writer in English; treat writing as a three-stage (recursive) process consisting of pre-writing, writing, and post-writing;
> continue to develop your sense of audience, purpose, and situational context when writing;
> continue to refine your ability to select and use words and expressions to express your intended meaning;
> practice using sentence structures to establish relationships between ideas and to communicate intended meanings effectively;
> practice organizing units of meaning (at the sentence, paragraph, and essay level) to emphasize important information, de-emphasize less important information, and make your writing reflect your writer's "voice";
> build on your strengths as a writer and address specific problems with accuracy, style/expression, and content;
> practice applying the functional grammar terminology that you learned last semester;
> systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs);
> continue to work toward C2 (mastery) level proficiency in English (as defined in the European Reference Framework); learn the characteristics of academic writing and apply this knowledge to your writing;
> develop a sense of what constitutes good academic writing;
> work to eliminate idiosyncratic and "typically German" errors;
> harmonize your learning habits with your learning type.

For detailed information on course requirements, grading, etc., please refer to the ULS 2 web page: http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~jsuther/uls2_syllabus.html

University Language Skills 2 is the second half of the two-semester Basismodul Sprachpraxis (SP-1). In this class, second-semester students of English-Speaking Cultures have an opportunity to broaden and refine their lexico-grammatical resources and improve their academic writing skills.

The class is not recommended for transfer students, students who for whatever reason did not attend ULS 1 or, as a rule, for ERASMUS students. ERASMUS students wishing to attend ULS 2 need to see Janet Sutherland before joining a class.

Specifically, you will...
> continue to practice your writing and to develop your proficiency as a writer in English; treat writing as a three-stage (recursive) process consisting of pre-writing, writing, and post-writing;
> continue to develop your sense of audience, purpose, and situational context when writing;
> continue to refine your ability to select and use words and expressions to express your intended meaning;
> practice using sentence structures to establish relationships between ideas and to communicate intended meanings effectively;
> practice organizing units of meaning (at the sentence, paragraph, and essay level) to emphasize important information, de-emphasize less important information, and make your writing reflect your writer's "voice";
> build on your strengths as a writer and address specific problems with accuracy, style/expression, and content;
> practice applying the functional grammar terminology that you learned last semester;
> systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs);
> continue to work toward C2 (mastery) level proficiency in English (as defined in the European Reference Framework); learn the characteristics of academic writing and apply this knowledge to your writing;
> develop a sense of what constitutes good academic writing;
> work to eliminate idiosyncratic and common ("typically German") errors;
> harmonize your learning habits with your learning type.

For detailed information on course requirements, grading, etc., please refer to the ULS 2 web page: http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~jsuther/uls2_syllabus.html

University Language Skills 2 is the second half of the two-semester Basismodul Sprachpraxis (SP-1). In this class, second-semester students of English-Speaking Cultures have an opportunity to broaden and refine their lexico-grammatical resources and improve their academic writing skills, building on the concepts and skills acquired in ULS 1.

The class is not recommended for transfer students, students who for whatever reason did not attend ULS 1 or, as a rule, for ERASMUS students. ERASMUS students wishing to attend ULS 2 need to see Janet Sutherland before joining a class.

Specifically, you will...
> continue to practice your writing and to develop your proficiency as a writer in English; treat writing as a three-stage (recursive) process consisting of pre-writing, writing, and post-writing;
> continue to develop your sense of audience, purpose, and situational context when writing;
> continue to refine your ability to select and use words and expressions to express your intended meaning;
> practice using sentence structures to establish relationships between ideas and to communicate intended meanings effectively;
> practice organizing units of meaning (at the sentence, paragraph, and essay level) to emphasize important information, de-emphasize less important information, and make your writing reflect your writer's "voice";
> build on your strengths as a writer and address specific problems with accuracy, style/expression, and content;
> practice applying the functional grammar terminology that you learned last semester;
> systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs);
> continue to work toward C2 (mastery) level proficiency in English (as defined in the European Reference Framework); learn the characteristics of academic writing and apply this knowledge to your writing;
> develop a sense of what constitutes good academic writing;
> work to eliminate idiosyncratic and "typically German" errors;
> harmonize your learning habits with your learning type.

For detailed information on course requirements, grading, etc., please refer to the ULS 2 web page: http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~jsuther/uls2_syllabus.html

University Language Skills 2 is the second half of the two-semester Basismodul Sprachpraxis (SP-1). In this class, second-semester students of English-Speaking Cultures have an opportunity to broaden and refine their lexico-grammatical resources and improve their academic writing skills.

The class is not recommended for transfer students, students who for whatever reason did not attend ULS 1 or, as a rule, for ERASMUS students. ERASMUS students wishing to attend ULS 2 need to see Janet Sutherland before joining a class.

Specifically, you will...
> continue to practice your writing and to develop your proficiency as a writer in English; treat writing as a three-stage (recursive) process consisting of pre-writing, writing, and post-writing;
> continue to develop your sense of audience, purpose, and situational context when writing;
> continue to refine your ability to select and use words and expressions to express your intended meaning;
> practice using sentence structures to establish relationships between ideas and to communicate intended meanings effectively;
> practice organizing units of meaning (at the sentence, paragraph, and essay level) to emphasize important information, de-emphasize less important information, and make your writing reflect your writer's "voice";
> build on your strengths as a writer and address specific problems with accuracy, style/expression, and content;
> practice applying the functional grammar terminology that you learned last semester;
> systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs);
> continue to work toward C2 (mastery) level proficiency in English (as defined in the European Reference Framework); learn the characteristics of academic writing and apply this knowledge to your writing;
> develop a sense of what constitutes good academic writing;
> work to eliminate idiosyncratic and "typically German" errors;
> harmonize your learning habits with your learning type.

For detailed information on course requirements, grading, etc., please refer to the ULS 2 web page: http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~jsuther/uls2_syllabus.html

This University Language Skills 2 course includes reading (fiction and non-fiction), listening, discussion and writing practice designed to help you continue to develop your writing skills, as well as your sensitivity to and enjoyment of the English language. We'll be practicing the correct and appropriate uses of English in a variety of writing situations, particularly emphasizing that variety of academic writing types with which you will be confronted during your studies of English.

University Language Skills 2 (ULS 2) is a FOUR hour (SWS) class with TWO time slots both of which belong together and must be attended. Thus, you are required to register for and attend both a and b classes.

Summary: ULS 2 is the second half of the SP-1 introductory module. As such, it builds upon the foundation established during ULS 1 in the winter semester. To earn credit for the SP-1 module (9 CP in total), students are required to earn 60% or more on written assignments given in both ULS 1 (1000 words; 3 CP) and ULS 2 (2000 words; 6 CP) respectively.

While the emphasis during the winter semester is essentially on audience focus, planning, and structuring an academic essay, during the summer semester you will be introduced to four key rhetorical strategies. Those strategies include essays of argumentation, exemplification, cause and effect, and comparison and contrast. The primary objectives of this class are to help you master the art of academic writing, to foster your reading comprehension and your critical analysis skills, to focus on enhancing your ability to articulate your unique ideas, and of course, to learn how to compose texts which demonstrate even more eloquence and persuasiveness than those you could compose at onset of the course. Throughout, the pre-writing, editing, and revision processes will remain paramount. For further detail, please consult the course description hand out.

Literature: Required hand out material will be made available via StudIP; the textbooks we will work with in ULS 2 are entitled Whats the Difference and English Phrasal Verbs in Use.

Please note: Interested ESC students are required to register for this class via StudIP. Registration commences early February and ends mid March.

University Language Skills 2 (ULS 2) is a FOUR hour (SWS) class with TWO time slots both of which belong together and must be attended. Thus, you are required to register for and attend both a and b classes.

Summary: ULS 2 is the second half of the SP-1 introductory module. As such, it builds upon the foundation established during ULS 1 in the winter semester. To earn credit for the SP-1 module (9 CP in total), students are required to earn 60% or more on written assignments given in both ULS 1 (1000 words; 3 CP) and ULS 2 (2000 words; 6 CP) respectively.

While the emphasis during the winter semester is essentially on audience focus, planning, and structuring an academic essay, during the summer semester you will be introduced to four key rhetorical strategies. Those strategies include essays of argumentation, exemplification, cause and effect, and comparison and contrast. The primary objectives of this class are to help you master the art of academic writing, to foster your reading comprehension and your critical analysis skills, to focus on enhancing your ability to articulate your unique ideas, and of course, to learn how to compose texts which demonstrate even more eloquence and persuasiveness than those you could compose at onset of the course. Throughout, the pre-writing, editing, and revision processes will remain paramount. For further detail, please consult the course description hand out.

Literature: Required hand out material will be made available via StudIP; the textbooks we will work with in ULS 2 are entitled Whats the Difference and English Phrasal Verbs in Use.

Please note: Interested ESC students are required to register for this class via StudIP. Registration commences early February and ends mid March.

**All uploads relevant for this class can be found in the course entitled "University Language Skills 2 - 4a".**

University Language Skills 2 (ULS 2) is a FOUR hour (SWS) class with TWO time slots both of which belong together and must be attended. Thus, you are required to register for and attend both a and b classes.

Summary: ULS 2 is the second half of the SP-1 introductory module. As such, it builds upon the foundation established during ULS 1 in the winter semester. To earn credit for the SP-1 module (9 CP in total), students are required to earn 60% or more on written assignments given in both ULS 1 (1000 words; 3 CP) and ULS 2 (2000 words; 6 CP) respectively.

While the emphasis during the winter semester is essentially on audience focus, planning, and structuring an academic essay, during the summer semester you will be introduced to four key rhetorical strategies. Those strategies include essays of argumentation, exemplification, cause and effect, and comparison and contrast. The primary objectives of this class are to help you master the art of academic writing, to foster your reading comprehension and your critical analysis skills, to focus on enhancing your ability to articulate your unique ideas, and of course, to learn how to compose texts which demonstrate even more eloquence and persuasiveness than those you could compose at onset of the course. Throughout, the pre-writing, editing, and revision processes will remain paramount. For further detail, please consult the course description hand out.

Literature: Required hand out material will be made available via StudIP; the textbooks we will work with in ULS 2 are entitled Whats the Difference and English Phrasal Verbs in Use.

Please note: Interested ESC students are required to register for this class via StudIP. Registration commences early February and ends mid March.

University Language Skills 2 (ULS 2) is a FOUR hour (SWS) class with TWO time slots both of which belong together and must be attended. Thus, you are required to register for and attend both a and b classes.

Summary: ULS 2 is the second half of the SP-1 introductory module. As such, it builds upon the foundation established during ULS 1 in the winter semester. To earn credit for the SP-1 module (9 CP in total), students are required to earn 60% or more on written assignments given in both ULS 1 (1000 words; 3 CP) and ULS 2 (2000 words; 6 CP) respectively.

While the emphasis during the winter semester is essentially on audience focus, planning, and structuring an academic essay, during the summer semester you will be introduced to four key rhetorical strategies. Those strategies include essays of argumentation, exemplification, cause and effect, and comparison and contrast. The primary objectives of this class are to help you master the art of academic writing, to foster your reading comprehension and your critical analysis skills, to focus on enhancing your ability to articulate your unique ideas, and of course, to learn how to compose texts which demonstrate even more eloquence and persuasiveness than those you could compose at onset of the course. Throughout, the pre-writing, editing, and revision processes will remain paramount. For further detail, please consult the course description hand out.

Literature: Required hand out material will be made available via StudIP; the textbooks we will work with in ULS 2 are entitled Whats the Difference and English Phrasal Verbs in Use.

Please note: Interested ESC students are required to register for this class via StudIP. Registration commences early February and ends mid March.

**All uploads relevant for this class can be found in the course entitled "University Language Skills 2 - 5a".**

ULS 1 and ULS 2 form the two parts of the Basismodul Sprachpraxis 1. ULS 2 is a 4-SWS class, consisting of TWO sessions per week (2x2 SWS). It is required to register for and attend BOTH parts of the class. I.e. University Language Skills 2 - 6a and University Language Skills 2 6b belong together (or 2 - 7a and 2 7b; 2 -8a and 2 8b).

Having practiced the planning and structuring of academic essays in ULS 1 last semester, you will now be moving on to explore different key writing strategies. Starting with the yet familiar descriptive writing, you will then familiarize yourself with other strategies, including exemplification, cause& effect, comparison & contrast and argumentation. Analysing a wide variety of texts will improve your reading skills, while applying the key strategies to your own texts will help you practice and develop your own academic style in writing.
Additionally, mini-group peer review will give you (and your readers) the opportunity to evaluate and improve your reading and listening skills in terms of audience-focus and reader-friendliness.
Continued work with "Whats the Difference?", "English Collocations in Use" and a third book "English Phrasal Verbs in Use" (which should be available in the University Bookshop) will systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs).
For further language work please bring latest edition of either the Langenscheidt/Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English or the Cornelsen/Oxford University Press Advanced Learners Dictionary, including the electronic version (CD or DVD as appropriate).

Course requirements:
-regular attendance and active participation in class
-thorough preparation of each class session
-to earn at least 60 % for all handed-in assignments (all in all ca. 2000 words)

ULS 1 and ULS 2 form the two parts of the Basismodul Sprachpraxis 1. ULS 2 is a 4-SWS class, consisting of TWO sessions per week (2x2 SWS). It is required to register for and attend BOTH parts of the class. I.e. University Language Skills 2 - 6a and University Language Skills 2 6b belong together (or 2 - 7a and 2 7b; 2 -8a and 2 8b).

Having practiced the planning and structuring of academic essays in ULS 1 last semester, you will now be moving on to explore different key writing strategies. Starting with the yet familiar descriptive writing, you will then familiarize yourself with other strategies, including exemplification, cause& effect, comparison & contrast and argumentation. Analysing a wide variety of texts will improve your reading skills, while applying the key strategies to your own texts will help you practice and develop your own academic style in writing.
Additionally, mini-group peer review will give you (and your readers) the opportunity to evaluate and improve your reading and listening skills in terms of audience-focus and reader-friendliness.
Continued work with "Whats the Difference?", "English Collocations in Use" and a third book "English Phrasal Verbs in Use" (which should be available in the University Bookshop) will systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs).
For further language work please bring latest edition of either the Langenscheidt/Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English or the Cornelsen/Oxford University Press Advanced Learners Dictionary, including the electronic version (CD or DVD as appropriate).

Course requirements:
-regular attendance and active participation in class
-thorough preparation of each class session
-to earn at least 60 % for all handed-in assignments (all in all ca. 2000 words)

ULS 1 and ULS 2 form the two parts of the Basismodul Sprachpraxis 1. ULS 2 is a 4-SWS class, consisting of TWO sessions per week (2x2 SWS). It is required to register for and attend BOTH parts of the class. I.e. University Language Skills 2 - 6a and University Language Skills 2 6b belong together (or 2 - 7a and 2 7b; 2 -8a and 2 8b).

Having practiced the planning and structuring of academic essays in ULS 1 last semester, you will now be moving on to explore different key writing strategies. Starting with the yet familiar descriptive writing, you will then familiarize yourself with other strategies, including exemplification, cause& effect, comparison & contrast and argumentation. Analysing a wide variety of texts will improve your reading skills, while applying the key strategies to your own texts will help you practice and develop your own academic style in writing.
Additionally, mini-group peer review will give you (and your readers) the opportunity to evaluate and improve your reading and listening skills in terms of audience-focus and reader-friendliness.
Continued work with "Whats the Difference?", "English Collocations in Use" and a third book "English Phrasal Verbs in Use" (which should be available in the University Bookshop) will systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs).
For further language work please bring latest edition of either the Langenscheidt/Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English or the Cornelsen/Oxford University Press Advanced Learners Dictionary, including the electronic version (CD or DVD as appropriate).

Course requirements:
-regular attendance and active participation in class
-thorough preparation of each class session
-to earn at least 60 % for all handed-in assignments (all in all ca. 2000 words)

ULS 1 and ULS 2 form the two parts of the Basismodul Sprachpraxis 1. ULS 2 is a 4-SWS class, consisting of TWO sessions per week (2x2 SWS). It is required to register for and attend BOTH parts of the class. I.e. University Language Skills 2 - 6a and University Language Skills 2 6b belong together (or 2 - 7a and 2 7b; 2 -8a and 2 8b).

Having practiced the planning and structuring of academic essays in ULS 1 last semester, you will now be moving on to explore different key writing strategies. Starting with the yet familiar descriptive writing, you will then familiarize yourself with other strategies, including exemplification, cause& effect, comparison & contrast and argumentation. Analysing a wide variety of texts will improve your reading skills, while applying the key strategies to your own texts will help you practice and develop your own academic style in writing.
Additionally, mini-group peer review will give you (and your readers) the opportunity to evaluate and improve your reading and listening skills in terms of audience-focus and reader-friendliness.
Continued work with "Whats the Difference?", "English Collocations in Use" and a third book "English Phrasal Verbs in Use" (which should be available in the University Bookshop) will systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs).
For further language work please bring latest edition of either the Langenscheidt/Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English or the Cornelsen/Oxford University Press Advanced Learners Dictionary, including the electronic version (CD or DVD as appropriate).

Course requirements:
-regular attendance and active participation in class
-thorough preparation of each class session
-to earn at least 60 % for all handed-in assignments (all in all ca. 2000 words)

ULS 1 and ULS 2 form the two parts of the Basismodul Sprachpraxis 1. ULS 2 is a 4-SWS class, consisting of TWO sessions per week (2x2 SWS). It is required to register for and attend BOTH parts of the class. I.e. University Language Skills 2 - 6a and University Language Skills 2 6b belong together (or 2 - 7a and 2 7b; 2 -8a and 2 8b).

Having practiced the planning and structuring of academic essays in ULS 1 last semester, you will now be moving on to explore different key writing strategies. Starting with the yet familiar descriptive writing, you will then familiarize yourself with other strategies, including exemplification, cause& effect, comparison & contrast and argumentation. Analysing a wide variety of texts will improve your reading skills, while applying the key strategies to your own texts will help you practice and develop your own academic style in writing.
Additionally, mini-group peer review will give you (and your readers) the opportunity to evaluate and improve your reading and listening skills in terms of audience-focus and reader-friendliness.
Continued work with "Whats the Difference?", "English Collocations in Use" and a third book "English Phrasal Verbs in Use" (which should be available in the University Bookshop) will systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs).
For further language work please bring latest edition of either the Langenscheidt/Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English or the Cornelsen/Oxford University Press Advanced Learners Dictionary, including the electronic version (CD or DVD as appropriate).

Course requirements:
-regular attendance and active participation in class
-thorough preparation of each class session
-to earn at least 60 % for all handed-in assignments (all in all ca. 2000 words)

ULS 1 and ULS 2 form the two parts of the Basismodul Sprachpraxis 1. ULS 2 is a 4-SWS class, consisting of TWO sessions per week (2x2 SWS). It is required to register for and attend BOTH parts of the class. I.e. University Language Skills 2 - 6a and University Language Skills 2 6b belong together (or 2 - 7a and 2 7b; 2 -8a and 2 8b).

Having practiced the planning and structuring of academic essays in ULS 1 last semester, you will now be moving on to explore different key writing strategies. Starting with the yet familiar descriptive writing, you will then familiarize yourself with other strategies, including exemplification, cause& effect, comparison & contrast and argumentation. Analysing a wide variety of texts will improve your reading skills, while applying the key strategies to your own texts will help you practice and develop your own academic style in writing.
Additionally, mini-group peer review will give you (and your readers) the opportunity to evaluate and improve your reading and listening skills in terms of audience-focus and reader-friendliness.
Continued work with "Whats the Difference?", "English Collocations in Use" and a third book "English Phrasal Verbs in Use" (which should be available in the University Bookshop) will systematically expand and refine your lexical (vocabulary) and "lexico-grammatical" resources (e.g. collocations, phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs).
For further language work please bring latest edition of either the Langenscheidt/Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English or the Cornelsen/Oxford University Press Advanced Learners Dictionary, including the electronic version (CD or DVD as appropriate).

Course requirements:
-regular attendance and active participation in class
-thorough preparation of each class session
-to earn at least 60 % for all handed-in assignments (all in all ca. 2000 words)

Building on the writing foundations laid in ULS 1 last semester, this class enables you to develop your writing skills in the context of particular writing strategies, starting with a refresher of descriptive writing and then proceeding via classification and definition to exemplification, before advancing to cause & effect and comparison & contrast. We will observe how some or all of these writing strategies can be used in persuasive or argumentative essays.
Parallel to this, we will exploit mini-group peer review to explore methods of helping others improve their own writing and, in so doing, gaining useful ideas for ones own work.
The work at home and in class on a wide variety of texts and text types will not only continue the development of your reading- and listening-comprehension skills but also help to expand your vocabulary, further refine your feeling for appropriate register (spoken↔written, formal↔informal), and provide opportunity for refreshing your understanding of grammar. This will be aided by continued work on material from Whats the Difference?, English Collocations in Use and this semesters addition to your practical-language library English Phrasal Verbs in Use, which should be available in the University Bookshop. You will also be expected to have the latest edition of either the Langenscheidt/Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English or the Cornelsen/Oxford University Press Advanced Learners Dictionary, including the electronic version (CD or DVD as appropriate). Finally, a working familiarity with the terminology from the ULS1 Grammar Terminology pack. is necessary.
Since this is an Übung (and you cannot übe if you are not present!), you will be REQUIRED to 1. actively attend class regularly (80% of class meetings) and 2. be appropriately and fully prepared for each class session; being absent the previous week is no satisfactory excuse for coming to class without the necessary preparation. Insufficient preparation with no convincing reason (teachers definition!) means you have not completed the preparation aspect of the module requirements, and so will result in your failing the class.

Cinema as a dominant cultural institution participates in an ongoing struggle over meaning. Frequently, however, social and cultural contradictions are not directly displayed in the movies but remain unexpressed or denied. This course will analyze the subtle and often not so subtle ways in which American movies deal with social conflicts and predicaments.
In the second part of this course, we will discuss how to design a research project, a meaningful research question as well as a theoretical and methodological approach for your term paper which has to be written during the last five weeks of the semester.
A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the class.
Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout
Final paper

Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory

This course will introduce students to a broad range of visual art in the United States with a specific focus on the 20th century. Throughout the semester we will examine how art addresses the complexities of historical and cultural change. We will develop a critical understanding of art and of the writing and debates surrounding it. Positioning artists and art-making firmly within history we will relate visual arts both to material artifacts and cultural practices. Since the subject field itself is so broad, we will select representative works to be studied carefully.
Students are recommended to consult Bjelajacs and Pohls surveys on American art in order to discover their own interests and preferences well before the beginning of the course. You will find the books in my Semesterapparat at the SuUB (3rd floor); selected chapters can also be found on Stud.IP

Bjelajac, David. American art: a cultural history. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2005
Pohl, Frances K. Framing America: A social history of American Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

This course explores selected cultural currents in US-American society with a focus on the 20th century. Together we will develop specific research questions and students will be encouraged to work collaboratively on particular topics and to perform their own research using the library as well as internet sources. In order to prepare for this course you should consult the Semesterapparat; also Karen Halttunen (ed.) A Companion to American Cultural History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. (part III and part IV) SuUB: h hil 323 8r /05 will be of interest.
Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout
Final paper (optional)

Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory

This course will offer a conceptual framework by which to understand and analyze categories of difference such as race, gender, sex etc. In looking both at theories and practices we will address the social construction of difference in contemporary societies. A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

The Black British community constitutes one of the largest and culturally most vibrant ethnic minorities in Britain today. This course is going to investigate the political and cultural impact of Britons with African or Afro-Caribbean roots in contemporary British society. We will look at the political and discursive framework of multiculturalism, and discuss the economic and social conditions of integration, racism, and urban violence. But above all, we will draw on a wide range of examples from the Notting Hill Carnival to Hiphop but also taking in poetry, fiction, theatre, and film to explore issues of migration and diaspora, of identity and hybridity, of roots and routes, and the cultural negotiations between Black Pride and black British.

Please purchase the following novels, which can be got at the University bookshop:
Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River (1st publ. 1993, Vintage pb. 2006, ISBN 978-0099498261)
Diran Adebayo, Some Kind of Black (Abacus pb. 1997, ISBN 978-0349108728)
Andrea Levy, Fruit of the Lemon (Review Headline pb. 2000, ISBN 978-0747261148)

A Reader with primary and secondary material will be made available.

Requirements:
regular attendance and active participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and/or worksheets
in D-2a: an additional long term paper of 8-10 pp.

This course is a theoretical and practical introduction to PRAGMATICS, the study of language use in context. As the course proceeds, students will be introduced to the fundamental concepts and terms of pragmatic theory and analysis, and will learn to apply them in their own research. Set within the framework of DISCOURSE ANALYSIS, the course will also equip students with a set of essential practical skills for exploring language by means of using CORPORA, collections of authentic written and spoken language. By the end of the course students will have gained a systematic understanding and hands-on experience in how meaning is constructed, negotiated and interpreted in COMMUNICATION.

Introductory reading:
-Chapters 8 and 9 in Finegan, Edward, Language. Its Structure and Use. Boston/MA: Thomson. [several editions available]

Assessment:
- Regular attendance and active participation in data analysis and discussion
- Close reading of selected texts, reading assignments
- Short in-class presentation on a short piece of empirical work
- Term paper (if applicable)

Dictionaries are important tools for language learners. Learners use them to look up words and constructions, to check pronunciation and spelling. But often learners are not aware of what types of information can be found in dictionaries which make the look-up-process more successful.
In this seminar we will discuss monolingual and bilingual dictionaries by looking more closely at various information categories and their presentation in these dictionaries. The seminar will also present an overview of different kinds of specialized dictionaries, e.g. valency, phrasal verbs, historical or collocation dictionaries. This will include online dictionaries. We will also deal with the more practical side of dictionary making and what kind of resources can be used for making dictionaries. Another focus will be the teaching of dictionary using skills.

A detailed seminar plan and reading material will announced in first session; texts then have to be prepared in advance of sessions as stated in the seminar schedule.

Assessment:
-active participation, close reading of selected texts for each session
-homework assignments
-presentation of research paper or presentation of small research project
-term paper based on research project

The course aims to give students a thorough introduction into the major themes, stylistic devices, and poetic conventions of Scottish poetry in the twentieth century. Proceeding from an overview of Scottish society and culture in the context of twentieth-century Britain, we will discuss those historical, literary, and cultural developments that have informed the work of several major Scottish poets of that time. The focus of the course will be on poetry in English. Our exploration will begin with selected poems by Hugh MacDiarmid and Edwin Muir, both prominent figures of the Scottish literary renaissance, a movement which has contributed much to the distinctive identity and international recognition of Scottish writing. Further poets who will be read, discussed, and - occasionally - listened to are Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan, Liz Lochhead, and Jackie Kay. Their themes include evocative and often melancholic portrayals of the Highlands, rural community life, explorations of urban aesthetics and landscapes, desire and longing, historical references, politics, sex, and issues of gender and identity. Another topic of the course will be Scottish writers' poetic experiments in genre, style, and aesthetics. On completing the course, students will have gained a comprehensive understanding of poetry as a form of expression of the Scottish nation.

The set primary texts must be read in advance of the seminar: students' knowledge of the set books is essential for deciding on topics for oral presentations and group discussions, which will be decided on in the first week of term.

A detailed seminar plan and additional primary and selected secondary material will be made available at the beginning of the session time; secondary texts then have to be prepared in advance of sessions as stated in the seminar schedule.

Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation including handout
Preparation of group discussion
Term paper

Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory.

Primary texts (please make sure to purchase the editions given below):

Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead. Three Scottish Poets. Canongate Classics. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1998. ISBN 10 0862414008.
Jackie Kay. Red, Cherry Red. Book & CD. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. ISBN 10 0747589798.
Further primary texts and a selection of secondary sources will be made available in StudIP.

Recommended additional reading for students intending to write a term paper:

Douglas Dunn (ed.). Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry. London: Faber & Faber, 2006. ISBN 10 0571228380.

Filming Slavery
This Seminar will address the question of how American film - in its Hollywood and its independent formations - has addressed the issue of back enslavement in the US. We will of course watch and address the two films of 2013 that have caused great national furor in feuilleton responses and among intellectual critics, Spielberg's /Lincoln/, and Tarantino's /Django Unchained./ However, beyond looking at representations in our contemporary moment, the seminar will also have a diachronic angle, looking at film versions of slavery throughout US film history. To work through the embattled issue of representation and racism will be one of the major theoretical and methodological challenges of the seminar. Participants will be expected to undertake their own research to obtain a graded "schein" (Hausarbeit or Presentation, depending on module) with respect to one selected movie, in accordance with Prof. Broeck's advice. Work by groups will be accepted, as long as individual performance will be marked.
It will be a requirement for the seminar to participate in Stud Ip communication on a frequent and regular basis. A list of the films to study, a reading list and more information will be posted on Stud Ip in the next weeks.
We will begin working with the pbs documentary /Slavery and the Making of America/,see http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/, in order for participants to obtain basic knowledge of black enslavement in the US.
For a first filmographic compilation, please check: http://www.ama.africatoday.com/films.htm
The following title will be basic reading, so purchase/or obtain from library and make yourself acquainted with it before semester beginning will be a prerequisite:
Natalie Zemon Davis, /Slaves on Screen//,/ Harvard UP: 2000.
Other titles will be found in a library "Apparat" as soon as they become available.
Bitte beachten Sie den Stud IP Ablaufplan, das letzte Drittel der Sitzungen wird als Blockseminar durchgeführt werden.

The intention of this seminar is to discuss a relatively new literary genre which emerged in the second half of the 20th century - the academic or campus novel. We will address the historical development of this novel form, its exhibition of human weaknesses and treatment of university life. Further, the seminar will offer an introduction to various forms of humour, in particular the concept of satire which looms large in the campus novel.

We shall start with THINKS (2001), a younger publication by one of the acclaimed founders of the campus novel genre, David Lodge. This book deals with the cognitive scientist and womaniser Ralph Messenger and his affair with Helen Read, a young widow and writer-in-residence at the fictitious University of Gloucester. We will then move on to Ian McEwans SOLAR (2010) about an award-winning physicist, Michael Beard, and his chase for a solution of climate change. The novel takes the reader through three significant stages of the protagonists chaotic private and scientific life. The seminar will highlight the vehicle of satire as a key mode of producing meaning in literature.

In addition to in-depth readings of the novels, our research issues include the following, but might vary according to your preferences: cultural studies, genre theory, historical studies, gender theory, biographical studies, and humour studies.

Requirements:
registration on Stud.IP
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout
term paper

Texts:
Lodge, David (2001): Thinks. London: Penguin, New Edition 2010.*
McEwan, Ian (2010): Solar. London: Random House UK, First Edition 2010.*

*Notification: Please pay attention to the exact publication dates when purchasing the books so we can all work with the same editions. Thank you!

This seminar explores various thematic as well as formal issues raised in contemporary novels from the United States. We will put special emphasis on questions concerning the ways in which these texts negotiate, among others, the fine line between fact and fiction, the question of authorship, and the writing of history. Since this seminar is conceptualized as a "Lektüreseminar", we will focus on in-depth close readings of the novels, examining their narrative strategies, i.e., constructions of time, space, voice, etc. The seminar is also designed to rehearse hands-on methods of tackling the obvious task at hand, finding answers to the question: what is postmodern (or not) about these texts, and why would it matter?

Our reading list comprises the following books:

> Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
> Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)
> Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
> Michael Cunningham, Specimen Days (2005)
> Toni Morrison, A Mercy (2009)

Please bring your own (purchased) copies of the novels to class and make sure you have read them well in advance.

A detailed syllabus will be made available on Stud.IP at the beginning of the semester.

Requirements:

> registration on Stud.IP
> regular attendance
> active participation in class discussions
> in-depth knowledge of reading material
> oral presentation (Impulsreferat)
> submission of a short annotated bibliography
> term paper (optional)

Crime Fiction is overwhelmingly popular and yet, much of the narrative literature that involves crime of some kind or another is often not regarded as literature at all. This course is designed to familiarize students with the contemporary critical and theoretical arguments concerning popular fiction and genre studies, as well as to enable all participants of this course to relate to the genres wider social, historical and political contexts while discussing the individual narratives in terms of form, language and imagery. The focus will predominantly be on transatlantic generic developments in crime fiction and film, both detective- or transgressor-centred from the Second World War onwards, including examples of the police procedural (Ian Rankin); of female detectives and the feminist appropriation of the hard-boiled story (P.D. James and Sara Paretsky); the conspiracy thriller (Dan Brown); the postmodern mystery (Paul Auster) as well as Robert Altman's contemporary cinematic rendering of the classic clue-puzzle.

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP).

Required reading before the first session (you need a copy of these books for class):

Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy. London: Faber and Faber, 2011.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
James, P.D. The Skull Beneath the Skin. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.
Paretsky, Sara. Blacklist. New York: Signet, 2004.
Rankin, Ian. Knots and Crosses. London: Orion, 2008.

Additionally: Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001) DVD

Copies can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: http://www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Requirements and Assessment:
- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

This seminar focuses on a variety of literary works written in sixteenth-century Renaissance England including excerpts of Sir Thomas Mores Utopia (1516), poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503-1542), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Mary (Sidney) Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1562-1621), Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Thomas Nashe (1567-1601). In addition, we will read excerpts from Christopher Marlowes Tamburlaine the Great, Part I (1586/7; pub. 1590) and William Shakespeares Twelfth Night (1601). Overall this courses wishes to enable students to explore language, forms, genres, and styles of individual texts, as well as to critically engage with themes, issues, and key concepts in Renaissance Literature. On the way, our focus will shift from on a discussion of the fundamental features of lyrical composition, drama and prose to issues such as the political structures of Renaissance England, gender roles and relations, love and sexuality as well as nationhood, race, colonialism and empire.

Electronic resources for independent study:

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/renaissanceinfo.htm
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael9/
http://shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/
http://www.sonnets.org/

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP). A reader with all primary text materials will be made available for download on Stud. IP. Additional secondary sources can be accessed in the Semesterapparat section on the third floor of the library building.

Requirements and Assessment:

- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

The aim of this course is to introduce students to a major Shakespearean play that has become a key text in the debate about race or ethnicity in early modern Europe. Taking his tragic comedy The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596-1598) as example, we shall have a close look at the theatrical representation of the Venetian society, particularly the conflict between the moneylender Shylock and the merchant Antonio. Against the backdrop of the dominant racial stereotypes and prejudices of the 16th century, the course is going to address diverse modes of ethnic or religious discourse. Our analysis of the play will include a discussion of the extent to which Shakespeare drew upon, contributed to, or modified notions of otherness dominating in his own day.

requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
presentation and/or final paper
Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory.
text:
Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. Preferably the Arden Shakespeare Edition.

"We live," as Jeffrey J. Cohen has so eloquently pointed out, "in a time of monsters" (Monster Theory, vii). Cohens comment has echoed hauntingly, especially in the last few decades, which have witnessed an unprecedented upsurge of interest in monstrous figures. Vampires in particular have been unleashed within American popular culture and literature - one need only think of Anne Rice's novels, The Vampire Diaries, Twilight or True Blood. In this class, we will establish a comprehensive background on the vampire by looking at such canonical texts as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), as well as introducing central tenets of its postmodern successors. However, the primary focus of this class will consist of texts that have been repeatedly relegated to the margins, such as those of writers who have been historically excluded from the canon, like black women (e.g. Octavia Butler), or those which are considered a part of popular culture as opposed to high culture (Alan Ball's True Blood). In this regard, we will discuss the literary potential and the cultural meanings the figure of the vampire has encompassed, spanning various historical periods and textual genres. For example, we will focus on the utilization of this fantastic figure for the portrayal of issues of Otherness and for the deconstruction of various socio-cultural boundaries - by looking at diverse genres, such as novels, short stories, movies and TV shows.

Required Texts:

Most of the primary and secondary texts for this class will be available on Stud.IP. However, you are expected to obtain and read a copy of the following books before the first session of class:

- Butler, Octavia E. Fledgling. New York: Warner, 2005. Print.
- Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. 1976. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999. Print.
- Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.

Copies are available at the Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen (www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Requirements:

- regular class attendance
- careful preparation of reading material (which includes bringing the assigned texts to class you will need to work with them)
- active participation in class discussions and in group exercises
- presentation of individual or group projects
- term paper (optional)

These requirements may vary depending on your degree program.

Please be aware that prior enrollment on Stud. IP. is mandatory.

This class works on two levels. On the one level, it will help you prepare yourself linguistically and strategically for real-life situations when working and/or studying in an English-speaking country especially for situations where problem-solving skills involving communication between you and someone else are necessary. Using roleplay and (NON-computer-based) mini-simulations, we will discover that however well one is prepared for such situations, it is essential to be ready for the unexpected, and thus to have alternative strategies (linguistically and otherwise!) up ones sleeve. Thus, there will be a great deal of information-gap and problem-solving talking in the class, which inevitably means much listening comprehension as well.
On the other level, the work and activities mentioned above will further your language skills, especially regarding 1. selecting the appropriate register and tone when speaking and writing, 2. audience focus. In this way, the class will also help you prepare for the oral-presentation exam that currently constitutes the module exam for the Aufbaumodul Sprachpraxis in the BA 2011 degree.
In the final weeks of the semester, each participant will be given the opportunity to give a first version of her or his oral presentation for the exam, and will receive feedback from the class (and me, of course!). Through this dress rehearsal, you can see what needs to be reworked before the actual exam, and also collect ideas regarding technique, language and visual aids through analysing the presentations of your classmates.
Reading, listening and writing skills will also be developed, as will the critical eye, as participants give each other feedback on their first drafts: formal letters (of complaint, application etc.), newspaper articles and so on.
Since this is an Übung (and you cannot übe if you are not present!), you will be REQUIRED to 1. actively attend class regularly (80% of class meetings) and 2. be appropriately and fully prepared for each class session; being absent the previous week is no satisfactory excuse for coming to class without the necessary preparation. Insufficient preparation with no convincing reason (teachers definition!) means you have not completed the preparation aspect of the module requirements, and so will result in your failing the class.
Register for the class in Stud.IP AFTER you have signed up for the class at the Börse in the usual way, and download the pack there, once I have admitted you to the class in Stud.IP.

Images of Education, a Culture & Communication class, is open to 4th-semester (or higher) E-SC students (2008 & 2011 PO). Credit points (3) may be applied to the Abschlußmodul (2008 PO), the Aufbaumodul (2011 PO) or to General Studies.

General Description: "Images of Education" gives students an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences in education systems and to become acquainted with cinematic portrayals of education.

Films: We will watch both British and American films in which teacher-student relationships constitute a central theme. These films will be selected from the following list: "Goodbye Mr. Chips" (UK, 1939), "Educating Rita" (UK, 1983), "Stand and Deliver" (US, 1988), "Lean on Me" (US, 1989), "Dead Poets Society" (US, 1989), "Dangerous Minds" (US, 1995), "Mr. Holland's Opus" (US, 1995), "Good Will Hunting" (US, 1997), "Finding Forrester" (US, 2000), and "Freedom Writers" (2007).

Language Skills: All four language skills will be practiced, but listening comprehension, vocabulary building, and discussion (oral and written) skills will receive special emphasis. We will also work on building and maintaining fluency and on improving language accuracy.

Note: Due to the popularity of "Images of Education," two parallel sections of the class are being offered.

Images of Education, a Culture & Communication class, is open to 4th-semester (or higher) E-SC students (2008 & 2011 PO). Credit points (3) may be applied to the Abschlußmodul (2008 PO), the Aufbaumodul (2011 PO) or to General Studies.

General Description: "Images of Education" gives students an opportunity to reflect on their own experiences in education systems and to become acquainted with cinematic portrayals of education.

Films: We will watch both British and American films in which teacher-student relationships constitute a central theme. These films will be selected from the following list: "Goodbye Mr. Chips" (UK, 1939), "Educating Rita" (UK, 1983), "Stand and Deliver" (US, 1988), "Lean on Me" (US, 1989), "Dead Poets Society" (US, 1989), "Dangerous Minds" (US, 1995), "Mr. Holland's Opus" (US, 1995), "Good Will Hunting" (US, 1997), "Finding Forrester" (US, 2000), and "Freedom Writers" (2007).

Language Skills: All four language skills will be practiced, but listening comprehension, vocabulary building, and discussion (oral and written) skills will receive special emphasis. We will also work on building and maintaining fluency and on improving language accuracy.

Note: Due to the popularity of "Images of Education," two parallel sections of the class are being offered.

This course has a closer look at how first and second languages are learned in order for future English Language Teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of their own language teaching. We will deal with the following questions:
In which way has English Language Teaching developed in history?
How do children acquire a first language?
To what extent can theories of first language acquisition be applied to second language learning?
Can individual learner characteristics affect success in second language learning?
How do learners learn a foreign language at school - and what are the consequences for teaching them?
There will be a special emphasis on primary education in some sessions in this class.

This course has a closer look at how first and second languages are learned in order for future English Language Teachers to evaluate the effectiveness of their own language teaching. We will deal with the following questions:
In which way has English Language Teaching developed in history?
How do children acquire a first language?
To what extent can theories of first language acquisition be applied to second language learning?
Can individual learner characteristics affect success in second language learning?
How do learners learn a foreign language at school - and what are the consequences for teaching them?
There will be a special emphasis on primary education in some sessions in this class.

When teaching a foreign language class, teachers do not have to develop all their teaching materials themselves, since textbooks etc. are produced by various publishers. In this class we will take a look at available teaching materials, analyze them and discuss their structure and layout. We will focus on teaching materials for the Secondary school classroom: students' and teachers' textbooks, didactic journals and educational software.

When teaching a foreign language class, teachers do not have to develop all their teaching materials themselves, since textbooks etc. are produced by various publishers. In this class we will take a look at available teaching materials, analyze them and discuss their structure and layout. We will focus on teaching materials for the Secondary school classroom: students' and teachers' textbooks, didactic journals and educational software.

There will be a special emphasis on CLIL-materials in this class.

The course aims to give students a thorough introduction into the major themes, stylistic devices, and poetic conventions of Scottish poetry in the twentieth century. Proceeding from an overview of Scottish society and culture in the context of twentieth-century Britain, we will discuss those historical, literary, and cultural developments that have informed the work of several major Scottish poets of that time. The focus of the course will be on poetry in English. Our exploration will begin with selected poems by Hugh MacDiarmid and Edwin Muir, both prominent figures of the Scottish literary renaissance, a movement which has contributed much to the distinctive identity and international recognition of Scottish writing. Further poets who will be read, discussed, and - occasionally - listened to are Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan, Liz Lochhead, and Jackie Kay. Their themes include evocative and often melancholic portrayals of the Highlands, rural community life, explorations of urban aesthetics and landscapes, desire and longing, historical references, politics, sex, and issues of gender and identity. Another topic of the course will be Scottish writers' poetic experiments in genre, style, and aesthetics. On completing the course, students will have gained a comprehensive understanding of poetry as a form of expression of the Scottish nation.

The set primary texts must be read in advance of the seminar: students' knowledge of the set books is essential for deciding on topics for oral presentations and group discussions, which will be decided on in the first week of term.

A detailed seminar plan and additional primary and selected secondary material will be made available at the beginning of the session time; secondary texts then have to be prepared in advance of sessions as stated in the seminar schedule.

Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation including handout
Preparation of group discussion
Term paper

Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory.

Primary texts (please make sure to purchase the editions given below):

Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead. Three Scottish Poets. Canongate Classics. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1998. ISBN 10 0862414008.
Jackie Kay. Red, Cherry Red. Book & CD. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. ISBN 10 0747589798.
Further primary texts and a selection of secondary sources will be made available in StudIP.

Recommended additional reading for students intending to write a term paper:

Douglas Dunn (ed.). Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry. London: Faber & Faber, 2006. ISBN 10 0571228380.

The intention of this seminar is to discuss a relatively new literary genre which emerged in the second half of the 20th century - the academic or campus novel. We will address the historical development of this novel form, its exhibition of human weaknesses and treatment of university life. Further, the seminar will offer an introduction to various forms of humour, in particular the concept of satire which looms large in the campus novel.

We shall start with THINKS (2001), a younger publication by one of the acclaimed founders of the campus novel genre, David Lodge. This book deals with the cognitive scientist and womaniser Ralph Messenger and his affair with Helen Read, a young widow and writer-in-residence at the fictitious University of Gloucester. We will then move on to Ian McEwans SOLAR (2010) about an award-winning physicist, Michael Beard, and his chase for a solution of climate change. The novel takes the reader through three significant stages of the protagonists chaotic private and scientific life. The seminar will highlight the vehicle of satire as a key mode of producing meaning in literature.

In addition to in-depth readings of the novels, our research issues include the following, but might vary according to your preferences: cultural studies, genre theory, historical studies, gender theory, biographical studies, and humour studies.

Requirements:
registration on Stud.IP
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout
term paper

Texts:
Lodge, David (2001): Thinks. London: Penguin, New Edition 2010.*
McEwan, Ian (2010): Solar. London: Random House UK, First Edition 2010.*

*Notification: Please pay attention to the exact publication dates when purchasing the books so we can all work with the same editions. Thank you!

This seminar explores various thematic as well as formal issues raised in contemporary novels from the United States. We will put special emphasis on questions concerning the ways in which these texts negotiate, among others, the fine line between fact and fiction, the question of authorship, and the writing of history. Since this seminar is conceptualized as a "Lektüreseminar", we will focus on in-depth close readings of the novels, examining their narrative strategies, i.e., constructions of time, space, voice, etc. The seminar is also designed to rehearse hands-on methods of tackling the obvious task at hand, finding answers to the question: what is postmodern (or not) about these texts, and why would it matter?

Our reading list comprises the following books:

> Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
> Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)
> Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
> Michael Cunningham, Specimen Days (2005)
> Toni Morrison, A Mercy (2009)

Please bring your own (purchased) copies of the novels to class and make sure you have read them well in advance.

A detailed syllabus will be made available on Stud.IP at the beginning of the semester.

Requirements:

> registration on Stud.IP
> regular attendance
> active participation in class discussions
> in-depth knowledge of reading material
> oral presentation (Impulsreferat)
> submission of a short annotated bibliography
> term paper (optional)

Crime Fiction is overwhelmingly popular and yet, much of the narrative literature that involves crime of some kind or another is often not regarded as literature at all. This course is designed to familiarize students with the contemporary critical and theoretical arguments concerning popular fiction and genre studies, as well as to enable all participants of this course to relate to the genres wider social, historical and political contexts while discussing the individual narratives in terms of form, language and imagery. The focus will predominantly be on transatlantic generic developments in crime fiction and film, both detective- or transgressor-centred from the Second World War onwards, including examples of the police procedural (Ian Rankin); of female detectives and the feminist appropriation of the hard-boiled story (P.D. James and Sara Paretsky); the conspiracy thriller (Dan Brown); the postmodern mystery (Paul Auster) as well as Robert Altman's contemporary cinematic rendering of the classic clue-puzzle.

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP).

Required reading before the first session (you need a copy of these books for class):

Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy. London: Faber and Faber, 2011.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
James, P.D. The Skull Beneath the Skin. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.
Paretsky, Sara. Blacklist. New York: Signet, 2004.
Rankin, Ian. Knots and Crosses. London: Orion, 2008.

Additionally: Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001) DVD

Copies can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: http://www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Requirements and Assessment:
- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

This seminar focuses on a variety of literary works written in sixteenth-century Renaissance England including excerpts of Sir Thomas Mores Utopia (1516), poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503-1542), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Mary (Sidney) Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1562-1621), Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Thomas Nashe (1567-1601). In addition, we will read excerpts from Christopher Marlowes Tamburlaine the Great, Part I (1586/7; pub. 1590) and William Shakespeares Twelfth Night (1601). Overall this courses wishes to enable students to explore language, forms, genres, and styles of individual texts, as well as to critically engage with themes, issues, and key concepts in Renaissance Literature. On the way, our focus will shift from on a discussion of the fundamental features of lyrical composition, drama and prose to issues such as the political structures of Renaissance England, gender roles and relations, love and sexuality as well as nationhood, race, colonialism and empire.

Electronic resources for independent study:

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/renaissanceinfo.htm
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael9/
http://shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/
http://www.sonnets.org/

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP). A reader with all primary text materials will be made available for download on Stud. IP. Additional secondary sources can be accessed in the Semesterapparat section on the third floor of the library building.

Requirements and Assessment:

- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

Since the Révolution tranquille / Quiet Revolution, Canadian playwrights and authors have been able to connect with audiences beyond the more or less narrow literary confines of Canada / Québec. Shakespeare has had an enormous influence on Canadian drama. Both Anglophone as well as Francophone Canadian playwrights have based their adaptations on the Bard's plays. This seminar focuses on Ann-Marie MacDonald's Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

Please note that prior enrollment via StudIP is mandatory.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
presentation and handout
Set Texts:
Students must buy and read the following, preferably before the semester begins:

MacDonald, Ann-Marie: Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet (The Arden Shakespeare)

Copies of the texts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung).

"We live," as Jeffrey J. Cohen has so eloquently pointed out, "in a time of monsters" (Monster Theory, vii). Cohens comment has echoed hauntingly, especially in the last few decades, which have witnessed an unprecedented upsurge of interest in monstrous figures. Vampires in particular have been unleashed within American popular culture and literature - one need only think of Anne Rice's novels, The Vampire Diaries, Twilight or True Blood. In this class, we will establish a comprehensive background on the vampire by looking at such canonical texts as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), as well as introducing central tenets of its postmodern successors. However, the primary focus of this class will consist of texts that have been repeatedly relegated to the margins, such as those of writers who have been historically excluded from the canon, like black women (e.g. Octavia Butler), or those which are considered a part of popular culture as opposed to high culture (Alan Ball's True Blood). In this regard, we will discuss the literary potential and the cultural meanings the figure of the vampire has encompassed, spanning various historical periods and textual genres. For example, we will focus on the utilization of this fantastic figure for the portrayal of issues of Otherness and for the deconstruction of various socio-cultural boundaries - by looking at diverse genres, such as novels, short stories, movies and TV shows.

Required Texts:

Most of the primary and secondary texts for this class will be available on Stud.IP. However, you are expected to obtain and read a copy of the following books before the first session of class:

- Butler, Octavia E. Fledgling. New York: Warner, 2005. Print.
- Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. 1976. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999. Print.
- Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.

Copies are available at the Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen (www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Requirements:

- regular class attendance
- careful preparation of reading material (which includes bringing the assigned texts to class you will need to work with them)
- active participation in class discussions and in group exercises
- presentation of individual or group projects
- term paper (optional)

These requirements may vary depending on your degree program.

Please be aware that prior enrollment on Stud. IP. is mandatory.

As a result of colonial expansion, English is spoken almost everywhere in the world today. This course is an introduction to the different types of English varieties. It will look at different aspects of variation, such as the socio-historical background, the geographical distribution of English around the world, characteristic linguistic features of different varieties, types of varieties, and variational pragmatics. The course provides hands-on activities, enabling students to distinguish different types of varieties and identify basic linguistic features of the main varieties.

A list of readings and a course schedule will be announced at the beginning of the term.

Requirements:
- regular, active participation
- preparation for sessions (readings, homework assignments)
- in-class presentation

This seminar will study the similarities and differences between English and German in the areas of phonetics and phonology, morphology, grammar and vocabulary. We will thus take a contrastive look at the sound inventories of English and German, their morphology, their syntax. We will also deal with the vocabulary and areas in which the vocabularies overlap. We will also widen our point of view into other areas of contrastive linguistics, e.g. translation studies.
A detailed seminar plan and reading material will announced in first session; texts then have to be prepared in advance of sessions as stated in the seminar schedule.

Assessment:
-active participation, close reading of selected texts for each session
-homework assignments
-presentation

How do sentences function together in order to create text rather than just sequences of unrelated sentences? In this course, we introduce and practice basic accounts of text structure, focusing particularly on accounts that have been developed for written texts. We will start from Theme-rheme structure as known in Systemic Functional Grammar (Eggins 2000, Thompson 2004). Next, we will investigate several different means to create cohesion, for example repetition, vocabulary chains or ellipsis. The last third of the course will be dedicated to Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST, Mann & Thompson 1988). You will learn to analyse texts together in class, as well as individually at home, using and evaluating different approaches.

Requirements
Finding and reading the texts on the different theories.
Do analyses at home and in class, partly with the support of a little software programme.
Active participation in all class work, working through texts / exercises / discussions. You are expected to attend class on a regular basis.
Students who take this class as part of the WD2 Module in the BA ESC will do an oral presentation.
Students who take this class as part of the LS1 Module in the BA Linguistics are expected to write a term paper.

Recommended Literature (no need to buy any)
Eggins, Suzanne. 2000. An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics, 2nd ed. London: Pinter.
Mann, W.C. and Thompson, S.A. 1988. Rhetorical Structure Theory: Toward a Functional Theory of Text Organization, Text 8 (3): 243-281.
Salkie, Raphael. 1995. Text and Discourse Analysis. London; New York: Routledge.
Thompson, Geoff. 2004. Introducing Functional Grammar, 2nd ed. London: Arnold.

Filming Slavery
This Seminar will address the question of how American film - in its Hollywood and its independent formations - has addressed the issue of back enslavement in the US. We will of course watch and address the two films of 2013 that have caused great national furor in feuilleton responses and among intellectual critics, Spielberg's /Lincoln/, and Tarantino's /Django Unchained./ However, beyond looking at representations in our contemporary moment, the seminar will also have a diachronic angle, looking at film versions of slavery throughout US film history. To work through the embattled issue of representation and racism will be one of the major theoretical and methodological challenges of the seminar. Participants will be expected to undertake their own research to obtain a graded "schein" (Hausarbeit or Presentation, depending on module) with respect to one selected movie, in accordance with Prof. Broeck's advice. Work by groups will be accepted, as long as individual performance will be marked.
It will be a requirement for the seminar to participate in Stud Ip communication on a frequent and regular basis. A list of the films to study, a reading list and more information will be posted on Stud Ip in the next weeks.
We will begin working with the pbs documentary /Slavery and the Making of America/,see http://www.pbs.org/wnet/slavery/, in order for participants to obtain basic knowledge of black enslavement in the US.
For a first filmographic compilation, please check: http://www.ama.africatoday.com/films.htm
The following title will be basic reading, so purchase/or obtain from library and make yourself acquainted with it before semester beginning will be a prerequisite:
Natalie Zemon Davis, /Slaves on Screen//,/ Harvard UP: 2000.
Other titles will be found in a library "Apparat" as soon as they become available.
Bitte beachten Sie den Stud IP Ablaufplan, das letzte Drittel der Sitzungen wird als Blockseminar durchgeführt werden.

The intention of this seminar is to discuss a relatively new literary genre which emerged in the second half of the 20th century - the academic or campus novel. We will address the historical development of this novel form, its exhibition of human weaknesses and treatment of university life. Further, the seminar will offer an introduction to various forms of humour, in particular the concept of satire which looms large in the campus novel.

We shall start with THINKS (2001), a younger publication by one of the acclaimed founders of the campus novel genre, David Lodge. This book deals with the cognitive scientist and womaniser Ralph Messenger and his affair with Helen Read, a young widow and writer-in-residence at the fictitious University of Gloucester. We will then move on to Ian McEwans SOLAR (2010) about an award-winning physicist, Michael Beard, and his chase for a solution of climate change. The novel takes the reader through three significant stages of the protagonists chaotic private and scientific life. The seminar will highlight the vehicle of satire as a key mode of producing meaning in literature.

In addition to in-depth readings of the novels, our research issues include the following, but might vary according to your preferences: cultural studies, genre theory, historical studies, gender theory, biographical studies, and humour studies.

Requirements:
registration on Stud.IP
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout
term paper

Texts:
Lodge, David (2001): Thinks. London: Penguin, New Edition 2010.*
McEwan, Ian (2010): Solar. London: Random House UK, First Edition 2010.*

*Notification: Please pay attention to the exact publication dates when purchasing the books so we can all work with the same editions. Thank you!

This seminar explores various thematic as well as formal issues raised in contemporary novels from the United States. We will put special emphasis on questions concerning the ways in which these texts negotiate, among others, the fine line between fact and fiction, the question of authorship, and the writing of history. Since this seminar is conceptualized as a "Lektüreseminar", we will focus on in-depth close readings of the novels, examining their narrative strategies, i.e., constructions of time, space, voice, etc. The seminar is also designed to rehearse hands-on methods of tackling the obvious task at hand, finding answers to the question: what is postmodern (or not) about these texts, and why would it matter?

Our reading list comprises the following books:

> Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
> Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)
> Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
> Michael Cunningham, Specimen Days (2005)
> Toni Morrison, A Mercy (2009)

Please bring your own (purchased) copies of the novels to class and make sure you have read them well in advance.

A detailed syllabus will be made available on Stud.IP at the beginning of the semester.

Requirements:

> registration on Stud.IP
> regular attendance
> active participation in class discussions
> in-depth knowledge of reading material
> oral presentation (Impulsreferat)
> submission of a short annotated bibliography
> term paper (optional)

Crime Fiction is overwhelmingly popular and yet, much of the narrative literature that involves crime of some kind or another is often not regarded as literature at all. This course is designed to familiarize students with the contemporary critical and theoretical arguments concerning popular fiction and genre studies, as well as to enable all participants of this course to relate to the genres wider social, historical and political contexts while discussing the individual narratives in terms of form, language and imagery. The focus will predominantly be on transatlantic generic developments in crime fiction and film, both detective- or transgressor-centred from the Second World War onwards, including examples of the police procedural (Ian Rankin); of female detectives and the feminist appropriation of the hard-boiled story (P.D. James and Sara Paretsky); the conspiracy thriller (Dan Brown); the postmodern mystery (Paul Auster) as well as Robert Altman's contemporary cinematic rendering of the classic clue-puzzle.

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP).

Required reading before the first session (you need a copy of these books for class):

Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy. London: Faber and Faber, 2011.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
James, P.D. The Skull Beneath the Skin. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.
Paretsky, Sara. Blacklist. New York: Signet, 2004.
Rankin, Ian. Knots and Crosses. London: Orion, 2008.

Additionally: Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001) DVD

Copies can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: http://www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Requirements and Assessment:
- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

This seminar focuses on a variety of literary works written in sixteenth-century Renaissance England including excerpts of Sir Thomas Mores Utopia (1516), poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503-1542), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Mary (Sidney) Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1562-1621), Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Thomas Nashe (1567-1601). In addition, we will read excerpts from Christopher Marlowes Tamburlaine the Great, Part I (1586/7; pub. 1590) and William Shakespeares Twelfth Night (1601). Overall this courses wishes to enable students to explore language, forms, genres, and styles of individual texts, as well as to critically engage with themes, issues, and key concepts in Renaissance Literature. On the way, our focus will shift from on a discussion of the fundamental features of lyrical composition, drama and prose to issues such as the political structures of Renaissance England, gender roles and relations, love and sexuality as well as nationhood, race, colonialism and empire.

Electronic resources for independent study:

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/renaissanceinfo.htm
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael9/
http://shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/
http://www.sonnets.org/

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP). A reader with all primary text materials will be made available for download on Stud. IP. Additional secondary sources can be accessed in the Semesterapparat section on the third floor of the library building.

Requirements and Assessment:

- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

"We live," as Jeffrey J. Cohen has so eloquently pointed out, "in a time of monsters" (Monster Theory, vii). Cohens comment has echoed hauntingly, especially in the last few decades, which have witnessed an unprecedented upsurge of interest in monstrous figures. Vampires in particular have been unleashed within American popular culture and literature - one need only think of Anne Rice's novels, The Vampire Diaries, Twilight or True Blood. In this class, we will establish a comprehensive background on the vampire by looking at such canonical texts as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), as well as introducing central tenets of its postmodern successors. However, the primary focus of this class will consist of texts that have been repeatedly relegated to the margins, such as those of writers who have been historically excluded from the canon, like black women (e.g. Octavia Butler), or those which are considered a part of popular culture as opposed to high culture (Alan Ball's True Blood). In this regard, we will discuss the literary potential and the cultural meanings the figure of the vampire has encompassed, spanning various historical periods and textual genres. For example, we will focus on the utilization of this fantastic figure for the portrayal of issues of Otherness and for the deconstruction of various socio-cultural boundaries - by looking at diverse genres, such as novels, short stories, movies and TV shows.

Required Texts:

Most of the primary and secondary texts for this class will be available on Stud.IP. However, you are expected to obtain and read a copy of the following books before the first session of class:

- Butler, Octavia E. Fledgling. New York: Warner, 2005. Print.
- Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. 1976. New York: Ballantine Books, 1999. Print.
- Stoker, Bram. Dracula. 1897. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.

Copies are available at the Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen (www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Requirements:

- regular class attendance
- careful preparation of reading material (which includes bringing the assigned texts to class you will need to work with them)
- active participation in class discussions and in group exercises
- presentation of individual or group projects
- term paper (optional)

These requirements may vary depending on your degree program.

Please be aware that prior enrollment on Stud. IP. is mandatory.

Cinema as a dominant cultural institution participates in an ongoing struggle over meaning. Frequently, however, social and cultural contradictions are not directly displayed in the movies but remain unexpressed or denied. This course will analyze the subtle and often not so subtle ways in which American movies deal with social conflicts and predicaments.
In the second part of this course, we will discuss how to design a research project, a meaningful research question as well as a theoretical and methodological approach for your term paper which has to be written during the last five weeks of the semester.
A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the class.
Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout
Final paper

Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory

This course will introduce students to a broad range of visual art in the United States with a specific focus on the 20th century. Throughout the semester we will examine how art addresses the complexities of historical and cultural change. We will develop a critical understanding of art and of the writing and debates surrounding it. Positioning artists and art-making firmly within history we will relate visual arts both to material artifacts and cultural practices. Since the subject field itself is so broad, we will select representative works to be studied carefully.
Students are recommended to consult Bjelajacs and Pohls surveys on American art in order to discover their own interests and preferences well before the beginning of the course. You will find the books in my Semesterapparat at the SuUB (3rd floor); selected chapters can also be found on Stud.IP

Bjelajac, David. American art: a cultural history. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2005
Pohl, Frances K. Framing America: A social history of American Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

This course explores selected cultural currents in US-American society with a focus on the 20th century. Together we will develop specific research questions and students will be encouraged to work collaboratively on particular topics and to perform their own research using the library as well as internet sources. In order to prepare for this course you should consult the Semesterapparat; also Karen Halttunen (ed.) A Companion to American Cultural History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. (part III and part IV) SuUB: h hil 323 8r /05 will be of interest.
Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout
Final paper (optional)

Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory

This course will offer a conceptual framework by which to understand and analyze categories of difference such as race, gender, sex etc. In looking both at theories and practices we will address the social construction of difference in contemporary societies. A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

The Black British community constitutes one of the largest and culturally most vibrant ethnic minorities in Britain today. This course is going to investigate the political and cultural impact of Britons with African or Afro-Caribbean roots in contemporary British society. We will look at the political and discursive framework of multiculturalism, and discuss the economic and social conditions of integration, racism, and urban violence. But above all, we will draw on a wide range of examples from the Notting Hill Carnival to Hiphop but also taking in poetry, fiction, theatre, and film to explore issues of migration and diaspora, of identity and hybridity, of roots and routes, and the cultural negotiations between Black Pride and black British.

Please purchase the following novels, which can be got at the University bookshop:
Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River (1st publ. 1993, Vintage pb. 2006, ISBN 978-0099498261)
Diran Adebayo, Some Kind of Black (Abacus pb. 1997, ISBN 978-0349108728)
Andrea Levy, Fruit of the Lemon (Review Headline pb. 2000, ISBN 978-0747261148)

A Reader with primary and secondary material will be made available.

Requirements:
regular attendance and active participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and/or worksheets
in D-2a: an additional long term paper of 8-10 pp.

Far from just being pious, prudish, and smothered in petticoats, the Victorians lived through social and intellectual upheavals that have left a lasting impact on our own crisis-ridden modernity. This course aims to investigate some major issues in Victorian culture and society. We shall explore the way in which the two pressing concerns of the age, the woman question and the social question, intersected in the wake of the industrial revolution, and discuss the effects of industrial rationalisation in the areas of work, family, morality, and belief. Other issues to be addressed will deal with Darwin (and what he has to do with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), the British Empire (and its strange traces in the novel of a poor parson's daughter from a remote Yorkshire village), Marx (and the political limitations of Dickens sympathetic rendering of urban poverty), or the rise of consumer culture (and what this has to do with domestic and gender ideology). We will back this up by looking at some popular novels that, among other things, represent the middle classes as caught between liberal philosophy, aristocratic cultural ideals and a fearful fascination with the emergent working class.
A specially compiled reader will be made available.

Please purchase the following novels, which are in stock at the university bookshop:
-Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Norton pb. 2001, ISBN: 9780393975604)
-Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Norton pb. 2001, ISBN: 9780393975420)
-Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Norton pb. 2003, ISBN: 9780393974652)

Requirements:
- regular attendance and active participation
- in-depth knowledge of the reading material
- a portfolio of worksheets
- in D-2a: an additional long term paper of 8 10 pp.

As a result of colonial expansion, English is spoken almost everywhere in the world today. This course is an introduction to the different types of English varieties. It will look at different aspects of variation, such as the socio-historical background, the geographical distribution of English around the world, characteristic linguistic features of different varieties, types of varieties, and variational pragmatics. The course provides hands-on activities, enabling students to distinguish different types of varieties and identify basic linguistic features of the main varieties.

A list of readings and a course schedule will be announced at the beginning of the term.

Requirements:
- regular, active participation
- preparation for sessions (readings, homework assignments)
- in-class presentation

This seminar will study the similarities and differences between English and German in the areas of phonetics and phonology, morphology, grammar and vocabulary. We will thus take a contrastive look at the sound inventories of English and German, their morphology, their syntax. We will also deal with the vocabulary and areas in which the vocabularies overlap. We will also widen our point of view into other areas of contrastive linguistics, e.g. translation studies.
A detailed seminar plan and reading material will announced in first session; texts then have to be prepared in advance of sessions as stated in the seminar schedule.

Assessment:
-active participation, close reading of selected texts for each session
-homework assignments
-presentation

Cinema as a dominant cultural institution participates in an ongoing struggle over meaning. Frequently, however, social and cultural contradictions are not directly displayed in the movies but remain unexpressed or denied. This course will analyze the subtle and often not so subtle ways in which American movies deal with social conflicts and predicaments.
In the second part of this course, we will discuss how to design a research project, a meaningful research question as well as a theoretical and methodological approach for your term paper which has to be written during the last five weeks of the semester.
A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the class.
Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout
Final paper

Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory

This course will introduce students to a broad range of visual art in the United States with a specific focus on the 20th century. Throughout the semester we will examine how art addresses the complexities of historical and cultural change. We will develop a critical understanding of art and of the writing and debates surrounding it. Positioning artists and art-making firmly within history we will relate visual arts both to material artifacts and cultural practices. Since the subject field itself is so broad, we will select representative works to be studied carefully.
Students are recommended to consult Bjelajacs and Pohls surveys on American art in order to discover their own interests and preferences well before the beginning of the course. You will find the books in my Semesterapparat at the SuUB (3rd floor); selected chapters can also be found on Stud.IP

Bjelajac, David. American art: a cultural history. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2005
Pohl, Frances K. Framing America: A social history of American Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

This course explores selected cultural currents in US-American society with a focus on the 20th century. Together we will develop specific research questions and students will be encouraged to work collaboratively on particular topics and to perform their own research using the library as well as internet sources. In order to prepare for this course you should consult the Semesterapparat; also Karen Halttunen (ed.) A Companion to American Cultural History. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. (part III and part IV) SuUB: h hil 323 8r /05 will be of interest.
Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout
Final paper (optional)

Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory

This course will offer a conceptual framework by which to understand and analyze categories of difference such as race, gender, sex etc. In looking both at theories and practices we will address the social construction of difference in contemporary societies. A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

The Black British community constitutes one of the largest and culturally most vibrant ethnic minorities in Britain today. This course is going to investigate the political and cultural impact of Britons with African or Afro-Caribbean roots in contemporary British society. We will look at the political and discursive framework of multiculturalism, and discuss the economic and social conditions of integration, racism, and urban violence. But above all, we will draw on a wide range of examples from the Notting Hill Carnival to Hiphop but also taking in poetry, fiction, theatre, and film to explore issues of migration and diaspora, of identity and hybridity, of roots and routes, and the cultural negotiations between Black Pride and black British.

Please purchase the following novels, which can be got at the University bookshop:
Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River (1st publ. 1993, Vintage pb. 2006, ISBN 978-0099498261)
Diran Adebayo, Some Kind of Black (Abacus pb. 1997, ISBN 978-0349108728)
Andrea Levy, Fruit of the Lemon (Review Headline pb. 2000, ISBN 978-0747261148)

A Reader with primary and secondary material will be made available.

Requirements:
regular attendance and active participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and/or worksheets
in D-2a: an additional long term paper of 8-10 pp.

Far from just being pious, prudish, and smothered in petticoats, the Victorians lived through social and intellectual upheavals that have left a lasting impact on our own crisis-ridden modernity. This course aims to investigate some major issues in Victorian culture and society. We shall explore the way in which the two pressing concerns of the age, the woman question and the social question, intersected in the wake of the industrial revolution, and discuss the effects of industrial rationalisation in the areas of work, family, morality, and belief. Other issues to be addressed will deal with Darwin (and what he has to do with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), the British Empire (and its strange traces in the novel of a poor parson's daughter from a remote Yorkshire village), Marx (and the political limitations of Dickens sympathetic rendering of urban poverty), or the rise of consumer culture (and what this has to do with domestic and gender ideology). We will back this up by looking at some popular novels that, among other things, represent the middle classes as caught between liberal philosophy, aristocratic cultural ideals and a fearful fascination with the emergent working class.
A specially compiled reader will be made available.

Please purchase the following novels, which are in stock at the university bookshop:
-Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Norton pb. 2001, ISBN: 9780393975604)
-Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Norton pb. 2001, ISBN: 9780393975420)
-Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Norton pb. 2003, ISBN: 9780393974652)

Requirements:
- regular attendance and active participation
- in-depth knowledge of the reading material
- a portfolio of worksheets
- in D-2a: an additional long term paper of 8 10 pp.

This module is one of the specific colloquia designed for Bachelor students planning their BA-thesis in the field of literary studies. One of the central purposes for this course is to explore a number of strategies for planning, structuring and writing longer pieces of work and this program will also include formal issues such as format and layout of the final assignment.

The mode by which students will be allocated to the three classes clearly corresponds to the lecturer's research and teaching focus. I would therefore be interested in supervising students whose B.A. thesis deals with topics located in the following areas of research: 16th 21st Century Literatures in English (novels, short stories and poetry); women writing, selected postcolonial writers (e.g. South Asian literature in English); anglophone travel writing; crime fiction and science fiction.

At some point during the semester, students will be expected to present their project (research proposal), or a selected part of it, to the whole group and to discuss their project in various stages of progression both in class and in individual sessions. In terms of thematic scope the weekly schedule will be arranged in the first session, when all participants will have to name and briefly outline their topics. Given the underlying division and the structure of the colloquium, it is, therefore, absolutely vital that all students have at least a rough idea regarding their prospective research activities. Please follow the link to explore the department's guidelines on BA dissertations: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba/bachelorarbeit.aspx

Required reading (added to the reference only section at the floor of the Library building)

Aczel, Richard. How to write an Essay. Stuttgart: Klett, 2006. Print.

Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royle. Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory. 3rd. ed. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004. Print.

Meyer, Michael. Research papers, presentations and examinations. English and American Literatures. Tübingen: A. Francke Verlag, 2004. 185-225. Print. [available as .pdf in a course module on the university's e-learnig platform Stud.IP (section "Dateien")

Prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory. Students are welcome to come and see me during my office hours in advance of the session time to discuss their ideas. I will NOT, however, discuss B.A. thesis topics via e-mail.

This module is one of the specific colloquia designed for Bachelor students writing their BA-thesis in the field of literary studies. We shall look at a number of strategies for planning, structuring and producing longer pieces of work and this programme will also include formal issues such as format and layout of the final assignment.
Since the design of the classes clearly corresponds to the professors' research and teaching focus, students are kindly asked to check whether their thematic interests are covered. It is the only way to ensure the best possible academic support. In that vein I can accept thesis topics about British theatre and drama, including the work of William Shakespeare, about film, and the whole range of Canadian as well as Australian literature.
At some point during the semester, you will be expected to present a structure of your thesis project and a selected part of it to the whole group. In terms of thematic scope the weekly schedule will be arranged in the first session, when every participant will have to name and briefly outline his or her topic. Given the underlying division and the structure of the colloquium, it is, therefore, absolutely vital for you to have a rough idea of your project. Please note that students who are poorly prepared will not be accepted.
Prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory. Since no more than 10 students can participate in the final course, early registrations are strongly recommended.


Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout

This colloquium is designed to cater to students who intend to write their B.A. theses in British, Canadian, and American literary studies. Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory.

Text:

Ewald Standop & Matthias Meyer: Die Form der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit

Copies of the text can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung).

This colloquium is designed for Bachelor students planning to write their BA-thesis in the field of (applied) English linguistics. The focus of the seminar is to help students develop, organise and carry out an empirical research project that they will report on in their BA-thesis. Students will receive detailed guidance and advice on their research and writing process throughout the semester. The following aspects will be covered in individual sessions: finding a topic; searching, finding and reviewing research literature; formulating and operationalising research questions; collecting data; processing and analysing data; basic statistics; and writing up your research. Students will be expected to write a research proposal and present and discuss their project in various stages of progression both in class and in individual sessions. Please also check the supervision-section on the English linguistics website at http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/linguistik/betreuung.aspx for a list of staff members and their research specialisations.

Introductory reading

chapter 1 in WRAY A. & A. BLOOMER (2012), Projects in Linguistics and Language Studies. 3rd edition. London: Hodder Education. [available as .pdf in a course module on the university's e-learnig platform Stud.IP (section "Dateien")

Some general references

SEALEY, A. (2010), Researching English Language. A resource book for students. London: Routledge.
SIEPMANN, D. ET AL. (2008), Writing in English: A Guide for Advanced Learners. Tübingen & Basel: Francke.
WALLWORK, A. (2011), English for Writing Research Papers. New York: Springer.
WRAY A. & A. BLOOMER (2012), Projects in Linguistics and Language Studies. 3rd edition. London: Hodder Education. [***highly recommended!***]

This colloquium is for Bachelor students planning to write BA-theses applying linguistic empirical methods in analyses of film or similar multimodal artefacts. The focus of the seminar is on learning how to organise and present empirical work and how to apply linguistic methodologies to multimodal texts, such as narrative film, documentaries, comics, advertisements and the like. Explicit contrasts between media, comparing for example film and comics and so on, can also be undertaken. The colloquium is not intended for theses that are focusing on traditional texts or for students who wish to adopt a more cultural studies style of approach to film analysis. Close analytic treatments of the technical details of, for example, film will be expected, pulling out how technical features (cuts, camera angles, camera movements, sounds, types of interaction between sounds, camera, portrayed figures and so on) are being manipulated to guide spectators' interpretations, evaluations and emotional responses. Film is therefore seen as a kind of multimodal discourse and can be analysed using much of what we know linguistically about how other kinds of discourse work.

This colloquium is designed for Bachelor students planning to write their BA-thesis in the field of cultural history. We will discuss theoretical and methodological approaches, develop outlines and structures as well as strong thesis statements in order to focus your search for information, to tackle your subject and to specify your argument. Students will be expected to present and discuss their project in various stages of progression both in class as well as in individual monitoring sessions.
We will follow the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, seventh edition.

This colloquium is designed for Bachelor students planning to write their BA-thesis in the field of cultural history. We will discuss theoretical and methodological approaches, develop outlines and structures as well as strong thesis statements in order to focus your search for information, to tackle your subject and to specify your argument. Students will be expected to present and discuss their project in various stages of progression both in class as well as in individual monitoring sessions.
We will follow the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, seventh edition.

The course aims to give students a thorough introduction into the major themes, stylistic devices, and poetic conventions of Scottish poetry in the twentieth century. Proceeding from an overview of Scottish society and culture in the context of twentieth-century Britain, we will discuss those historical, literary, and cultural developments that have informed the work of several major Scottish poets of that time. The focus of the course will be on poetry in English. Our exploration will begin with selected poems by Hugh MacDiarmid and Edwin Muir, both prominent figures of the Scottish literary renaissance, a movement which has contributed much to the distinctive identity and international recognition of Scottish writing. Further poets who will be read, discussed, and - occasionally - listened to are Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan, Liz Lochhead, and Jackie Kay. Their themes include evocative and often melancholic portrayals of the Highlands, rural community life, explorations of urban aesthetics and landscapes, desire and longing, historical references, politics, sex, and issues of gender and identity. Another topic of the course will be Scottish writers' poetic experiments in genre, style, and aesthetics. On completing the course, students will have gained a comprehensive understanding of poetry as a form of expression of the Scottish nation.

The set primary texts must be read in advance of the seminar: students' knowledge of the set books is essential for deciding on topics for oral presentations and group discussions, which will be decided on in the first week of term.

A detailed seminar plan and additional primary and selected secondary material will be made available at the beginning of the session time; secondary texts then have to be prepared in advance of sessions as stated in the seminar schedule.

Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation including handout
Preparation of group discussion
Term paper

Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory.

Primary texts (please make sure to purchase the editions given below):

Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead. Three Scottish Poets. Canongate Classics. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1998. ISBN 10 0862414008.
Jackie Kay. Red, Cherry Red. Book & CD. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. ISBN 10 0747589798.
Further primary texts and a selection of secondary sources will be made available in StudIP.

Recommended additional reading for students intending to write a term paper:

Douglas Dunn (ed.). Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry. London: Faber & Faber, 2006. ISBN 10 0571228380.

The intention of this seminar is to discuss a relatively new literary genre which emerged in the second half of the 20th century - the academic or campus novel. We will address the historical development of this novel form, its exhibition of human weaknesses and treatment of university life. Further, the seminar will offer an introduction to various forms of humour, in particular the concept of satire which looms large in the campus novel.

We shall start with THINKS (2001), a younger publication by one of the acclaimed founders of the campus novel genre, David Lodge. This book deals with the cognitive scientist and womaniser Ralph Messenger and his affair with Helen Read, a young widow and writer-in-residence at the fictitious University of Gloucester. We will then move on to Ian McEwans SOLAR (2010) about an award-winning physicist, Michael Beard, and his chase for a solution of climate change. The novel takes the reader through three significant stages of the protagonists chaotic private and scientific life. The seminar will highlight the vehicle of satire as a key mode of producing meaning in literature.

In addition to in-depth readings of the novels, our research issues include the following, but might vary according to your preferences: cultural studies, genre theory, historical studies, gender theory, biographical studies, and humour studies.

Requirements:
registration on Stud.IP
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout
term paper

Texts:
Lodge, David (2001): Thinks. London: Penguin, New Edition 2010.*
McEwan, Ian (2010): Solar. London: Random House UK, First Edition 2010.*

*Notification: Please pay attention to the exact publication dates when purchasing the books so we can all work with the same editions. Thank you!

This seminar explores various thematic as well as formal issues raised in contemporary novels from the United States. We will put special emphasis on questions concerning the ways in which these texts negotiate, among others, the fine line between fact and fiction, the question of authorship, and the writing of history. Since this seminar is conceptualized as a "Lektüreseminar", we will focus on in-depth close readings of the novels, examining their narrative strategies, i.e., constructions of time, space, voice, etc. The seminar is also designed to rehearse hands-on methods of tackling the obvious task at hand, finding answers to the question: what is postmodern (or not) about these texts, and why would it matter?

Our reading list comprises the following books:

> Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
> Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)
> Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
> Michael Cunningham, Specimen Days (2005)
> Toni Morrison, A Mercy (2009)

Please bring your own (purchased) copies of the novels to class and make sure you have read them well in advance.

A detailed syllabus will be made available on Stud.IP at the beginning of the semester.

Requirements:

> registration on Stud.IP
> regular attendance
> active participation in class discussions
> in-depth knowledge of reading material
> oral presentation (Impulsreferat)
> submission of a short annotated bibliography
> term paper (optional)

This seminar focuses on a variety of literary works written in sixteenth-century Renaissance England including excerpts of Sir Thomas Mores Utopia (1516), poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (1503-1542), Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), Elizabeth I (1533-1603), Edmund Spenser (1552-1599), Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586), Mary (Sidney) Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1562-1621), Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Thomas Nashe (1567-1601). In addition, we will read excerpts from Christopher Marlowes Tamburlaine the Great, Part I (1586/7; pub. 1590) and William Shakespeares Twelfth Night (1601). Overall this courses wishes to enable students to explore language, forms, genres, and styles of individual texts, as well as to critically engage with themes, issues, and key concepts in Renaissance Literature. On the way, our focus will shift from on a discussion of the fundamental features of lyrical composition, drama and prose to issues such as the political structures of Renaissance England, gender roles and relations, love and sexuality as well as nationhood, race, colonialism and empire.

Electronic resources for independent study:

http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/renaissanceinfo.htm
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael9/
http://shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/
http://www.sonnets.org/

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP). A reader with all primary text materials will be made available for download on Stud. IP. Additional secondary sources can be accessed in the Semesterapparat section on the third floor of the library building.

Requirements and Assessment:

- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

Since the Révolution tranquille / Quiet Revolution, Canadian playwrights and authors have been able to connect with audiences beyond the more or less narrow literary confines of Canada / Québec. Shakespeare has had an enormous influence on Canadian drama. Both Anglophone as well as Francophone Canadian playwrights have based their adaptations on the Bard's plays. This seminar focuses on Ann-Marie MacDonald's Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

Please note that prior enrollment via StudIP is mandatory.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
presentation and handout
Set Texts:
Students must buy and read the following, preferably before the semester begins:

MacDonald, Ann-Marie: Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet (The Arden Shakespeare)

Copies of the texts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung).

Cinema as a dominant cultural institution participates in an ongoing struggle over meaning. Frequently, however, social and cultural contradictions are not directly displayed in the movies but remain unexpressed or denied. This course will analyze the subtle and often not so subtle ways in which American movies deal with social conflicts and predicaments.
In the second part of this course, we will discuss how to design a research project, a meaningful research question as well as a theoretical and methodological approach for your term paper which has to be written during the last five weeks of the semester.
A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the class.
Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout
Final paper

Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory

This course will introduce students to a broad range of visual art in the United States with a specific focus on the 20th century. Throughout the semester we will examine how art addresses the complexities of historical and cultural change. We will develop a critical understanding of art and of the writing and debates surrounding it. Positioning artists and art-making firmly within history we will relate visual arts both to material artifacts and cultural practices. Since the subject field itself is so broad, we will select representative works to be studied carefully.
Students are recommended to consult Bjelajacs and Pohls surveys on American art in order to discover their own interests and preferences well before the beginning of the course. You will find the books in my Semesterapparat at the SuUB (3rd floor); selected chapters can also be found on Stud.IP

Bjelajac, David. American art: a cultural history. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2005
Pohl, Frances K. Framing America: A social history of American Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

This course will offer a conceptual framework by which to understand and analyze categories of difference such as race, gender, sex etc. In looking both at theories and practices we will address the social construction of difference in contemporary societies. A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

Crime Fiction is overwhelmingly popular and yet, much of the narrative literature that involves crime of some kind or another is often not regarded as literature at all. This course is designed to familiarize students with the contemporary critical and theoretical arguments concerning popular fiction and genre studies, as well as to enable all participants of this course to relate to the genres wider social, historical and political contexts while discussing the individual narratives in terms of form, language and imagery. The focus will predominantly be on transatlantic generic developments in crime fiction and film, both detective- or transgressor-centred from the Second World War onwards, including examples of the police procedural (Ian Rankin); of female detectives and the feminist appropriation of the hard-boiled story (P.D. James and Sara Paretsky); the conspiracy thriller (Dan Brown); the postmodern mystery (Paul Auster) as well as Robert Altman's contemporary cinematic rendering of the classic clue-puzzle.

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP).

Required reading before the first session (you need a copy of these books for class):

Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy. London: Faber and Faber, 2011.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
James, P.D. The Skull Beneath the Skin. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.
Paretsky, Sara. Blacklist. New York: Signet, 2004.
Rankin, Ian. Knots and Crosses. London: Orion, 2008.

Additionally: Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001) DVD

Copies can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: http://www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Requirements and Assessment:
- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

Since the Révolution tranquille / Quiet Revolution, Canadian playwrights and authors have been able to connect with audiences beyond the more or less narrow literary confines of Canada / Québec. Shakespeare has had an enormous influence on Canadian drama. Both Anglophone as well as Francophone Canadian playwrights have based their adaptations on the Bard's plays. This seminar focuses on Ann-Marie MacDonald's Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

Please note that prior enrollment via StudIP is mandatory.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
presentation and handout
Set Texts:
Students must buy and read the following, preferably before the semester begins:

MacDonald, Ann-Marie: Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet (The Arden Shakespeare)

Copies of the texts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung).

As a result of colonial expansion, English is spoken almost everywhere in the world today. This course is an introduction to the different types of English varieties. It will look at different aspects of variation, such as the socio-historical background, the geographical distribution of English around the world, characteristic linguistic features of different varieties, types of varieties, and variational pragmatics. The course provides hands-on activities, enabling students to distinguish different types of varieties and identify basic linguistic features of the main varieties.

A list of readings and a course schedule will be announced at the beginning of the term.

Requirements:
- regular, active participation
- preparation for sessions (readings, homework assignments)
- in-class presentation

This course will introduce students to a broad range of visual art in the United States with a specific focus on the 20th century. Throughout the semester we will examine how art addresses the complexities of historical and cultural change. We will develop a critical understanding of art and of the writing and debates surrounding it. Positioning artists and art-making firmly within history we will relate visual arts both to material artifacts and cultural practices. Since the subject field itself is so broad, we will select representative works to be studied carefully.
Students are recommended to consult Bjelajacs and Pohls surveys on American art in order to discover their own interests and preferences well before the beginning of the course. You will find the books in my Semesterapparat at the SuUB (3rd floor); selected chapters can also be found on Stud.IP

Bjelajac, David. American art: a cultural history. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2005
Pohl, Frances K. Framing America: A social history of American Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

The Black British community constitutes one of the largest and culturally most vibrant ethnic minorities in Britain today. This course is going to investigate the political and cultural impact of Britons with African or Afro-Caribbean roots in contemporary British society. We will look at the political and discursive framework of multiculturalism, and discuss the economic and social conditions of integration, racism, and urban violence. But above all, we will draw on a wide range of examples from the Notting Hill Carnival to Hiphop but also taking in poetry, fiction, theatre, and film to explore issues of migration and diaspora, of identity and hybridity, of roots and routes, and the cultural negotiations between Black Pride and black British.

Please purchase the following novels, which can be got at the University bookshop:
Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River (1st publ. 1993, Vintage pb. 2006, ISBN 978-0099498261)
Diran Adebayo, Some Kind of Black (Abacus pb. 1997, ISBN 978-0349108728)
Andrea Levy, Fruit of the Lemon (Review Headline pb. 2000, ISBN 978-0747261148)

A Reader with primary and secondary material will be made available.

Requirements:
regular attendance and active participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and/or worksheets
in D-2a: an additional long term paper of 8-10 pp.

The course aims to give students a thorough introduction into the major themes, stylistic devices, and poetic conventions of Scottish poetry in the twentieth century. Proceeding from an overview of Scottish society and culture in the context of twentieth-century Britain, we will discuss those historical, literary, and cultural developments that have informed the work of several major Scottish poets of that time. The focus of the course will be on poetry in English. Our exploration will begin with selected poems by Hugh MacDiarmid and Edwin Muir, both prominent figures of the Scottish literary renaissance, a movement which has contributed much to the distinctive identity and international recognition of Scottish writing. Further poets who will be read, discussed, and - occasionally - listened to are Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan, Liz Lochhead, and Jackie Kay. Their themes include evocative and often melancholic portrayals of the Highlands, rural community life, explorations of urban aesthetics and landscapes, desire and longing, historical references, politics, sex, and issues of gender and identity. Another topic of the course will be Scottish writers' poetic experiments in genre, style, and aesthetics. On completing the course, students will have gained a comprehensive understanding of poetry as a form of expression of the Scottish nation.

The set primary texts must be read in advance of the seminar: students' knowledge of the set books is essential for deciding on topics for oral presentations and group discussions, which will be decided on in the first week of term.

A detailed seminar plan and additional primary and selected secondary material will be made available at the beginning of the session time; secondary texts then have to be prepared in advance of sessions as stated in the seminar schedule.

Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation including handout
Preparation of group discussion
Term paper

Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory.

Primary texts (please make sure to purchase the editions given below):

Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan and Liz Lochhead. Three Scottish Poets. Canongate Classics. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1998. ISBN 10 0862414008.
Jackie Kay. Red, Cherry Red. Book & CD. London: Bloomsbury, 2007. ISBN 10 0747589798.
Further primary texts and a selection of secondary sources will be made available in StudIP.

Recommended additional reading for students intending to write a term paper:

Douglas Dunn (ed.). Twentieth-Century Scottish Poetry. London: Faber & Faber, 2006. ISBN 10 0571228380.

Since the Révolution tranquille / Quiet Revolution, Canadian playwrights and authors have been able to connect with audiences beyond the more or less narrow literary confines of Canada / Québec. Shakespeare has had an enormous influence on Canadian drama. Both Anglophone as well as Francophone Canadian playwrights have based their adaptations on the Bard's plays. This seminar focuses on Ann-Marie MacDonald's Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

Please note that prior enrollment via StudIP is mandatory.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
presentation and handout
Set Texts:
Students must buy and read the following, preferably before the semester begins:

MacDonald, Ann-Marie: Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet (The Arden Shakespeare)

Copies of the texts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung).

This seminar will study the similarities and differences between English and German in the areas of phonetics and phonology, morphology, grammar and vocabulary. We will thus take a contrastive look at the sound inventories of English and German, their morphology, their syntax. We will also deal with the vocabulary and areas in which the vocabularies overlap. We will also widen our point of view into other areas of contrastive linguistics, e.g. translation studies.
A detailed seminar plan and reading material will announced in first session; texts then have to be prepared in advance of sessions as stated in the seminar schedule.

Assessment:
-active participation, close reading of selected texts for each session
-homework assignments
-presentation

Cinema as a dominant cultural institution participates in an ongoing struggle over meaning. Frequently, however, social and cultural contradictions are not directly displayed in the movies but remain unexpressed or denied. This course will analyze the subtle and often not so subtle ways in which American movies deal with social conflicts and predicaments.
In the second part of this course, we will discuss how to design a research project, a meaningful research question as well as a theoretical and methodological approach for your term paper which has to be written during the last five weeks of the semester.
A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the class.
Requirements:
Regular attendance and oral participation
In-depth knowledge of the reading material
Oral presentation and handout
Final paper

Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory

Crime Fiction is overwhelmingly popular and yet, much of the narrative literature that involves crime of some kind or another is often not regarded as literature at all. This course is designed to familiarize students with the contemporary critical and theoretical arguments concerning popular fiction and genre studies, as well as to enable all participants of this course to relate to the genres wider social, historical and political contexts while discussing the individual narratives in terms of form, language and imagery. The focus will predominantly be on transatlantic generic developments in crime fiction and film, both detective- or transgressor-centred from the Second World War onwards, including examples of the police procedural (Ian Rankin); of female detectives and the feminist appropriation of the hard-boiled story (P.D. James and Sara Paretsky); the conspiracy thriller (Dan Brown); the postmodern mystery (Paul Auster) as well as Robert Altman's contemporary cinematic rendering of the classic clue-puzzle.

Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory. You may wish to check the learning compact for further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment (Allgemeiner Dateiordner on Stud. IP).

Required reading before the first session (you need a copy of these books for class):

Auster, Paul. The New York Trilogy. London: Faber and Faber, 2011.
Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.
James, P.D. The Skull Beneath the Skin. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.
Paretsky, Sara. Blacklist. New York: Signet, 2004.
Rankin, Ian. Knots and Crosses. London: Orion, 2008.

Additionally: Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001) DVD

Copies can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: http://www.unibuch-bremen.de)

Requirements and Assessment:
- regular attendance, informed participation in class discussion
- in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material
- homework assignments
- presentation of research paper or group project
- term paper (depending on your choice of module)

The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program. Please check the departmental website for guidelines on modules and exams: http://www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/anglistik/ba2/profil/studienplan.aspx

Since the Révolution tranquille / Quiet Revolution, Canadian playwrights and authors have been able to connect with audiences beyond the more or less narrow literary confines of Canada / Québec. Shakespeare has had an enormous influence on Canadian drama. Both Anglophone as well as Francophone Canadian playwrights have based their adaptations on the Bard's plays. This seminar focuses on Ann-Marie MacDonald's Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

Please note that prior enrollment via StudIP is mandatory.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
presentation and handout
Set Texts:
Students must buy and read the following, preferably before the semester begins:

MacDonald, Ann-Marie: Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
Shakespeare, William: Hamlet (The Arden Shakespeare)

Copies of the texts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung).

This course will offer a conceptual framework by which to understand and analyze categories of difference such as race, gender, sex etc. In looking both at theories and practices we will address the social construction of difference in contemporary societies. A reader with course material will be made available at the beginning of the semester.
Requirements:
regular attendance and oral participation
in-depth knowledge of the reading material
oral presentation and handout

Far from just being pious, prudish, and smothered in petticoats, the Victorians lived through social and intellectual upheavals that have left a lasting impact on our own crisis-ridden modernity. This course aims to investigate some major issues in Victorian culture and society. We shall explore the way in which the two pressing concerns of the age, the woman question and the social question, intersected in the wake of the industrial revolution, and discuss the effects of industrial rationalisation in the areas of work, family, morality, and belief. Other issues to be addressed will deal with Darwin (and what he has to do with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), the British Empire (and its strange traces in the novel of a poor parson's daughter from a remote Yorkshire village), Marx (and the political limitations of Dickens sympathetic rendering of urban poverty), or the rise of consumer culture (and what this has to do with domestic and gender ideology). We will back this up by looking at some popular novels that, among other things, represent the middle classes as caught between liberal philosophy, aristocratic cultural ideals and a fearful fascination with the emergent working class.
A specially compiled reader will be made available.

Please purchase the following novels, which are in stock at the university bookshop:
-Charles Dickens, Hard Times (Norton pb. 2001, ISBN: 9780393975604)
-Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Norton pb. 2001, ISBN: 9780393975420)
-Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (Norton pb. 2003, ISBN: 9780393974652)

Requirements:
- regular attendance and active participation
- in-depth knowledge of the reading material
- a portfolio of worksheets
- in D-2a: an additional long term paper of 8 10 pp.

Language Advice Workshop is designed to give you the opportunity to combine guided self-access work, individualized tasks, and one-on-one feedback sessions to improve one specific skill in English, i.e., speaking, writing, listening or reading comprehension, or grammar. After an initial organizational meeting, you will spend the remainder of the semester doing a variety of activities to improve the skill you have chosen to focus on. You may, over the course of the semester, decide to work on more than one skill area, but each week will be dedicated to improving weaknesses and building strengths in one specific skill area.

To receive credit for Language Advice Workshop, you are required to
set personal goals;
complete the individual tasks we agree on;
participate regularly in one-on-one tutorial sessions (generally at least 6 times during the semester) ;
submit a weekly report (see LAW web page) which lists the weekly goals you set for yourself, the time you invest, the work you do, and the things you learn. Note: you will only be able to mail this form to me if you have an e-mail program installed and properly configured on your computer. Web-based mail programs do not support mailto forms. If you cannot mail your weekly reports to me, please print them out and put them in my pigeonhole.

1 CP represents 30 hours of work.

This seminar is designed to help students in writing term papers and in producing presentations in Literary Studies. Participants will be given the opportunity to produce and discuss written assignments within group projects. Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory.

Text:Ewald Standop & Matthias Meyer: Die Form der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit

Copies of the text can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung).

This seminar is designed to help students in producing presentations in Literary Studies. Participants will be given the opportunity to produce and discuss written assignments within group projects. Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory.

This class is already taking place. The next opportunities to audition and/or sign up for set design, costumes, PR, lighting/sound, music, make-up etc. will be in late June 2013 (for the next small-scale project with performances in late October and/or early November) and probably in the last week of teaching before Christmas 2013 (for the next large-scale project with performances in June-July 2014): contact Michael Claridge under claridge@uni-bremen.de in advance. BA students can get 6 General Studies credit points for participation in this class; BA students working towards the lehramtsorientierter Abschluss can get 4 Professionalisierungsbereich CPs for it. MA TnL students can combine this with Theatre Workshop Presentation & Performance to get 6, 12 or 18 credits points for their Praxismodul, depending on how much they invest in the project.
Please note that English-language skills at the B2 level (cf. Europarat Rererenzrahmen) are required of every participant; evidence of this (e.g. through one of the international certificates, or a certificate from the Fremdsprachenzentrum) must be submitted to Michael by anyone not already accepted into the BA English-Speaking Cultures or Masters Transnationale Literaturen courses.

This class is already taking place. The next opportunities to audition and/or sign up for set design, costumes, PR, lighting/sound, music, make-up etc. will be in late June 2013 (for the next small-scale project with performances in late October and/or early November) and probably in the last week of teaching before Christmas 2013 (for the next large-scale project with performances in June-July 2014): contact Michael Claridge under claridge@uni-bremen.de in advance. BA students can get 6 General Studies credit points for participation in this class; BA students working towards the lehramtsorientierter Abschluss can get 4 Professionalisierungsbereich CPs for it. MA TnL students can combine this with Theatre Workshop Presentation & Performance to get 6, 12 or 18 credits points for their Praxismodul, depending on how much they invest in the project.
Please note that English-language skills at the B2 level (cf. Europarat Rererenzrahmen) are required of every participant; evidence of this (e.g. through one of the international certificates, or a certificate from the Fremdsprachenzentrum) must be submitted to Michael by anyone not already accepted into the BA English-Speaking Cultures or Masters Transnationale Literaturen courses.

Blockseminar im Semester
Exkursion im August

Language Advice Workshop is designed to give you the opportunity to combine guided self-access work, individualized tasks, and one-on-one feedback sessions to improve one specific skill in English, i.e., speaking, writing, listening or reading comprehension, or grammar. After an initial organizational meeting, you will spend the remainder of the semester doing a variety of activities to improve the skill you have chosen to focus on. You may, over the course of the semester, decide to work on more than one skill area, but each week will be dedicated to improving weaknesses and building strengths in one specific skill area.

To receive credit for Language Advice Workshop, you are required to
set personal goals;
complete the individual tasks we agree on;
participate regularly in one-on-one tutorial sessions (generally at least 6 times during the semester) ;
submit a weekly report (see LAW web page) which lists the weekly goals you set for yourself, the time you invest, the work you do, and the things you learn. Note: you will only be able to mail this form to me if you have an e-mail program installed and properly configured on your computer. Web-based mail programs do not support mailto forms. If you cannot mail your weekly reports to me, please print them out and put them in my pigeonhole.

1 CP represents 30 hours of work.

Blockseminar im September

This class continues where the anti-German-interference strategies of Practical Translation left off, with the difference that it focuses more on providing students with the ability to translate using refined language, taking style and register more into account. (However, you are not required to have taken PT in order to take this class.) Great emphasis is placed on seeing lexical items within the text as a whole, rather than as discrete items; accordingly, longer texts are utilized, something that enables us to examine all the more the question of how free a translator may or even should be, including whether (s)he may effectively improve upon the original text. We will study different types of text and notice the consequences for the translator. Emphasis will be placed on getting behind the meaning of the original text, as a counterbalance to the unconscious temptation to simply 'translate' on a word-by-word basis.
We will work in a roughly three-week cycle, first of all with teams of translators each working on part of the text and bouncing ideas off each other (in English!), and then combining the teams ideas to create one or more acceptable version(s).
Register for the class in Stud.IP (as well as at the Börse, of course); after I have admitted you, copy the class-materials pack from there. You are expected to have and be familiar with either the Collins/Langenscheidt Großwörterbuch (preferably) or the Duden-Oxford Großwörterbuch, and either the Longman-Langenscheidt Dictionary of Contemporary English or the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Bring your monolingual dictionary to every class after the first meeting (or make arrangements with a fellow-participant which of you brings your dictionary when!). A book with other materials for the in-class tests will be made available. If you have to miss the first class-hour for whatever reason, please see me in my office hour so that I can explain the set-up and slot you into the system.

Reading Native America may be taken as part of the BA Aufbaumodul Sprachpraxis, General Studies, or the MA-TnL Praxismodul.

General Description: For many of us, the indigenous peoples of the New World are familiar primarily through images Hollywood has given us and, to some extent, through novels and historical commentaries written by Europeans and European-Americans. Whether these stereotypes are positive or negative, they present us with distortions and half-truths at best, not representations of Native Americans and First Nations people as they see themselves and understand the world. Too often, the real differences between Native and European American world views and values have led to misunderstandings and cultural clashes when we misread each other's words, actions, and intentions.

Can we, as Europeans, learn to see beyond our culture's stereotypical images of Native Americans: "noble savages," "redskins," "chiefs and squaws," "vanishing Americans," "cigar-store Indians," "homeless drunks," "athletic team mascots," "poverty-stricken, alcoholic reservation Indians, dependent on government handouts," and "stoic, silent witnesses of environmental destruction "?

If we choose to give a hopeful answer to the question, we first need to become aware of the cultural "filters" through which we perceive Indians. What structures, symbolic patterns and representational styles do we expect to find in literature and films? As we become aware of our own culturally-informed expectations, we can begin to consider how traditional and contemporary Native American storytelling works, to comprehend how it differs from Western oral and literary traditions, and to discover any points of intersection there might be.

"Reading Native America" gives us an opportunity to become acquainted with Native American and First Nations voices and, through their artistic expressions, with their perceptions, cultural values and beliefs. As we "read" various kinds of Native American verbal and visual performances (traditional storytelling, poetry, fiction, films, jokes, stand-up comedy) we will try to comprehend them on their own terms rather than imposing our Eurocentric expectations on them. We will also try to become more cognizant of some of the ways in which traditional Native American values continue to inform Native identities and responses to contemporary challenges.

Texts include two novels (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, and Gardens in the Dunes, by Leslie Marmon Silko) and selected short stories and poems. Films include Smoke Signals, Skins, Dance Me Outside, The Business of Fancydancing, and "Atanarjuat" ("The Fast Runner").

All four language skills will be practiced. Fluency, register, language functions and lexical resource-building will receive special attention, with language accuracy issues being addressed as needed. The class format will include in-class and online discussions as well as short presentations. MA TnL students who choose to be examined in this class will need to submit a paper on a mutually agreed topic.