This class attempts to introduce students to varieties of (spoken) English in the Mediterranean, a linguistically diverse area encompassing numerous islands and nation states with differing national languages, cultures and histories. Given differing roles and statuses of English in the Mediterranean countries, they are commonly considered either Outer or Expanding circle countries (Kachru '85).
Principal focus of this seminar will be on varieties of English spoken in Spain, Gibraltar, Cyprus and Malta. Students will examine spoken data (at times also written texts) and conduct linguistic analyses with a special focus on phonologic and phonetic analyses, utilizing PRAAT where applicable. Further, theoretical concepts central to language change and contact (e.g. ENL-ESL-ESF/standard/national/first language) will be encountered and critically debated. Moreover, current models of Word Englishes (e.g. Kachru ‘85, Schneider ‘07, Mair ‘16) and their possible application to the Mediterranean context will be reviewed.

Requirements:

WD-2a: Studienleistung [pass/fail]
• Active participation: obligatory readings, some homework, some in-class (group) tasks, short presentation +
• Oral presentation (20 min)


WD-2c: Prüfungsleistung [grade]
• Active participation: obligatory readings, some homework, some in-class (group) tasks, short presentation +
• Oral presentation (30 min) + 1 Worksheet + Reading assignment

This course is dedicated to thorough readings of essential theoretical interventions. Students will study a variety of theoretical approaches and frameworks that can give them a better understanding of texts, artifacts and media objects. A list of required readings will be uploaded before the beginning of the lecture period.

In this class we will first learn about approaches and tools to literary analysis before we look at how we read texts specifically from a postcolonial perspective. We will then read and discuss two postcolonial novels: 1. The Caribbean text Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (here the Norton Critical Edition) and the Nigerian text Oil on Water by Helon Habila. Please purchase and read both texts, they are available at the university bookstore on Universitätsboulevard for 11 € each at the beginning of April. All other texts are provided via StudIP.
Class requirements are regular attendance, in-depth knowledge of reading and viewing material, and active class discussion. Reading the texts and watching the films is mandatory. Please note that prior enrollment through StudIP is mandatory.

Language in context has traditionally been studied within the context of one culture, i.e. British or US American English. Variation on the sociopragmatic level, e.g. Speech Act Theory, Politeness Theory, Conversation Analysis principles, has been applied to speech communities all over the world, and a previously ethnocentric perspective has made way for research that demonstrates different communicative strategies in different English speaking cultures. First, this class introduces the major analytical frameworks that are applied in pragmatics. Second, we will look at selected studies which cover the variation in Englishes around the world.

Das Seminar kann auch als Modul FD3 Handlungskompetenzen angerechnet werden.

The aim of the seminar is to provide insights into foreign language acquisition at universities through research-based learning. We will first discuss different theoretical approaches to foreign language learning as well as aspects of learning theory (e.g. learner personality, affective factors) and specifics of language learning and teaching in adulthood/ higher education. Against the background of these theoretical basics, the participants develop research projects, carry them out at the Fremdsprachenzentrum Bremen (FZHB) and present their results in the seminar.

The seminar will focus on two related points: one, it will study the literary and cinematic representations of enslavist sites of anti-black violence during the longue durée of slavery, and the enslavement trade, as there are so-called "slave forts" on the West-African coast and enslavement plantations in the American South and on Caribbean islands. Two, we will critically relate those representations and their strategy of "haunting" memorialization, to the explosive contemporary growth of mass tourism to such sites of violence, including re-enactments of slavery on remaining plantation manors in the US South today.

Required Reading:
Saidiya Hartman, Lose Your Mother. A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route, New York: 2007

Aaron Yankholmes, “Rethinking Slavery Heritage Tourism,“ in Journal of Heritage Tourism, Vol. 10, 2015 – Issue 3


Ana Lucia Araujo, “Welcome the Diaspora: Slave Trade Tourism and the Public Memory of Slavery”, Ethnologies, Vol. 32, no. 2, 2010, 145-178.
http://www.analuciaaraujo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Ethnologies-2011.pdf


website Mapping Slavery, https://mappingslavery.nl/id/
here: https://mappingslavery.nl/id/uncategorized/start-van-publiekstours-langs-het-nederlandse-slavernijverleden-in-de-staat-new-york/


Cary James, Reliving a Past of Slavery,” (original publication 1984, film review of SANKOFA), see https://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/08/movies/review-film-reliving-a-past-of-slavery.html


John Beech, “ A Step Forward Or A Step Sideways? …”, see:
https://www.history.ac.uk/1807commemorated/exhibitions/museums/step.html





We will watch and discuss the film SANKOFA, by Haile Gerima.

Based on her own work, in dialogue with critical race theory and gender studies, writer, scholar and activist Prof. Maart, newly appointed Research ambassador of the University of Bremen, will conduct this masterclass open to all advanced students, doctoral candidates and colleagues. The class will start with Prof. Maart's outline of the academic but also social, political and cultural challenges of intersectional analysis, followed by a very short response by Prof. Broeck. After that, there will be an open class discussion. The class will be conducted in English.

By way of preparation participants are invited to read two articles uploaded in the file folder:
-Rozena Maart, "Philosophy born of massacres. Marikana, the theatre of cruelty: The killing of the ‘kaffir’"
-Rozena Maart, "Race and Pedagogical Practices: When Race Takes Center Stage in Philosophy"

Writing Contemporary and Anticolonial Poetry

In this creative writing class, participants will discuss how to read and write contemporary poetry, and look at the past and future to influence and sharpen their own creative practice.


Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning Indigenous writer whose mother is from the Yugambeh people of eastern Australia, and father is Dutch. Born in Meanjin (so-called Brisbane) Ellen has written a multi-award winning fiction collection titled Heat and Light (UQP, 2014) and a poetry collection, Comfort Food (UQP, 2016). She currently teaches first-year poetry at RMIT. As a young writer in her late 20s, Ellen writes about the importance of looking after country (land, water, sea, animals) and learning from ancestors, as well as asserting a proud identity.

In this workshop we will explore and experiment with contemporary methods of improvisational theater, which is the art of making up theatrical moments on the spot, without a script. It is one of the liveliest and most current forms of theater of today and ingrained in US popular culture. This workshop will introduce the basic principles of improvisational theater, reflect on its impact on popular culture and explore its practical approaches to comedic as well as dramatic narrative structures.

Join us for the London Excursion August 5th, 2019 – August 12th, 2019
“London in Literature – Literary London” (Katalina Kopka and Dr. Jana Nittel)

This trip continues a longstanding tradition (since 2010) which has been established in faculty 10 in that it offers students a weekly excursion to London every second year. Having adjusted the focus of this trip around five major topic choices: Queer London; Women Writers and London; London’s Imperial Past and Postcolonial Present; London Theatreland and the Shakespearean Stage; London and Crime, and London and the Long Eighteen Century this seven-day excursion offers now a variety of research activities and experiential learning, promising this to be a yet another brilliant study experience.
General Studies course: CPs to be negotiated
Eligibility:
• All Students registered in the following course programmes: M.A. E-SC; M.A. TnL and B.A. E-SC.;
• Non-German citizens need to enquire about visa regulations regarding their entry to the UK as we are unable to refund any payments.

Requirements: Please register and attend the following course: “London in Literature – Literary London: A Literary and Cultural Journey across the Centuries” (VAK: 10-76-4-D2/WD2-01). We would you like to try to attend as many pre-departure meetings regarding our excursion as possible.
Costs:
• €350, 00 per student to be transferred until April 15th, 2019,
• Flight to and from London and airport transfer,
• Weekly Travel card 1-3 in London
• Food and Drink.
We offer (part of the €350, 00 contribution and financial support of faculty 10):
• Accommodation in LSE Bankside Hostel in twin and triple rooms with shared bathroom facilities and breakfast included (7 nights);
• Entry fees to museums, tickets for theatre performances, guided museum tours, Globe Education Workshop, and heritage sites.

How to apply – Deadline: March 20th, 2019
Please send an email to Katalina Kopka (Kopka@uni-bremen.de) and Dr. Jana Nittel (jnittel@uni-bremen.de) and include the following information:
• Full name and the name of your study programme (B.A. or M.A.);
• Written paragraph outlining your motivation to join the excursion (300 words max. in English).
A first mandatory pre-departure meeting “Literary London-London in Literature” is scheduled for April 8th, 2019 from 6.00 pm. to 7.30 p.m. following the seminar session “Literary London – London in Literature”. We look forward to an exciting trip! All our best wishes, Katalina Kopka and Jana Nittel

This class is the second part of the Using English for the Professional World module. As such the course is based on the skills acquired in part one. In order to provide an insight into the twofold professional world – business and academia – we will explore both oral and written communication. Hence, the first half of the course will be dedicated to writing in the academic environment; the second half will deal with business communication.

Requirements: Regular and active participation, written and oral assignments

This course (VAK: 10-76-4-D2/WD2-01) welcomes students who wish to complete the following modules: M.A. TnL Profilmodul I: Literatur 10-M83-2; MA TnL Vertiefungsmodul 10-M83; M.A. E-SC ExMo 2 - Extension Module 2; B.A. E-SC “Key Topics in Literature”- D2-c; WD-2a and WD-2b and
for students registered in the study programme M.A. TnL, M.A. E-SC and B.A. E-SC who wish to participate in our summer excursion to London from August 5th to August 12th, 2019.

This course seeks to familiarise students with a number of selected authors, poets and writers, in general, who have held lifelong connections with London, may it be historic or contemporary. We will aim to discuss their continued engagement with the city by exploring a selection of excerpts clustered around five major topic choices: Queer London; Women Writers and London; London’s Imperial Past and Postcolonial Present; London Theatreland and the Shakespearean Stage; London and Crime, and London and the Long Eighteen Century. By virtually tracing forgotten as well as prominent landmarks of the urban centre, we seek to connect the literary representations of the city with historical and cultural developments, present and past. During the summer excursion we will continue our exploration in London.

Since some of the participants are required to submit a research paper, we will use parts of our seminar discussions to the development of topics, the formulation of a thesis statement, as well as considerations about the methodological approaches of writing such a paper.

Additional secondary sources can be accessed in the “Semesterapparat”, a reference only section on the third floor of the library building. A reader with selected secondary text materials will be made available for download on Stud. IP. Please be aware that your registration on Stud. IP. is mandatory (deadline March 15th, 2019). You may wish to check the sections "Information" and "Schedule" further details such as requirements, weekly schedule, select bibliography and modes of assessment.
For Non-E-SC students and academic exchange students: Please contact me if you require more than 3 credit points.

Requirements and Assessment
• Interest in the topics discussed and ideally a regular attendance and informed participation in class discussion (not part of your formal assessment);
• in-depth knowledge of the selected reading material,
• homework assignments,
• group projects and presentation of research paper proposals;
• Research-based term paper.
The requirements as formulated above may vary depending on your overall degree program.

In this class we will look critically at various forms of tourism in our globalized world. We will have approximately six guest speakers/presentations of the INPUTS Forum lecture series integrated into our class. And we will read some critical texts, literary texts and watch one or two documentary films.
Class requirements are regular attendance, in-depth knowledge of reading and viewing material, and active class discussion. Reading the texts and watching the films is mandatory. Please note that prior enrollment through StudIP is mandatory.

Starting with an exploration of critical approaches to tourism and tourist films in a transnational world we will analyze contemporary narrative films and how they construct and exploit touristic fantasies. We will critically examine narrative tropes such as postcolonial encounters, romantic entanglements and sexual adventures; we will assess the consumer-oriented aesthetics of these films; and moreover, we will reflect on the particular ideologies that come into play when the tourist experience becomes the focus of a filmic text.
Essential readings will be available for download on Stud-IP. You should also consult the 'Semesterapparat' (SuUB) for further readings.
Please note that prior enrollment via Stud.IP is mandatory.

Das Seminar kann auch als Modul FD3 Handlungskompetenzen angerechnet werden.

In the current area of increasing migration, foreign language learning is gaining momentum, as ac-quiring the target language is widely understood as one means to enable newly arrived migrants integration and participation. In the seminar, we will examine recent research and practical projects to enhance our understanding of the role language proficiency can play in the process of integra-tion. We will also explore “best practice” examples to understand the conditions under which lan-guages in immigration contexts can successfully be taught and acquired.
Within the realm of language teaching and learning, language tests are coming under scrutiny, as they are used and abused as gate keeping devices and as policy instruments to regulate entry and access. We will critically discuss ethical implications of different kinds of language test use. By re-viewing recent research projects and studies, we will deepen our understanding of the purposes language tests could and should serve in integration and migration contexts in order to ensure fair-ness, justice and ethical values.
You will have the opportunity to become familiar with current research and teaching projects in my working group and at the language centre. You will also have the chance to explore a relevant as-pect of your choice in more depths and present your findings in the seminar.

This course gives an overview of current research trends in the areas of multimodal linguistics and media studies, focusing on recent advancements in the application of linguistic (and other) frameworks to a variety of artifacts and performances. We will discuss various communicative situations in our daily lives, resulting from the use of social media and gaming applications (Instagram, Snapchat, Pokemon Go, etc.), challenged by fake news and global Trumpism and influenced by architecture, design and spatial environments around us.

The course will start with a theoretically and methodologically oriented overview of newest multimodality research. Students will learn how to discuss approaches for characterizing combinations of semiotic modes in different contexts and to develop concrete research questions and analytical approaches for examining the discussed examples.
In the second half of the semester, international guest researchers with multimodal expertise will present their current research project and discuss them with the group. Students will be asked to actively engage in the discussion and develop own research questions and project outlines from these discussions.

This course examines posthumanism as lived experiences, shifting discourses, and dynamic processes co-evolving with the nonhuman turn. Contemporary issues from climate change, war, to cultural heritage centrally involve human-nonhuman entanglements. The course discusses posthumanism in relation to such nonhuman phenomena as technological devices and systems capable of nonconscious cognition; human-robot relationships; and in varied degrees anthropocentric implications on animals and the environment. Our focus lies in articulating how meaning and affects arise with and through machines. The course intersects theories, practices, and fictions in three phases. First, to problematize perspectives privileging humans as above their species others, the course provides an overview of interacting intellectual movements (e.g. critical posthumanism, transhumanism, and speculative posthumanism). Second, participants encounter various media, including digital games, to reflect on posthumanizing effects of technologies. Third, participants engage with crucial debates on posthumanism, cultural practices, and imaginaries to envision sustainable futures for and shaped by (post)humans and nonhumans alike.

Students of the Masterprograms English-Speaking Cultures and Transnationale Literaturwissenschaft can participate in the conference organisation and get CP for the module AWE1 and Schlüsselqualifikationsmodul 10-M83-2.
E-SC students will receive:
1 CP for conference participation with a 1-2 page written report
2 CP for conference participation with a presentation within the framework of this conference. There you can present a paper either on the conference topic "Postcolonial Oceans" or on the topic "Global Tourism".
2 CP for supporting the organisation of the conference and participating in the conference (write an email to kknopf@uni-bremen.de).
3 CP for organisation and for participation with presentation in the student conference. (Lecturer Prof. Kerstin Knopf)

TnL students will receive 3 CP in Schlüsselqualifikationsmodul 10-M83-2 for participating in the conference and giving a presentation or writing a report. (Lecturer Prof. Elisabeth Arend)
TnL students must register with this course in StudIP "Studentische Konferenz: Tourismus & Reise", VAK-No. 10_M83-2-SQ-1, Lecturers: Prof. Elisabeth Arend, Ina Schenker.

Students can give a presentation in the Student Conference within the larger conference, either on the topic of „Tourismus & Reise“ (see below) or on the general conference topic "Postcolonial Oceans Contradicitons and Heterogeneities in the Epistemes of Salt Water" (see below)

Innerhalb der internationalen Konferenz "Postcolonial Oceans – Contradictions and Heterogeneities in the Epistemes of Salt Water" wird eine studentische Sektion ausgerichtet, die sich mit dem Themenschwerpunkt des Projektsemesters "Tourismus & Reise" beschäftigt. Die Veranstaltung bietet die Möglichkeit, Wissenschaft nicht nur rezipierend zu erleben, sondern im Sinne des Forschenden Lernens mitzugestalten. Studierende halten eigene Vorträge, führen eine Podiumsdiskussion oder moderieren Diskussionsrunden. Außerdem wird ein kulturelles Rahmenprogramm angeboten, das das Transferdenken zwischen akademischen und außerakademischen Diskursen befördert. Die Teilnahme mit einem Beitrag (Referat / Vortrag / Diskussionsimpuls) aus einem der beteiligten Projektseminare (alle Sprachen möglich) oder anschließendem Reflexionsbericht wird mit 3 CP für Tnl-Studierende vergütet.


Within the international conference "Postcolonial Oceans - Contradictions and Heterogeneities in the Epistemes of Salt Water", a student section will be organized, dealing with the main topic of the project semester "tourism & travel". The event will offer students the opportunity not only to experience research in a receptive way, as part of the audience, but to help shape it in the spirit of research learning. Students will give their own presentations, hold a panel discussion or moderate panel discussions. It will also offer a cultural program that promotes transference thinking between academic and non-academic discourses. For TnL students, participation with a contribution (presentation / talk / discussion impulse) from one of the participating project seminars (all languages possible) or subsequent reflection report will be remunerated with 3 CP.



"Postcolonial Oceans – Contradictions and Heterogeneities in the Epistemes of Salt Water"
Postcolonial studies have a vested interest in embodied and discursive, social and political, historical and ecological dimensions of oceans. They foreground histories of colonization, imperial wars, the dispossession of territories, enslavement of people, and circulation of goods and ideas, in their entanglements with contemporary postcolonial societies, substantially shaping decolonial knowledge production, postcolonial literatures and academic discourses until today. In his interview on the third space, Homi Bhabha (1990) has pinpointed the inherent contradiction in the genesis of Western modernity: the progressive development of Western societies, individuals and thought traditions according to ideas and values that were monumentalized as the “Enlightenment” on the one hand, and the history of the West as despotic power pursuing various forms of colonial aggression and possession, on the other. Walter Mignolo (2000) and Paul Gilroy (1993) have likewise defined histories of colonization and enslavement as Western modernity’s well-concealed darker side. Studies of oceans and coasts have generated a variety of heterogeneous and sometimes contradictory academic and public discourses from a range of different disciplinary perspectives, including postcolonial studies, the sociology of knowledge, anthropology, literary studies, linguistics and social studies of science and technology. A more systematic perspective on the relations between colonialism, postcolonialism, oceans and lands, rejecting and/or complementing one-sided terrestrial perspectives, emerged only gradually. Rupert Emerson, for instance, defines colonialism as “imposition of white rule on alien peoples inhabiting lands separated by salt water” (1969, 3), understanding salt water – in line with widespread Western ideas of seas and oceans – as separating lands, cultures, people and ideas. In contrast, Gísli Pálsson (1991, xvii) argues that different and isolated worlds were connected by colonial sea voyages into a “global but polarized network of power-relations”. Epeli Hau’ofa (1994; 2008), working from a perspective grown in a marine epistemology, understands diverse Pacific islands, cultures and environments as a network, not separated but linked by the ocean – a “sea of islands”. Extending this idea, Édouard Glissant’s (1997) “archipelagic thinking” shifts understanding the entire world as a connected archipelago, an epistemic shift that is a counterpoint to insular thinking and allows registering the heterogeneities and myriad entanglements and creolization processes in our globalizing world. Early anthropology saw the sea as “atheoretical”, while it became an explicit category of study in environmental history (Gillis 2004, 2011; Bolster 2012; Kehrt/Torma 2014), in geography (Steinberg 2001; Peters 2014, 2015) and maritime anthropology (Astuti 1995; Helmreich 2011). In the construed nature/culture divide, water appears as natural form and “uncontainable flux” as opposed to culture imagined as “land-based idiom”, or it is perceived as materiality to channel (nature) as opposed to being a medium of pleasure, sustenance, travel and disaster (culture) (Helmreich 2011). The nature/culture divide implicates water as one domain “open to control and colonization by the other” (Strathern 1980). Critical maritime history grappled with the opposition between a fully historicized land vs. a supposedly atemporal, “ahistorical” sea that is “outside and beyond history” and researches oceans as polymorphous and transnational contact zones (Klein/Mackenthun, eds. 2004). Indigenous seascape epistemologies are often approaches “to knowing through a visual, spiritual, intellectual, and embodied literacy of the ‘āina (land) and kai (sea)’”, explicitly stressing the nexus between sea and land, and knowing the ocean, wind, and land as interconnected system (Ingersoll 2016). Colonial exploration, colonization and (forced) migration via oceans have created cultural, linguistic and epistemic contact zones where transcultural processes, creole and pidgin languages, and pluriversal knowledges and narratives emerged, however implicated in a hierarchical power matrix (Pratt 1992; Warnke/Stolz/Schmidt-Brücken 2016). The sea prominently features in colonial literatures as both facilitating sea voyages and sustaining colonial myth-making (e.g. Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe), whereas in postcolonial literatures it often appears as lethal force enabling colonization and enslavement (e.g. Fred D’Aguiar, George Lamming) or life-giving force and as life itself, integrating all elements and beings (e.g. Eden Robinson, Patricia Grace, Linda Hogan, Alexis Wright). Contradictory and heterogeneous views and ideas of the ocean are commonplace, while knowledge production on and with oceans and saltwater appear to be under-researched through multidisciplinary scholarship. We want to extend the study of oceans and salt water as “theory machine”, an “object that stimulates theoretical formulation” (Galison 2003), and research saltwater knowledge systems, knowledge production and narratives from various epistemological, geographical, cultural and disciplinary perspectives. We are particularly interested in:
 imaginaries of the seas and oceans in various discourse formations as well as colonial, postcolonial and decolonial genealogies of ocean, coastal and marine spaces;
 contradictory and heterogeneous concepts of marine spaces; likewise pluriversal ocean and coast-related epistemologies;
 entangled colonial histories of oceans with regard to the Black, Red and White Atlantic, the Black Pacific, and early non-Western cross-ocean contacts; the circulation of ideas and goods and their role in shaping ocean-related epistemes;
 salt water spheres as zones of epistemic and cultural contact, neo- and postcolonial communicative practices and linguistic smoothness;
 linguistic overlaps and language contact, the universalist spread of colonial languages and their status in contact zones, the threat of local languages;
 the role of European Atlantic port cities (e.g. Bremen, London, Rotterdam, Antwerp) in colonial histories of oceans and the role of port cities outside Europe (e.g. Dakar, Cape Town, Dubai City, Hong Kong) in world trade and global relations, incl. changing discourses constituting such port cities;
 the ship as vessel enabling and as metaphor for colonization, enslavement, migration, global trade, scientific exploration and various forms of harvesting marine and ocean floor resources;
 ecological and resource-related aspects of oceans such as rising sea levels, hurricanes, earthquakes, overfishing, resource extraction, and ocean pollution;
 symbolic oceans in colonial literary and non-literary texts and postcolonial constructions of oceans and salt water epistemologies in literature, theatre, film, electronic and other media.
Keynote Speakers:
Anne Collett (U Wollongong)
Karin Amimoto Ingersoll (U Hawai’i)
Robbie Shilliam (Johns Hopkins U)
Anne Storch (U Cologne)
Nicholas Faraclas (U Puerto Rico)
Bill Ashroft (UNSW Sydney)

Students of the Master program English-Speaking Cultures can participate in the conference organisation and get CP for the module AWE1:

1 CP for conference participation on all three days;
2 CP for conference participation with a poster within the framework of this conference;
2 CP for supporting the organisation of the conference and participating in the conference (write an email to wildfeuer@uni-bremen.de to sign up for this);
3 CP for organisation and for participation with poster presentation in the conference.

All details for poster presentations and conference organisation will be discussed in a first meeting of the group in May 2019 and a second meeting in June (see schedule on Stud.IP).

The Bremen Conferences on Multimodality are annual events with speakers from all over the world discussing and presenting recent topics of multimodal research. As an interdisciplinary and international symposium, each conference offers a place to think about developments and advancements in the topic of multimodality and the disciplines connected to this field of research. The BreMM19 conference will focus on empirical inroads in multimodality research and will feature a rich program including more than 30 talks in long and short format, several poster presentations, and 1 special project demo. The conference set-up will provide room for presentations on recent, empirically-oriented research projects, and discussions of the problems and challenges in conducting empirical multimodal analyses.