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. You will first learn the basic principles of improvisational theater and then apply them to improvised secenework. Later in the semester we will choose one or two forms that we will develop and rehearse in order to perform in front of an audience. We will also reflect on the impact of improvisational theater on popular culture and explore its practical approaches to comedic as well as dramatic narrative structures.

There will be a regular meeting on Monday 4 - 6.15pm during the lecture period and an intensive in the lecture-free period from Feb 24 to March 3. After that we will have performances from Wednesday March 4 to Friday March 6. There is no obligation to be part of the performances. You can decide in the course of the semester whether you want to perform.

This course explores hunger as a perpetual force in societies and hunger literature as the corpus on which politics, social praxis, power struggles, and cultural meanings intersect. Focusing on major famine and starvation conditions like the Bengal Famine (1943), the Irish Potato Famine (1845-49), among others, the course offers a history of such occurrences, their consequence on the social fabric, and how that in turn shapes societies in the long run. Students will read a range of famine and starvation narratives from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from across cultures, theorize them, and will learn to see hunger and starvation beyond their biological and statistical manifestations. The course includes lectures, class, presentations, and documentary/film.

This course welcomes students who wish to complete the following modules:
M.A. E-SC: OrMO (Orientierungsmodul 1. Semester)
M.A. E-SC SpecMo (Spezialisierungsmodul 3. Semester);
M.A. TnL Vertiefungsmodul und Profilmodul Literatur
Non-E-SC students and academic exchange students

Travel writing is an increasingly popular genre in terms of text production and commercial success, encompassing a fascinating diversity of literary forms, modes and itineraries, which negate a forthright definition of the genre. As a repository for factual and fictional accounts of mobility and cross-cultural exchange, however, it has long been underestimated for its potential to contribute to a broad range of cultural, political and historical debates that seek to reassess the role of travel writing as a "vehicle for geographic, ethnographic and sociological knowledge." (Thompson 4). This seminar discusses diverse themes and characteristics of contemporary travel writing, postcolonial travel accounts and refugee writing and aims to map contemporary critical concepts regarding transnational and postcolonial perspectives in weekly readings of excerpts of selected travel accounts.

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 September 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.

Requirements and Assessment
• Interest in the topic 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.
Copies of selected travel accounts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: www.unibuch-bremen.de)

This course (VAK: 10-M80-1-OrMo-06) welcomes students who wish to complete the following modules:
M.A. E-SC Orientierungsmodul;
M.A. TnL Vertiefungsmodul und Profilmodul Literatur;
B.A. E-SC “Key Topics in Cultural History”- D1b /D1c und WD1b /WD1c
Non-E-SC students and academic exchange students

William Shakespeare’s London, and in this seminar, London in the Elizabethan Age as well as at his time in the city (c.1560 – 1616), was a rapidly growing and bustling metropolis. In the duration of this course, we will travel back in time seeking to explore the history and social geography of this largest city in England. Based on a research-based learning methodology, we will attempt to map out London’s key locations as the centre of government, the law and the church as well as being the focus of politics and culture during a time of intense political and religious upheaval. In addition, this course focuses on the following topics: Stage history, playhouses; the fundamental features of dramatic composition to issues such as political structures in Renaissance England, gender roles and relations, love and sexuality, constructions of nationhood, global expansion and their representation in Shakespeare’s plays.

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 September 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.

Requirements and Assessment
• Interest in the topic 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.

Reading materials
MacGregor, Neil. Shakespeare's Restless World, Penguin Books, 2014.
Copies are available for purchase at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: www.unibuch-bremen.de)

In this seminar we will learn about Indigenous history, issues, problems, and identities through watching documentaries and short films dealing with Indigenous topics in North America. Initially we will learn about how to assess short films and watch a few Indigenous short films before looking at some lesser known ones that have just been released. We will cooperate with the 'Indianer Inuit Filmfestival' in Stuttgart and will watch a selection of the films that will be shown there in February 2020. We will form a jury that will select the best one to be awarded the Best Short Film Award. We will also transcribe, translate and provide the German subtitles for a few films that will run at the festival in Stuttgart. As a highlight, a selection of students will go to the festival (6-9 February 2020; https://www.nordamerika-filmfestival.com/) and participate in all showings and events and present the film award on the festival stage.

This course, taught in the English language, will focus on academic writing and is thus suitable for writers at all levels. Whether you need extra practice writing term papers or are working on your Bachelors' or Masters' thesis, and regardless of which stage of the process you are in, we will take a hands-on, feedback-centered approach to the writing process. Areas covered include conciseness and word choice, audience focus, structure and organization, as well as grammar.

Class sessions:
Tue 18th Feb 9.00 – 13.00
Wed 19th Feb 9.00 – 13.00
Thu 20th Feb 9.00 – 13.00
21st – 24th Feb: self-study work, preparing for the presentation
Tue 25th Feb 9.00 – 13.00
Wed 26th Feb 9.00 – 13.00
Thu 27th Feb 9.00 – 13.00

Course description
“My topic is, um, let me think, well, right here, on my paper ... it says that my topic is ...”

Notes, structure, projector, hand-out, posture, eye-contact, gestures, lay-out, language accuracy, register, pronunciation, time and of course CONTENT… are far too many things to attend to in just ONE presentation? An enigma?

A few hands-on sessions while practising effective presentation strategies might unravel the Gordian knot. We will look at all aspects of planning, structuring, and giving a presentation – while at the same time boosting your self-confidence through hands-on practice in a relaxed atmosphere. Be prepared to discuss all aspects of your topic to become an expert in your field, while profiting from your audience's questions. Explore, delve, probe, analyse, evaluate, compare, give reasons, offer solutions …

N.B.:Please come prepared. Since this IS an intensive class (only six days), students need to have researched a possible (academic) topic prior to the start of the class and need to bring notes and research material to the first session. It is also necessary that students use the afternoons for preparing material for the following day in class.

ERASMUS and other exchange students wellcome.

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. You will first learn the basic principles of improvisational theater and then apply them to improvised secenework. Later in the semester we will choose one or two forms that we will develop and rehearse in order to perform in front of an audience. We will also reflect on the impact of improvisational theater on popular culture and explore its practical approaches to comedic as well as dramatic narrative structures.

There will be a regular meeting on Monday 4 - 6.15pm during the lecture period and an intensive in the lecture-free period from Feb 24 to March 3. After that we will have performances from Wednesday March 4 to Friday March 6. There is no obligation to be part of the performances. You can decide in the course of the semester whether you want to perform.

This course explores hunger as a perpetual force in societies and hunger literature as the corpus on which politics, social praxis, power struggles, and cultural meanings intersect. Focusing on major famine and starvation conditions like the Bengal Famine (1943), the Irish Potato Famine (1845-49), among others, the course offers a history of such occurrences, their consequence on the social fabric, and how that in turn shapes societies in the long run. Students will read a range of famine and starvation narratives from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from across cultures, theorize them, and will learn to see hunger and starvation beyond their biological and statistical manifestations. The course includes lectures, class, presentations, and documentary/film.

In this course we will engage in critical debates on popular culture, discuss various ways and methods of analyzing it and carry out exemplary investigations of selected cases. Employing a cultural historical perspective we will focus on categories of difference such as race, class, gender, sexuality. Students will improve their critical reading skills that can be applied to academic as well as to popular texts. Moreover, we will develop ideas how to productively use popular culture in schools.
Essential readings will be available for download on Stud-IP. You should also consult the 'Semesterapparat' (SuUB) for further readings.
Requirements:
• regular attendance and oral participation
• in-depth knowledge of the reading material
• oral presentation and handout
• term paper

This course is designed for students with a profound academic pioneer spirit. And this is mainly due to the text under scrutiny in this seminar. We shall discuss Ian McEwan's recently published android novel Machines Like Me (2019), a narrative which is too young to have already entailed critical response in terms of scholarly articles, let alone monographs etc. There are, however, quite a view reviews in the quality papers, and these early reactions tend to be full of praise.
Machines Like Me can be described as a piece of speculative fiction set in a counterfactual Britain of the 1980s. We as readers are confronted with an alternative course of history, which at times even anticipates topical political developments. In a highly computerised context, some androids represent the latest achievements. One of them, Adam, oscillates between his two functions of servant and intellectual superior. Yet it is the uncompromising decision logic of the machine mind that tends to miss the nuances of a serious moral dilemma. The corresponding ethical question will surely dominate our debate about McEwan's disturbing vision.

requirements:
• active participation
• in-depth knowledge of the reading material
• oral presentation (handout) or
• research in progress and final paper

Please note that prior enrolment via Stud.IP is mandatory. The number of participants is limited to 15 students.


text:
McEwan, Ian. Machines Like Me. London: Jonathan Cape, 2019.

This course welcomes students who wish to complete the following modules:
M.A. E-SC: OrMO (Orientierungsmodul 1. Semester)
M.A. E-SC SpecMo (Spezialisierungsmodul 3. Semester);
M.A. TnL Vertiefungsmodul und Profilmodul Literatur
Non-E-SC students and academic exchange students

Travel writing is an increasingly popular genre in terms of text production and commercial success, encompassing a fascinating diversity of literary forms, modes and itineraries, which negate a forthright definition of the genre. As a repository for factual and fictional accounts of mobility and cross-cultural exchange, however, it has long been underestimated for its potential to contribute to a broad range of cultural, political and historical debates that seek to reassess the role of travel writing as a "vehicle for geographic, ethnographic and sociological knowledge." (Thompson 4). This seminar discusses diverse themes and characteristics of contemporary travel writing, postcolonial travel accounts and refugee writing and aims to map contemporary critical concepts regarding transnational and postcolonial perspectives in weekly readings of excerpts of selected travel accounts.

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 September 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.

Requirements and Assessment
• Interest in the topic 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.
Copies of selected travel accounts can be purchased at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: www.unibuch-bremen.de)

This course (VAK: 10-M80-1-OrMo-06) welcomes students who wish to complete the following modules:
M.A. E-SC Orientierungsmodul;
M.A. TnL Vertiefungsmodul und Profilmodul Literatur;
B.A. E-SC “Key Topics in Cultural History”- D1b /D1c und WD1b /WD1c
Non-E-SC students and academic exchange students

William Shakespeare’s London, and in this seminar, London in the Elizabethan Age as well as at his time in the city (c.1560 – 1616), was a rapidly growing and bustling metropolis. In the duration of this course, we will travel back in time seeking to explore the history and social geography of this largest city in England. Based on a research-based learning methodology, we will attempt to map out London’s key locations as the centre of government, the law and the church as well as being the focus of politics and culture during a time of intense political and religious upheaval. In addition, this course focuses on the following topics: Stage history, playhouses; the fundamental features of dramatic composition to issues such as political structures in Renaissance England, gender roles and relations, love and sexuality, constructions of nationhood, global expansion and their representation in Shakespeare’s plays.

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 September 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.

Requirements and Assessment
• Interest in the topic 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.

Reading materials
MacGregor, Neil. Shakespeare's Restless World, Penguin Books, 2014.
Copies are available for purchase at the bookstore on our campus (Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen: www.unibuch-bremen.de)

This course explores the ways in which debates about empire are negotiated in selected classics of British fiction. Covering a period of roughly 200 years, we shall turn to three key texts consisting of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent (1800) as well as H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine (1895) and focus on notions of gender, race, class and colonialism in order to question aspects of (British) national self-consciousness. While the seminar’s emphasis is on the socio-historical contextualization of the primary works, it will also build and expand on already existing knowledge of literary theories and cultural methods. All students are expected to participate in the discussions and activities and prepare a research-oriented (group) presentation based on their chosen topics and concepts. We will also jointly watch and discuss one film that helps to shed light on the link between the history of the British Empire and its colonial aftermath. Please note: Students must have read all three novels in advance of the very first session – familiarity with the primary literature is essential for a successful participation.

Keywords: British Empire, colonialism, cultural history, gender, class, slavery, nature, genre, science

Requirements:
• registration on Stud.IP
• in-depth knowledge of the reading material, i.e. read the text(s) in advance!
• regular attendance and oral participation
• oral presentation and handout
• term paper (optional)

Texts:
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York [et al.]: Norton, 1994. [pages 1-221]
Edgeworth, Maria. Castle Rackrent. New York [et al.]: Norton, 2015. [pages 1-62]
Wells, H. G. The Time Machine. New York [et al.]: Norton, 2009. [pages 1-73]

In this seminar we will learn about Indigenous history, issues, problems, and identities through watching documentaries and short films dealing with Indigenous topics in North America. Initially we will learn about how to assess short films and watch a few Indigenous short films before looking at some lesser known ones that have just been released. We will cooperate with the 'Indianer Inuit Filmfestival' in Stuttgart and will watch a selection of the films that will be shown there in February 2020. We will form a jury that will select the best one to be awarded the Best Short Film Award. We will also transcribe, translate and provide the German subtitles for a few films that will run at the festival in Stuttgart. As a highlight, a selection of students will go to the festival (6-9 February 2020; https://www.nordamerika-filmfestival.com/) and participate in all showings and events and present the film award on the festival stage.