English Literature

Overview courses

• Literature, Culture and Society

  For centuries, literary and other cultural texts have changed the way people think and look at the world. They reveal social injustices and societal ills, offering ideas and ammunition for social change, thereby helping people to imagine different, better realities. A single text may trigger an individual’s struggle for emancipation, but also that of a group or a nation. This course will explore the important ways in which literary texts have contributed to societal change and have liberated people throughout the centuries up to the present.

• Transatlantic Travel Writing

  This course will introduce you to American and British literature written between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 20th century. As it is impossible to cover all Anglo-American writing of the “long 19th century” in the course of seven weeks, we will focus on one specific genre: travel writing. This literary genre, which has been popular for centuries, has been much overlooked by academics and those constituting the British and American literary canons. The new critical paradigms of “transnationalism” and “globalization,” however, provide a new perspective on these texts. We will read travel writings by authors such as Charles Dickens, Henry James and Mark Twain in combination with canonized texts by these same authors. This will allow us to compare and contextualize.

• American Literature 1914-present

  Over the course of the twentieth century, American society changed tremendously. These changes are reflected in both the themes and styles of the literature of this time. By looking at works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction produced during this time, we will try to find an answer to what American literature is, what the shifts in styles and themes can tell us about American society, and what it might tell us about the direction in which American literature is headed now, at the beginning of the 21st century.

• American Film

  You will become acquainted with the study of identity representation in American film. What issues arise when studying the representation of identity (think of race, gender, sexuality) in American cinema? Per meeting, we discuss a particular issue (for instance, stereotyping, the male gaze, character engagement, queer subtext) and apply it to a number of films.

• Genre and Literary Analysis (blended learning)

  This course will provide a grounding in critical analysis of 'genre' in English Literature, examining the specificities and characteristics that are associated with various genres of literature. You will become familiar with the terminology used in literary analysis and will be able to apply these terms in your own analysis of a literary text.