AN32006BA13 Textual Creatures: Animals in Literature and Film
The primary aim of the course is to focus students’ attention on non-human beings in literary and cinematic texts and so help them develop a creature-conscious perspective in their relation to cultural phenomena. Relying on the methods of slow and close reading, participants shall trace the various different ways non-human beings appear in the selected texts beyond the instances of anthropomorphism, animal symbols, metaphors and allegories. Due to the chronological schedule and the cultural diversity of the assigned material, students can learn about how animals were and are perceived in certain places and times of history and discuss whether the selected texts confirm or criticise dominant conceptions. A more general goal of the course is to create in students an awareness of non-human sentience and intelligence, a contemplative approach to the similarities and differences between human and non-human animals, and a sensitivity towards issues concerning animal welfare and subjectivity.
AN12000BA; AN18007BA; AN2200OMA British Civilization
The course is designed to introduce students to British cultural history and life in modern Britain. Topics to be covered are the emergence of the British state, the structure of British society, the characteristic constituents and diversity of British identity, the political, economic, and welfare systems, the central institutions as well as the international relations of present-day Britain. In each seminar discussions focus on key concepts (such as the notions of Britishness vs. Englishness, class and manners, the myth of the countryside, the cult of amateurism, multiculturalism, the public school ethos) and questions concerning contemporary British identity and society with the help of selected images, videos, articles, short stories, films and television shows. Looking for links between past and present cultural phenomena, students shall develop a basic understanding of what it means to be British today.
BTAN10000BA ESSAY WRITING AND RESEARCH
This seminar aims to introduce students into academic writing and research, especially in the field of literary and cultural studies. Students will get acquainted with the basics of research methodology (how to use the library, search engines and electronic databases effectively), and ideally will learn how to write essays that will meet the requirements of a research paper (with a clear thesis, a coherent, smoothly flowing argument that critically engages with the cited secondary material). Students will also learn to quote and document their sources according to the MLA Style.
ANL22009BA; AN5200OMAL; AN3200OMA MODERN BRITISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE SEMINAR 2
The purpose of this seminar course is to introduce students to some aspects and features of 20th-century British literature and culture. Since the fundamental cultural institutions are dealt with in a previous course, in the second term, besides discussing classic twentieth-century literary texts from a cultural studies point of view, the course will focus on investigating issues like the 60s, Thatcherism and the 1980s, multiculturalism, heritage culture, postmodernism, as well as women’s experiences in contemporary popular media. Whereas the course will primarily rely on written texts, it will have visual components as well, both in the form of film viewing, and by introducing complementary visual material. Literary texts will include Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia, Julian Barnes’s England, England, and a selection of poems by Ted Hughes. Films will include Smashing Time, Ken Loach’s Riff-Raff, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain, and a few episodes from the television series Fleabag.