American Literature 1 (BA 2nd year, teacher training)
The aim of this seminar is to introduce the most significant American authors of the 19th century through the analysis of works by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain and Stephen Crane. The course will focus on representative poems, short stories and novels and will also feature group discussion of essays that have influenced mainstream American thought and writing.
American Literature 2 (BA 2nd year, teacher training)
The aim of this course is to investigate the problematic relationship of the individual with the social and psychological challenges of the 20th century, as represented in a selection from the required readings list for the end-term examination in 20th-century American literature. The seminar will focus on the factors that influence or determine the individual’s place in the universe based on the various literary movements of the period (Existentialism, Modernism, Post-Modernism, Beat Culture). The building blocks of identity, such as race, gender, ethnicity, age, and social background will be discussed based on social constructionist principles.
American Literature 4: Women Writers of the American South (BA 3rd year, teacher training)
The aim of this seminar is to present an overview of the literary output of the Southern states in the 20th century, focusing on women writers who have made their presence felt on the literary scene since the Southern Renaissance. Based on the analysis of short stories by Zora Neale Hurston, Caroline Gordon, Catherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, the peculiarities of Southern fiction will be discussed in terms of the position of women writers and the differences between Southern and mainstream American writing.
American Literature 4: The American Short Story in the 20th century (BA 3rd year, teacher training)
The aim of this course is to introduce a variety of short story genres and give an overview of the classics (Faulkner and Hemingway) and the new voices that appeared in the second half of the 20th century (for example, science fiction, cyberpunk, Chicano, and Native American short stories). The course will provide insight into social, racial and ethnic factors influencing subjectivity, gender and the relationship between individual and power. The course will also focus on the visual representations of these genres in popular culture (for instance, the figure of the hard-boiled detective in Film Noir, the idealized image of the noble savage, or the cyberpunk world that provided the inspiration for The Matrix trilogy).
Genre Studies: Reading Novels and Film Adaptations (BA 3rd year, American Studies Track)
The aim of the course is to familiarize students with the reading of film texts and give an introduction to adaptation theory through the analysis of classic American novels and their film adaptations. The course will investigate the possible definitions of adaptation, the various strategies used in page-to-screen adapting, the question of censorship, and the influence of Hollywood. The critical background will not be restricted to fidelity criticism, but will also highlight the author/auteur debate, discuss genres, audiences, mise-en-scene, etc.
Genre Studies: Southern women authors and artists
The course focuses on the work of 20th and 21st-century women authors and artists from the Southern states, exploring the representations of Southern regional culture in literature, film, visual arts, and music. Their works (short stories, two feature films based on a novel and a stage play, songs/music videos, and essays/interviews on the South) will be discussed in the cultural context of the main forces shaping Southern identity: race, gender, and class, with special focus on historical/collective memory and nostalgia, the role of violence and the famous Southern “sense of belonging.” Students will be required to present on a less well-known facet of Southern culture, either related to music, visual arts or a non-fiction piece describing th e region, and to showcase their research on the career and significance of a Southern woman author/artist in writing.
American Popular Culture (American Studies MA)
The aim of this course is to give an introduction to the theoretical background of Popular Culture and put theory into practice through the discussion of typical pop culture genres, such as chick lit, science fiction, the western, cyberpunk, television series or fandom studies. The position of pop culture in academia and everyday life will also be considered, as well as its changing evaluation ranging from escapist trash to serious works reflecting on the postmodern condition and pivotal questions of the 21st century, such as gender, race, ethnicity and identity construction.
American Popular Culture (teacher training)
The aim of this course is to give an introduction to the theoretical background of Popular Culture and illustrate it through the discussion of some of the typical pop culture genres, like romance, science fiction or the western, as well as including aspects of contemporary culture, for instance, fandom studies. Putting theory into practice, the course will focus on how popular culture can be used in the classroom. Students will collectively build a repository of classroom activities based on pop culture genres (comics, music, film, video games, etc.) through the term. Classes will have a hands-on component, teaching materials will be researched and evaluated in small groups, therefore active participation will be required for the course to function properly.
Masculinity and Femininity in American Fiction and Film (American Studies MA)
The aim of this course is to give an introduction to the social constructionist approach to gender and illustrate the problematic articulation of gender, race, age and social background through the discussion of short stories, novels and plays. Stereotyping in the visual representation of gender will also be explored in the film adaptation of some of these works and in popular culture as well. The concepts of social and personal identity, hegemonic masculinity, contingent identity, gender naturalization will be introduced and witnessed in practice. On a practical note, content analysis and the formulation of research questions will be incorporated, based on findings of empirical research.
Representations of the American South (American Studies MA)
The aim of this course is to provide an overview of the representations of the American South through significant literary texts and films that give insight into region-specific problems, like racism, the KKK, the influence of the Civil War and the plantation myth. These works will be used to explore the construction of Southern regional identity, and the geographical variety within the region, presenting both historical and social change taking place during the 20th century. This will be accomplished through the discussion of classics that have shaped the image of the South, like the first feature film, Birth of a Nation (1915) and Faulkner short stories, and contemporary representations, like Jesmyn Ward’s 2011 novel Salvage the Bones, which describes the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and the movie 12 Years a Slave, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2013.
The American South: 21st-Century Perspectives (American Studies MA)
The aim of the course is to revisit the American South through contemporary texts and films that engage with the historical and cultural background of the region, while engaging with the problematic representation of different groups and social issues in the 20th century by means of critical reviews of iconic films (the majority of which are novel-to-film adaptations: Birth of a Nation, Gone with the Wind, Tobacco Road, To Kill a Mockingbird, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Color Purple). These will also provide the foundation for working with 21st-century texts and films, and evaluating how the narratives, the voices, and the perspectives have changed.
The question how regional identity and regional cultures are affected by the accelerated globalization of the 21st century will be investigated based on critical approaches rooted in cultural geography, ecocriticism, and cultural memory in addition to the specific Southern contexts of gender, race, and class. The region’s geographical diversity that gave rise to divergent socio-economic structures and cultural groups is also reflected by the variety of primary sources: a novel, a memoir, five feature films, and one documentary short film to be supplemented by shorter magazine articles, opinion pieces, etc. to be used as prompts for classroom discussions.
Posthumanism (PhD course)
The course provides an introduction for doctoral students to the critical posthumanities, conceptualized by Rosi Braidotti as a supra/disciplinary, rhizomic field of contemporary knowledge production, and to explore in more detail the possibilities of research that result in the actualization of minority-driven knowledges. As an entryway to this burgeoning field two recent articles by Braidotti will be discussed, the first of which, “A Theoretical Framework for the Critical Posthumanities” (2018), not only explores the key conceptual and methodological perspectives, but explicitly sets out to tackle “the implications of the critical posthumanities for practices in the contemporary ‘research’ university.” What I find illuminating in Braidotti’s proposal and believe to be helpful for PhD students is how familiar critical approaches (gender, queer, feminist, postcolonial, cultural, media, race, migration, disability, film and television, trauma, memory, etc. studies) combine in a supra-disciplinary framework, creating new discursive practices within the context of the Anthropocene.
The course endeavors to foster active engagement with the theoretical texts via close reading and annotation of texts as part of the preparation for classes, as well as relying on in-class discussions dedicated to the analysis of creative works to put theory into practice. By taking a workshop-like approach, I invite students to engage on both a theoretical and practical level and to actively contribute to the content of the course: recommending texts for classroom discussion will ensure the integration of their specific research areas. The course will also produce the tangible result of a draft presentation on the students’ topic of choice, which can be easily developed into a conference presentation.
The course is based on an approach that regards social responsibility as a core principle which not only restructures subjectivity as “a collective assemblage that encompasses human and nonhuman actors, technological mediation, animals, plants, and the planet as a whole,” but also proposes an affirmative, inclusive ethics. The course will focus on the nature-culture and media-nature-cultural continua, on alternative knowing subject formations, and the possible frameworks that oppose unsustainable advanced capitalism that may contribute to a collective construction of hope for the future.
The Language of Advertising (Business Specialization)
This course will investigate how and why advertisements work. We will look at different strategies and techniques in advertising, discuss why some of them are more or less successful than others and how this social phenomenon is related to popular culture in general. The course focuses on putting into practice the theory covered in the set texts and will require students to demonstrate their new skills by designing an advertisement for the end-term presentation.
English in Advertising and the Media (Business Specialization)
The aim of this course is to guide students through the steps of an empirical research project, covering the difference between quantitative and qualitative research, questionnaire compilation, interpreting findings, presentation of the project and writing a research report. The research project will be based on the course Advertising (BA 2nd year) and will examine how efficient viewers find the various components of advertisements covered in the previous semester. The course will also provide practice materials for the relevant vocabulary, as well as help with business presentation and writing. The empirical research component will be relevant aid for writing business specialization theses by outlining and putting into practice the research methodology.