L.008.32410 Victorian Culture and its Influences

Lehrende: Christina Flotmann-Scholz

Veranstaltungsart: Hauptseminar

Orga-Einheit: Anglistik/Amerikanistik

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Semesterwochenstunden: 2

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 50

Voraussetzungen und Empfehlungen:
Introduction to Cultural Studies

Zielgruppe:
advanced students of both the MA programme and Lehramt / B.Ed

Literatur:
Students need to acquire copies of the following texts set for discussion in class. Possible editions are:

Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd., 1992.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Aurora Floyd. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Students are asked to have read both novels by the beginning of the semester.

Ergänzende Veranstaltungen:
The topic of the course is also the subject of a conference on "Victorian 'Structures of Feeling' in Late 20th and 21st-Century Cultural Products" to be held at the University of Paderborn from 12-14 June 2014 (Reading Week). Students are expected to present a small research project at this conference to acquire ‘qualifizierte Teilnahme’.

Kommentar:
The course aims at exploring the continuities between the Victorian era and the 21st century. On the level of cultural products or texts these continuities manifest themselves in similarities concerning production and dissemination, plot patterns or ideological leanings.
We will particularly look at two areas in which trends which were established during the 19th century are continued nowadays. The first area concerns the practice of serialisation which was introduced during the 19th century when popular fiction came to be published in weekly or monthly installments of newspapers and magazines. The practice influenced the development of the novel and continues to shape the popular imagination today as the serial format has survived in the widely consumed genre of the TV series. 
The second area we want to focus on concerns the treatment of gender ideologies during the Victorian era and the way in which they are taken up, modified, or subverted in contemporary popular texts. We want to analyse two novels, the early Victorian Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë, 1847), and the later sensation novel Aurora Floyd (Mary Elizabeth Braddon, 1863, first published in serialised form). Readings of the primary texts will be accompanied by discussions of theoretical approaches to ideology, representation and gender.

The topic of the course is also the subject of a conference on "Victorian 'Structures of Feeling' in Late 20th and 21st-Century Cultural Products" to be held at the University of Paderborn from 12-14 June 2014 (Reading Week). Students are expected to present a small research project at this conference to acquire ‘qualifizierte Teilnahme’.
For ‘qualifizierte Teilnahme’ students will form groups (size depending on the size of the course) in which they will develop their own small research projects connected to the topic of the seminar. The results will be presented in poster-form at the conference mentioned above. Students will thus get the chance to present their research to an academic audience.
The group work will include the generation of an appropriate research question, the reading and discussion of theoretical and secondary literature as well as the adequate presentation of the findings on the poster. Input on how to compile posters will be given in class and there will be time during sessions for the groups to start their work.
Requirements for ‘Prüfungsleistung’ will be announced in the first session of class for which attendance is mandatory.