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Instructors: Alexandra Hartmann; Tanja Reiffenrath
Event type:
Seminar
Org-unit: Anglistik/Amerikanistik
Displayed in timetable as:
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 50
Requirements and recommendations:
Introduction to Literary Studies
Literature:
Please buy David Small’s graphic memoir Stitches (2009), preferably the W W Norton edition (978-0393338966).
Selected secondary texts, as well as some literary primary texts will be made available in a reader at the beginning of the semester.
Some sessions will be accompanied by a film screening.
Comment:
In this Cultural Studies class, I invite you to study the representation of disabled bodies and our practice of looking – or perhaps often rather staring – at them. “A staring encounter is a dynamic struggle – starers inquire, starees lock eyes or flee, and starers advance or retreat; one moves forward and the other moves back. A staring interchange can tickle or alienate, persist or evolve. Staring's brief bond can also be intimate, generating a sense of obligation between persons,” writes Disability Studies scholar Rosemarie Garland-Thomson. The dynamics she describes here will guide our discussions of portrait photography, paintings, advertisements, graphic novels, and films. As we practice the analysis and interpretation of this wide range of visual material from the 19th century to the present day, we will encounter bodies turned into spectacles, images eliciting pity or admiration, as well as visual (self-)portrayals in which sitters “stare back,” counter the social stigma associated with disability, and challenge the status of disabled individuals in American society. Moreover, we will discuss how the visual representation of the disabled body enters literary texts and powerfully influences how we read disability. Our analyses will be complemented by critical literature from the field of Disability Studies.
Important notes:
Throughout the semester, we will engage in discussions about the material and critically reflect on what we have seen or read. Please be prepared to share your opinions, arguments, and ideas with the group. As part of the module "Methodische Grundlagen," this course will introduce you to academic texts and their critical evaluation, as well as to presentation skills and feedback strategies.
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