| Kommentar |
The concepts of Englishness or Britishness have traditionally been hotly debated. English history, not least of all in its imperial ventures, reveals that those concepts have never been an easy matter. Rather than directly asking what Englishness is it may be helpful to consider what it is not; or more specifically, what it is constructed against. As every nation somehow needs 'the Other', which in the case of the English has almost always been the French, we will take a look at how English discourse makes use of stereotypes of the French to construct an English identity that functions as its negation.
In the course of this seminar we will discuss notions of personal and collective identities from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering the fields of philosophy, psychology, and anthropology, among others. About the first half of the sessions will be spent on theoretical concerns before we move on to apply this knowledge to the analysis of literary texts in the final part of this course. |
| Literatur |
There will be NO reader for this seminar, as all relevant texts will be provided on the Moodle.
HOWEVER, students are required to get their own copy of:
Paul Ricœur. Oneself as Another. Trans. Kathleen Blamey. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN-13: 978-0226713298 (about € 18,95). |
