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The age of Enlightenment is famous today for the political and social revolutions it has brought forth in America, the Caribbean and France among others and it is famous for the new boost it gave to literature and the arts. The turn to the nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of the sciences as new professional fields with expanding canons of texts, images and material collections. Simultaneously, a new social and professional caste of writers, art-workers and public performers came forth to feed increasing appetites for the novel as a new form of fiction, for reading matter in the emerging domestic sphere and for illustrations as new forms of mass communication. What emerges in these contexts is a globally shared idea of "America" and a whole array of new technologies, arts and objects by which readers thought to grasp and command the world around them.
This lecture builds on the revolutionary era chapter of the Metzler Amerikanische Literaturgeschichte (co-authored by Breinig, Buchenau and Opfermann and edited by Müller and Zapf, 2024, made available at the beginning of the term in pre-print). Participants are expected to read sections of this long chapter throughout the term and prepare notes and questions during the lecture. We will use the format of lecture and Q&A to discuss the ways in which literature "invented" (O'Gorman) the idea of an American republic (and its many flaws as well as novel strengths). In order to advance your analytical skills in literary studies, the lecture will pay special attention to the analysis of the figures, the images and the matters that people the literature of this particular era.
While thematically unified, this class will also develop key competences in literary and cultural studies, including Information Literacy (how to access secondary literature), Reading (how to use secondary literature), Inquiry & Analysis (how to analyze literary texts), and Written and Oral Communication (how to present your thoughts in your lecture notes, the Q&A sections and the written exam (AmSt3) or oral exam (K, Ka). |
