Winter Term 2006/2007

Dr. Katrin Berndt:
PS: Rewriting the Canon - Dickens, Carey, and Intertextuality
Tue 9-11
Building C 5.2, 4th floor, room Ü 1
Transcultural responses to Charles Dickens' work have been especially complex, not only because he occupies a central role in the British literary canon, but also because he had himself been a sharp critic of the social conditions of his time. This seminar focuses on the intertextual rewriting of Dickens' classic novel Great Expectations (1861) by the Australian writer Peter Carey, who usually portrays contemporary Australian society in a critical way. His novel Jack Maggs (1997) adapts the setting and some of the central characters of Great Expectations. In class, we will closely analyse both the texts and discuss the issues in them, such as intertextuality, transcultural rewriting, the beginning of Australian nationhood, and metafiction.
Participants are recommended to read the primary texts listed below before the sessions start. Please purchase the editions given below.

Texts:
Charles Dickens. Great Expectations. Oxford: Oxford UP Paperbacks, 1998.
Peter Carey. Jack Maggs. London: Faber & Faber, 2004.

Accreditation:
Regular attendance, active participation in class, oral presentation (10 mins), final test and term paper (10-12 pages in MLA form

Dr. Soenke Zehle:
PS: The Art of Reportage
Tue 11-13
Room 1.01 (CIP-Pool)

The practice of literary reportage keeps alive a small but significant genre of transcultural literature. We will read works by some of its signature authors (including Ryszard Kapuscinski, Pedro Rosa Mendes, and Nuruddin Farah) to a) examine how these authors defend the autonomy of the literary against the 'tyranny of real-time news' (Nik Gowing, BBC) and work to transform clichèd protocols of crisis coverage, and b) explore how this genre relates to non-literary genres of reportage, including videoblogs and serious games. The course includes a film workshop (attendance mandatory) on the movie Drum, the role of Drum magazine in the anti-Apartheid movement, and the photographer Juergen Schadeberg.

More info on readings & requirements on the Transcultural Media Studies website