Winter Term 2004/2005

Prof. Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn:
VL: A TAS Survey: South Africa
Wed 11–13
Room: tba

Tutorial: Daniel Kutscher
Wed 13-14
Room: tba

This introductory lecture series will explore the political and cultural background to polycultural writing in South Africa, an area characterised by being, from 1652 onwards, a European settler colony in which a white minority ruled over a black majority population of Bantu-speaking peoples. A selection of fictional texts will simultaneously be focussed on as particularly significant examples of the interaction of cultures with one another.

The mandatory tutorial is designed to foster your analytic skills with regard to the text corpus. Master copies of the texts as well as further course details can be found in the IB.

Accreditation:

Prof. Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn:
HS: Approaching Intermediality: The English Patient
Thu 10–12
Room: Geb. 35, 120

Tutorial:
Thu 12–13
Room: tba

The English Patient, Sri Lankan Canadian author Michael Ondaatje's award-winning novel, was turned into a highly-successful film (9 Academy Awards) four years after its publication in 1992. Anthony Minghella, director and script-writer of The English Patient, has claimed that his screenplay is based on his memory, however faulty, of his first reading of the novel shortly after it appeared. Clearly not an example of the usual 'literature-into-art' intermediality, the medium change from novel to a film demands serious attention. Our focus will therefore be on the art of narration (e.g. form/content, selection, editing, narrative perspective, showing/telling) observable in these complementary and yet distinct versions of The English Patient.

Texts:
Ondaatje, Michael. The English Patient. London: Picador, 1993.
Minghella, Anthony. The English Patient. Screenplay. London: Methuen, 1997.
The English Patient. Film. 1996. Dir. A. Minghella, Ed. W. Murch.
Additional material, including course details, can be found in a seminar folder in the IB.

Accreditation: Regular attendance of the seminar and tutorial is mandatory. Individual research on a relevant topic of your choice for an oral presentation will be followed by a term paper in which you can expand on the points raised by your presentation (15-20 pages (3,750 – 5,000 words) in MLA format).

Prof. Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn
HS: Transcultural Nobel Prize Winning Authors I: John M. Coetzee
Thu 14–16
Room: Geb. 35, 120
Tutorial: N.N. (please check notice board for details)

A stable feature of anglophone transcultural writing has been its aim of aesthetically combining the 'local' with the 'global' in innovative ways. The Nobel Prize Committee, whose business it is to recognise and reward highly successful attempts at this variety of bi-focal writing, stated of their 2003 awardee: "J.M. Coetzee’s novels are characterised by their well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance. But at the same time he is a scrupulous doubter, ruthless in his criticism of the cruel rationalism and cosmetic morality of western civilisation." In reading J.M. Coetzee's writing as examples of texts which bridge the cultural chasm between a more local, insider readership and a global, outsider one, we shall be engaging with some of the key challenges faced by both the TAS writer and the TAS critic.

Texts:
In the Heart of the Country. 1976. London: Penguin, 1982.
Waiting for the Barbarians. 1980. London: Penguin, 1982.
The Life and Times of Michael K. 1983. London: Penguin, 1985.
Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life. 1997. London: Vintage, 2003.
Disgrace. 1999. London: Vintage, 2000.

Texts difficult to obtain as well as additional material, including course details, can be found in a seminar folder in the IB.

Accreditation: Regular attendance of the seminar and tutorial is mandatory. A thorough acquaintance with the texts will be assumed, and In the Heart of the Country must have been read in preparation for the first session. Individual research on a relevant topic of your choice for an oral presentation will be followed by a term paper in which you can expand on the points raised by your presentation (15-20 pages (3,750 – 5,000 words) in MLA format).

Prof. Martina Ghosh-Schellhorn:
Kolloquium für Examenskandidaten: TAS Theories and their Applications
Wed 17–19
Room: Geb. 35, 120

All students planning to take their examinations in TAS are strongly advised to attend this colloquium as it provides a forum for the discussion of issues relevant to the examinations and to work in progress (e.g. M. A. theses) in addition to ongoing analysis of contemporary critical issues in this field of study. Participants are requested to get in touch with me at the start of term, preferably via e-mail  (m.ghosh(at)mx.uni-saarland.de).

Vera Alexander, M.A.:
PS: In Search of the Transcultural South Asian Bildungsroman
Mon 11-13
Room: tba

Sometimes translated as "novel of education" or "coming of age novel", the genre of the bildungsroman deals with processes of identity formation undergone by young characters.
In this seminar we will analyse three novels by South Asian writers depicting postcolonial migrants who live on the borderlines between several different cultures, languages and identities. We will investigate how the questions of gender, place, and authority raised in these novels challenge and transform the classical model of the bildungsroman in the tradition of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister.

Texts:
Bharati Mukherjee, Jasmine (1989),
Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia (1990),
Meera Syal, Anita and Me (1996),
Romesh Gunesekera, Reef (1994).

Course evaluation will be based on active participation in class, an oral report, minutes, a final test and a 2,500 word term paper written in English.