English: American Studies

German Blockseminar at the Catholic University of Eichstatt-Ingolstadt in 2008.

Goals:
This course aims to give students a firm understanding of works and authors of a certain period in the history of American Literature. In addition to introducing basic literary concepts, it furthermore stresses these basic skills: reading and analyzing English prose and poetry, researching, rewriting and presenting materials in a scientific manner, speaking freely before the class, and writing a paper with a clear thesis, according to scientific standards. As much as possible, and time permitting, we will attempt to achieve these goals through communicative activities in the group. This course will be reading-centered, so the chief requirement is that you make a commitment to keeping up with the reading, and that you come to class prepared to discuss what you have read. It is recommended that you read all literature at your own pace and leisure during the semester as you will most likely not be able to read the literature along with the course progression.

LTEN 149 (B00) - THEMES IN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

Fall 2012

Instructor: Sören Fröhlich
Meetings: Tu, Th 09:30-10:50 in WLH 2114
Contact: sfrohlic@ucsd.edu, Office: LIT 240, Office hours: Tu 12-2, Th 2-3 and by appointment.

If You Want Blood: Thematic Readings of U.S. Blood Discourses

Course Description: This is an upper-division undergraduate course designed to teach and train scholarly approaches to literature. It focuses on what I call “blood discourses,” meaning linguistic usages or interactive utterances attached to a social practice, to sketch out ways that blood was and is evaluated and how it structures and is structured in culture, especially literature, in medicine, and in history. We will read texts from a wide range of genres, periods, and media to follow the question: what is blood?

Humans may have always thought about blood, but this course will focus on how the understanding of blood changed over time, and how cultural representations of blood reflect and reinforce these changes. Blood is ever-present, from the latest splatter film to genetic engineering, from debates on blood quantum policies to the Eucharist. The Oxford English Dictionary has entire pages on entries related to blood. Blood donation is a major business, and so are hygiene products. Why are we so fascinated by blood? This course will examine the fluid that moves between fiction and fact, between body and psyche. We will learn to read fiction in connection to other fields, like medicine, anthropology, and religion.

We will focus on U.S. writing in several genres, as well as visual and performance art, and film, since the mid-nineteenth century that consider blood as a problem or a solution. We will locate some historical strands that still influence texts about blood, and supplement a focus text with readings from theology, sensational and gothic fiction, political and legal contexts, history of science, and media studies.

Course Requirements: Students must complete all of the required readings and see any required films before the class meeting for which they are assigned. Attendance is mandatory. Your active responses to the readings and screenings will provide the foundation for our class discussions. I expect each member of the class to take seriously our collective project of respectfully engaging and responding to the ideas of the participants.

Evaluation:
25% Attendance and participation
25% Weekly assignments and quizzes
50% Final Writing Assignment     
100%

Attendance and participation: I expect you to attend class regularly. Please contact me immediately for any special accommodation, medical problems, or the like. Two (2) unexcused absences are the maximum number to receive a passing grade in attendance.

Piazza page: I provided and will monitor a supplementary piazza.com course website under UCSD, LTEN 149 (https://piazza.com/ucsd/fall2012/lten149/home). Piazza.com is a third-party service in no way affiliated with UCSD. This is supposed to be your space outside the classroom. It is an optional venue for you to exchange ideas, contact each other, plan and discuss presentations, ask questions, discuss readings, look through the additional links I post, and to contact me. While I will closely monitor the content, I do not grade your questions or censor discussions, provided they do not violate UCSD’s Principles of Community (http://www.ucsd.edu/explore/about/principles.html).

Weekly assignments: The weekly sessions include written assignments designed to give you the basic tools needed for a successful literature course and to deepen these skills. You have one oral assignment at the end of class. Please contact me immediately if you think you need help giving an oral presentation in front of the class. The assignments are training in basic skills, but you should also use them to assess your strengths and weaknesses, find areas of interest to you, and also work strategically with the final assignment in mind. They should help you prepare texts, find sources, and rehearse techniques you can then apply quickly and easily in your final assignment. Contact me immediately if you need any special accommodations. (Formatting for all assignments: Letter-size paper, name, title, Times New Roman 12p, 1in. margins, double-spaced, no extra blank lines. I reserve the right to request an electronic copy.) Unless stated otherwise, all assignments are to be completed alone and due at the beginning of the first meeting each week. Quality gains higher grades than quantity and quantity more than blank sheets of paper. Attempts to cheat and trick receive very, very low grades. Any missing assignment receives a zero. There is zero tolerance of plagiarism. (For information on UCSD’s policy, see: http://students.ucsd.edu/academics/academic-integrity/policy.html) I reserve the right to pop quiz you at any time.

Final assignment: Write a five-page research paper (excluding notes and bibliography) or a four-page essay (double-spaced on one side of 8 1/2 by 11" paper, 1" margins, Times New Roman 12 point). The topic has to be related to one or more primary or secondary text assigned in class, a theoretical or conceptual problem, or a historical problem in relation to the texts. I expect you to use the tools acquired during the quarter to conceive, plan, and execute the paper. Contact me with alternative assignment ideas, ideas for collaboration, or if you wish to be examined in a different format no later than week 7. Contact me immediately if you need any special accommodations.
The final assignment has to be completed by Thursday, 12/13/2012, 11AM.

Required books (at UCSD Bookstore = B):
- Bill Hayes. Five Quarts: A Personal and Natural History of Blood.
- Cormac McCarthy. Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West.
 
Required short readings: I tried to reduce cost to the student and opted not to make a course reader. For the short readings, go to the UCSD Library course reserve (= O). Go to http://reserves.ucsd.edu and select our department or me or search by course name. Beginning this quarter, the Library will be password protecting Electronic Reserves. You need to enter this password to view the materials on Electronic Reserves: sf149 (not case sensitive). You can also contact library staff in person at Geisel Library, they will be happy to help you. Also, you may have to consult the audio-visual media, full-length texts, and additional texts I placed on the reserve shelf at the library (= R).

"

Research of African American literature frequently addresses modes of agency and resistance by describing performativity (Gilroy, Roach, Rottenberg). Other research has examined the relation between race and medicine in the U.S. an stressed histories of exploitation, scientific prejudice, and professional discrimination, but also brilliant improvisation and resistance of patients and practitioners (W. Michael Byrd and Linda A. Clayton, Molly Rogers, Thomas J. Ward).

Yet too often these two fields of research remain too far apart. This leads to an unwitting naturalization of the roles that patient and doctor play, which in turn renders the problem of race and performance invisible in the examination of medicine. My paper ties these two fields together through close examination of a text by a master of minstrelsy and medical practitioner: William Wells Brown.

While Brown is best known for his novel Clotel (1853), I focus on his much later and much more complicated text, that has largely escaped critical attention: The Rising Son (1874). This history stands between Martin R. Delany’s Pan-Africanist arguments and African-American histories like George Washington Williams’ History (1882) and Pauline E. Hopkins “Primer” (1905). More specifically, though, I look at the preface, “Memoir of the Author,” yet another biographical sketch about Brown, penned by one Alonzo D. Moore. It relates a fascinating episode in which Brown escapes from a KKK lynching. He uses his medical experience to drug the mob leader but cloaks it in the guise of a conjuring man to access the man’s body. This hitherto unexamined episode brings together Brown’s well-established mastery of the minstrel performance, his renowned presence of mind, and his years of medical practice in a complex layering of performance. In connection to the character of Sam the sham doctor in Clotel, Brown’s nuanced veiling of medical expertise through the performance of a black stock character reveals his mastery over performance of race and class beyond abstract bodies in market places.

His performance is adjusted to audience and situation, all the while performing for his life. I argue that recognizing the sophistication of African American performance must lead to a critical examination of holistic concepts like “medicine” in the context of race. African-American practitioners were keenly aware of their dangerous social position but by no means helpless. We must recognize the full awareness of African American authors to judge the complexity of their statements, but also their actions—after all, Brown once again wins back his freedom by conjuring ‘blackness.’"

"Recent scholarship in the ‘temporal turn’ has raised fundamental questions in the intersection of time and cultural representations. However, this scholarship frequently side-steps cultural representations of time as malleable and non-rational, as well as supernatural temporalities. Thinking alongside the 2014 PAMLA Conference theme “Familiar Spirits,” this panel invites papers that consider the relation between magic and time.

What happens when we consider that at once relative and all-pervasive dimension of time through the lens of the imagination, the cultural, and the irrational? Whose time is it that counts, and how can it be manipulated? This panel invites discussions of time in representation of magic including, but not limited to literature, art, film, and history.

Topics might consider questions like:

Is there a connection between legacies of racism, sexism, or gender discrimination and time?
Does time differ in the conception of magic across disciplines?
How do religious and magical notions of time cooperate or clash?
Can temporal changes associated with trauma and anxieties be represented through magic?
How are nostalgia and magic related temporally?
What characterizes magic temporality or the temporality of magic?
Which questions about time does the historiography of magic offer?
How can narrative dimensions of time be manipulated to convey a sense of magic?
How do magical manipulations of time relate to retrospective or futuristic projections?
Can time be the different between good and bad magic?

To submit, please follow the directions on

http://www.pamla.org/2014/topics/“-old-black-magic”-temporality-magic

Note: PAMLA proposals cannot be submitted by email. In order to fill out a paper proposal, proposers simply:
1. register at and log in to the PAMLA clearinghouse form at http://www.pamla.org/2014,
2. fill out a paper proposal, including a paper title, a brief abstract and long proposal      (max. 50 and 500 words, respectively), and
3. indicate whether the use of a laptop connected to a projector is needed.

For further detail on the proposal submission procedure, please visit:
http://www.pamla.org/2014/guidelines-and-procedures,
or email: Sören Fröhlich, University of California, San Diego (sfrohlic@ucsd.edu)."

C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists
Fourth Biennial Conference
Penn State University, 2016
Saturday, March 19, 2016.

Chair: Sari Altschuler, Emory University

Rebecca Rosen, Princeton University,
“The Bodies of Others: Slavery and Anatomy in the Early Republic”

Patrick Prominski, Michigan State University,
“Seasoning and Snakebites: Popular Authors and the Professionalization of the Physician on the American Frontier, 1815-1830”

Anna Mae Duane, University of Connecticut,
“Tending to ‘the Little Bushman’: Uplifting Medicine at the New York Colored Orphan’s Asylum”

Emily Waples, University of Michigan,
“Sick Time: Toward a Temporal Poetics of American Medicine”

Even though by now one quarter of the overall population of the United States is Catholic, the complexity and diversity of American Catholicism has not received the same amount of scholarly attention devoted to the role of other, particularly Protestant, denominations. Hence, it was the aim of an international conference on “The Culture of Catholicism in the United States” that was held at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, to address the multifaceted character of American Catholicism and to encourage further interdisciplinary investigation into its historical and contemporary dimensions.

Topics such as the role of Catholicism in American history; the position of the Church in a multiethnic society; the tension between Catholicism and Americanism; Catholicism in art, literature, and the media; and the history and future prospects of Catholic schools are therefore approached in the essays collected in this volume from the perspectives of various academic disciplines.

Konzept des Wintervortragszyklus "Radikalität - Religiöse, politische und künstlerische Radikalismen in Geschichte und Gegenwart"

Entgegen vieler Erwartungen ist die Welt nach dem Ende des Kalten Krieges keineswegs friedlicher geworden. Anstatt zu einem Ende zu kommen scheint sich die Geschichte eher zu beschleunigen und krisenhafte Umbrüche, deren Folgen noch kaum abzusehen sind, bestimmen unsere Gegenwart. Mit diesen Entwicklungen geht eine Verstärkung von Radikalismen und Extremismen aller Art einher - z. B. der islamistische Terrorismus, das Erstarken link- und rechtsextremer Parteien, die Ausbreitung von Sekten -, die gleichermaßen als Reaktion und Ursache von Krisen auftreten. Es besteht also Anlass, über diese Phänomene in einem weiteren Kontext nachzudenken:

Ist Radikalität eigentlich immer etwas Negatives? Was ist überhaupt gemeint, wenn eine Person oder eine Gruppierung als radikal bezeichnet werden? Ist Radikalität gleichbedeutend mit politischem Radikalismus und kompromissloser Umsturzgesinnung? Was unterscheidet sie von gewaltbestimmtem Extremismus? Zielt Radikalität stets auf einen revolutionären Bruch mit dem Althergebrachten? Welche Ursachen und Motive führen zur Entwicklung radikaler Anschauungen?

Wenn wir heute bei Radikalität fast automatisch an Rechts- und Linksradikalismen denken, dann ist dies ein Ergebnis der historischen Brüche und Katastrophen des 20. Jahrhunderts. Schaut man aber weiter zurück in die Vergangenheit, erscheint der Begriff weit weniger eindeutig. Erst durch die weltanschaulichen Auseinandersetzungen des 19. Jahrhunderts um demokratische Veränderungen in Staat und Gesellschaft wurde Radikalismus zu einem umstrittenen politischen Kampfbegriff.

Kann Radikalität aber nicht auch etwas Positives sein, vor allem wenn man sich die ursprüngliche Wortbedeutung vergegenwärtigt? Abgeleitet vom lateinischen "radix" (Wurzel), bezeichnet "radikal" eine Einstellung, die eine Sache an der Wurzel zu fassen, die Gegebenes von Grund aus zu ändern versucht. Ausgehend von diesem Verständnis von Radikalität hat es sich die Wintervortragsreihe zum Ziel gesetzt, unterschiedliche Ausprägungen rigoroser Denk- und Handlungsweisen in Geschichte und Gegenwart zu untersuchen. Sie wird im Laufe zweier Wintersemester religiöse, politische und künstlerische Bewegungen vorstellen, die sich selber als radikal verstanden oder von Mit- und Nachwelt so gesehen wurden. Diskutiert werden sollen daher auch Radikalismen, deren zeitgenössische Brisanz uns heute kaum noch bewusst ist. So wollen wir über Bewegungen von der Antike bis in unsere eigene Zeit informieren, die auf grundlegende Kritik oder einschneidende Veränderung bestehender Verhältnisse ausgerichtet sind, die Ursprüngliches wiederherzustellen oder prinzipiell andere Verhaltensweisen durchzusetzen bestrebt sind, die neue Formen der Religiosität begründen und radikale Spielarten künstlerischen Ausdrucks praktizieren.

Im Wintersemester 2009/10 ging es um radikale Bewegungen in Antike und Mittelalter, 2010/11 und 2011/2012 um Radikalität in Neuzeit und Moderne."

Contemporary American literature engages with multiple transformations of fictional characters who navigate realms such as age, nation, ethnicity, culture(s), religion(s), and generation(s). This book analyzes eight novels by young female writers in which the protagonists confront the task of charting their place in the world and of dealing with their “emerging adulthood,” a phenomenon that has been studied in the developmental sciences since the beginning of the 21st century. Combining emerging adulthood with other aspects of diversity, this book offers an inclusive perspective for approaching literary engagements with identity and difference that reveals connections beyond common categorizations such as race or ethnicity.

The 18 essays collected in this volume explore the notion of cultural difference as it is expressed in spaces, communities, and discourses that extend from Canada, the United States, Mexico, and the Caribbean to Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil. The essays examine literary texts, films, television, performance art, murals, and music as well as language contact, political agendas, and indigenous rights. These paradigmatic case studies deepen and diversify our understanding of the ways in which spaces, communities, and discourses are constructed in the Americas, while also discussing the effects of those constructions.

"At a time when 'globalists' and 'antiglobalists' seem doomed to ending their conflicts with each other in exhaustion, Spaces—Communities—Discourses leads out of the globalist impasse into a brilliant focus on (in Raab’s words) 'neither same nor separate,' both America and Americas, individual talent and belonging. The contributors to this volume work forcefully in inter-hemispheric perspectives, arising from inter-American dwelling on border and borderlands, confluence and singularity. From the first words of the introduction to the last syllable of the book, each of these eighteen essays is so richly provocative that the volume ultimately presents itself as the seedbed of eighteen books. Full of suggestion, this collection has the power to influence a generation of scholars and readers to think—and then think again. The conversation begun here will, I trust, continue."

Jay Martin

Edward S. Gould Professor of Humanities,Claremont McKenna College

News coverage about recent U.S. personal tragedies and social protest against discrimination and for equality has led to solidarity with the victims. In Germany, however, recent organized social protest was not triggered by the news about questionable treatment of asylum seekers by their guard service in 2014, public commemorations of the Holocaust, or reports on problematic behavior towards people who are 'different.' Instead, large-scale social protest was organized by right-wing, partly violent groups such as HoGeSa (Hooligans against Salafists) or PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident). Especially the latter claim to represent 'the people' and appropriate elements from the German civil rights movement leading to the reunification in their demands, which are not as clear as they seem from their group's labels. Despite efforts to disguise and a broad spectrum of partly contradicting demands, most of these groups appear to foster problematic aspects such as xenophobia with a comparably inclusive definition of the 'foreigner' and discrimination based on diffuse fears. These fears stem at least partly from misinformation and a fear of change or losing social status. Nonetheless, the large numbers of participants and the media coverage have equally triggered counterrallies that, in most cases, appear to attract more participants than their xenophobic counterparts. These nonviolent marches promote anti-discrimination and are frequently supported by churches, labor unions, and various political parties, but they are mainly united by their common disagreement with the right-wing protests rather than a common agenda. At the same time, both movements attempted at appropriating the transnational " I am Charlie " campaign, but the right-wing rallies were criticized for doing that on their ideological basis. In the classrooms, scholars are faced with a multitude of prevailing excuses for disinterest. They range from a lack of information or disbelief to blindness towards one's own privilege, especially as long as one is not visibly 'different'. Despite comparably easily accessible transnational means of communication, information and critical reflection are needed in the classroom, connecting information and points of reference to personal tragedies as well as discourses of social tragedy in order to bridge the gap between the facts and student engagement with the underlying issue. Recognizing general as well as specific histories of discrimination and privilege alongside the potential and limitations of political participation based on various aspects of diversity may be a first step towards a heightened awareness and a critical diversity literacy. American Studies contributions can provide a basis for increased empathy, reflexivity, and information and could be connected with a transnational approach. Questions of visibility, large-scale profiling and private and institutionalized discrimination, agency, and participation can be discussed through literary and cultural studies' contributions and engage with both misery and resistance. Realizing in this context that demands like #BlackLivesMatter refer to basic human rights that are at stake not only in the USA does not only (re)produce Ferguson in Europe, but takes the underlying issue, misery and resistance, to a transnational level.

The paper seeks to explore questions of " US rights in education " in Wendy Wasserstein's drama Third in the context of advanced EFL (and possibly extendable to early college) classrooms. The drama itself is not written primarily as a young adult text, but nonetheless several of its features suggest its potential usage in advanced EFL classrooms. The restriction to " advanced EFL classrooms " is based both on language and content, as the play introduces the reader to a liberal arts college setting in which some aspects of college English/literary and cultural studies and other issues which might require a more advanced student's level of maturity are discussed. At the same time, the text fosters an identification with the student, " Third, " who is —wrongfully— accused of plagiarism by his professor Laurie Jameson. The latter, who declared her classroom to be a " hegemonic-free zone " (5, 2008 Dramatists Play Service edition), assumes him to be incapable of such a scholarly accomplishment based on her own prejudice regarding his socioeconomic background, straightness, and masculinity. In the same manner, Laurie favors her queer daughter, who chose an 'alternative lifestyle,' over her straight, more conservative daughter. However, the play moves, as this paper argues, beyond the simplified notion of good versus bad, presenting particularly the professor as a complex character caught in an entanglement of intersecting challenges. Moreover, Laurie's commenting on the media coverage of the beginning " war on terror, " her father's dementia, her colleague's cancer, and her family issues provide further dimensions. These dimensions reveal the complexity of the situation at hand, which is explored through multiple characters' perspectives in the play. In addition to the plot, Laurie's and Third's debate over readings of Shakespeare's King Lear mirror the conflict between the two of them on a metalevel. Through a connection of literary analysis and multiple context references—ranging from general features like the US educational system or critical diversity issues to more specific features such as plagiarism—, Third can be used to fulfill general requirements of advanced EFL curricula. In the context of " US rights in education, " the text provides a basis for a deeper exploration of issues such as plagiarism, intellectual ownership, and internal jurisdiction in colleges, but also of civil rights such as protection from discrimination. While the former might also provide a chance to discuss the issue of plagiarism in connection with a number of recent German cases as well as the students' own work, the latter calls for a deeper look at current issues in U.S. education both in a specific and a comparative perspective. Discrimination on multiple levels (" I, too, am Harvard, " " No means no, " discussions over accessibility, affordability, etc.) along with accusations and court cases on alleged reverse discrimination (e.g. " Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin ") and the debates over free speech in college classrooms (e.g. " 'free speech' vs. 'safe spaces' " , the issue of microaggressions, etc.) are just two current examples in which education and the question of rights are intertwined. The connection between the issues mentioned above and Third's exploration of the question of rights allows for a more inclusive access to a question of rights that is not limited to individual phenomena or perspectives, but rather challenges the readers/viewers to explore the question of rights on multiple levels.

Objectives This class will prepare UDE English teacher education students for their mandatory stay abroad. Selected theoretical and practical aspects from various areas of Anglophone studies will be employed to help students develop their intercultural competences and awareness as well as their critical diversity literacy. Furthermore, the class is meant to train skills that are needed to critically reflect upon intercultural experiences so that students can maximize the benefit of their intercultural encounters both during their stay abroad and beyond. Please make sure to take this class BEFORE you plan your stay abroad-it is not necessary to already have exact plans for the stay abroad/project in order to join this class, and it is not exclusively a preparation for a stay abroad, you will be applying the above mentioned aspects right here as well.