As one of the defining discourses of our time, climate change is a central topic negotiated in literature and culture. The debate is frequently complicated by an established binary between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ that relies on an inbuilt gender bias. What is more, climate change impacts on social hierarchies modulated by race, gender, and class as well as other categories of difference. In this seminar, we are going to explore central developments in the field of ecocritical theory from its inception to today. In our analyses, we will focus on central Transcendentalist texts (e.g. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay Nature, 1836, Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, 1844, or Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, 1854) as well as on current negotiations of ecocritical concerns in Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior (2012) and Richard Powers’s The Overstory (2019). We’ll also consider documentaries and films such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel (2017) or Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012). After the seminar, students will have acquired a thorough overview of central approaches in the field of the environmental humanities and their interconnection with different regions, and will be able to analyse and critically evaluate cultural products with a view to the ecological discourses they negotiate.
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Module | Course | Requirements | |
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23-ANG-M-AngGM2 Grundmodul 2: Contact Zones and Intercultural Studies | GM 2.3 Cultural and Literary Contact in the USA | Study requirement
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- | Graded examination | Student information | |
23-ANG-M-AngHM3_IAS Media and the Processes of Culture / Los medios y los procesos de la cultura | "Cultural Communication" oder "Mediating Cultures" | Study requirement
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Student information |
- | Graded examination | Student information | |
23-IAS-M-IAS4 North American Literature and the Processes of Culture | Cultural and Literary Contact in the U.S.A. I | Study requirement
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Student information |
Cultural and Literary Contact in the U.S.A. II | Study requirement
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- | Graded examination | Student information | |
30-MGS-5 Hauptmodul 4: Körper und Gesundheit | Seminar 1 | Study requirement
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Seminar 2 | Study requirement
Graded examination |
Student information |
The binding module descriptions contain further information, including specifications on the "types of assignments" students need to complete. In cases where a module description mentions more than one kind of assignment, the respective member of the teaching staff will decide which task(s) they assign the students.
Degree programme/academic programme | Validity | Variant | Subdivision | Status | Semester | LP | |
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Geschlechterforschung in der Lehre |
Studienleistungen:
Moderation von Teilen einer Seminarsitzung auf Basis eines Thesenpapiers zu relevanten Theorien und Methoden und/oder Lesarten von Primärmaterial.
Prüfungsleistungen:
Je nach Modul, Präsentation (30 Min. mit schriftlicher Ausarbeitung, 15-20 Seiten) oder Modularbeit.
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