230211 Englische Fachsprache: The Literary Industry (BS) (WiSe 2004/2005)

This is an intensive course on September 13-22, 13.30 to 16.45.

In it we will look at the major players in the literary industry of today, with special reference to the United Kingdom. The provisional programme is this: Our focus will first be authors and their work(s), to be followed by studies of their readers, critics and lliterary reviews, and publishers. There will also be units on the booktrade as well as libraries, literary prizes and the economics of writing (e.g. publishers' contracts, writers' rights).

Work will be both linguistic and encyclopedic, i.e. geared both towards the language needed to talk about the topics mentioned and the people and institutions themselves.
As mentioned above, this programme is subject to change: I invite students to come forward and tell me their own ideas. Also, I am planning to attend, and be inspired by, the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August of this year and will want to import ideas hot from this major literary event.

Course work will consist of assignments and two case studies, which are meant to practice what students have learned. One of these will be on a living author and their career (e.g. Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie); the other will consist of writing in German a recommendation for Elke Heidenreich (or the editor of the book pages of a German newspaper, e.g. Die Zeit, Frankfurter Rundschau) of a recently (i.e. in the 2000s) published novel in English, based on their collection of reviews in journals like the TLS and recommendations on the Amazon.com website.
There are 25 places on this course for advanced students (BA-course: students in the Profilphase; others: students in the Hauptstudium). BA students can earn 3 LP for course work including the two case studies, as mentioned above. They can in addtion gain 3 LP for a long essay.
Interested students should register with me in person not later than 6/7 July 2004.