"Englishness is more about Crécy than about cups of tea." (Ian Mortimer)
The king who defined the English nation was Edward III. His long wars - fought from 1333 to 1356 in Scotland, and from 1337 to 1360 in France - transformed England. The cost of the wars made it necessary for the king to negotiate with the Commons for higher taxes; he reestablished English as the language of the courts; he achieved a measure of juridical independence from Rome; he instituted many unifying symbols of English identity that survive until today (like Windsor Castle and the Order of the Garter). After his death, the consequences of the Black Death, the Peasants' Revolt and the reverberations of the Wars of the Roses contributed to a re-definition of (royal, seigneurial, religious) authority. In this seminar we will explore the question of how people living in England in the later Middle Ages came to self-identify as Englishmen and -women and how their allegiances manifest themselves in a variety of cultural forms.
We will read mostly extracts from fictional and non-fictional texts, among the definitely Shakespeare's King Richard II, which you must read in an annotated critical edition (i.e. Oxford, Cambridge, Arden, Penguin).
Frequency | Weekday | Time | Format / Place | Period | |
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every two weeks | Do | 12-16 | C01-252 | 07.04.-18.07.2014
not on: 6/19/14 |
Module | Course | Requirements | |
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23-ANG-AngVM1 Vertiefungsmodul 1: Britain | 1.2 British Literature: Genre, Periods, Authors | Study requirement
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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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Anglistik: British and American Studies / Bachelor | (Enrollment until SoSe 2011) | Kern- und Nebenfach | BaAngPM3; BaAngPM3.1; BaAngPM4 | ||||
Anglistik: British and American Studies / Master of Education | (Enrollment until SoSe 2014) | BaAngPM3; BaAngPM3.1; BaAngPM4 | |||||
Anglistik: British and American Studies (GHR) / Master of Education | (Enrollment until SoSe 2014) | BaAngPM3; BaAngPM3.1; BaAngPM4 | |||||
Studieren ab 50 |
This seminar will be taught in conjunction with Marion Schulte's seminar of the same name. We will take it in turns to teach the (four-hour!) sessions; my turn starts on 10(!) April (the first session of the semester). Although it is entirely possible to attend each seminar individually, students are strongly encouraged to combine the two, to get the bigger, linguistic, literary, cultural and political picture.