230273 Literary Theory: Reading Jane Eyre (S) (WiSe 2024/2025)

This seminar will introduce students to the major theoretical approaches to literature from the twentieth century, such as Formalism, Structuralism and New Criticism, Reader-Response Theory, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Marxism, New Historicism and Cultural Materialism, Post-Structuralism and Deconstruction, Feminism, Gender Studies and Queer Theory as well as Postcolonial Theory. Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre (1847) will serve as the central literary text to which we will apply the theories and methods. As part of their independent studies and preparation, students will be required to read selected theoretical texts, thereby familiarising themselves with the key ideas of the respective approaches. In class, we will discuss and systematise these ideas and apply them to Jane Eyre in order to demonstrate the practical value of the theories and to practise their terminologies.

Students are strongly advised to have read Jane Eyre by the beginning of the semester.

Bibliography

Students are strongly advised to have read Jane Eyre by the beginning of the semester.

Please purchase:
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (Norton Critical Edition, preferably 3rd edition by Richard J. Dunn)
Peter Barry, Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (4th and revised edition)
The original theoretical texts covered in the seminar will be made available.