WiSe 13/14: S-Culture-Gender-Media II: English Encounters with the "Orient"
Sabine Schülting
Kommentar
In his seminal study of Orientalism (1978) Edward Said famously stressed that "The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe's greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience." The seminar will be concerned with the way in which literature has contributed to constructing or challenging these Western ideas of the 'Orient'. Starting with the 'Turk plays' of the early modern period, which antedates what Edward Said has called 'Orientalism', we will then concentrate on texts from the 18th and the 19th centuries. Our discussion will include narratives of conflict and violence, responses to religious differences, aesthetic debates, and representations of gender relations. Literary texts will be read against the background of the changing discourses on the 'Orient' in England from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Course readings will include: Robert Daborne's A Christian Turned Turk (1612), William Beckford's Vathek (1768), a selection of Romantic and Victorian poetry, and Henry Rider Haggard's She (1887). We will conclude with considering both the persistence and the deconstruction of Orientalism in contemporary literature and popular culture.
Language: The course will be taught in English (level C1).
Texts: Students should purchase copies of the following texts (preferably in the following paperback editions): W. Beckford, Vathek (Oxford World's Classics, Oxford University Press, 2013; c. 9 EUR); H. Rider Haggard, She (Penguin Classics, 2012, c. 8 EUR). Shorter texts will be made available on Blackboard.
In order to lighten the reading load during the semester, students may wish to read these two novels during the term break.
Introductory Reading: Edward Said, Orientalism (1978).
Assessment will be on the basis of active participation in classroom activities and the submission of an essay (4,000 words). Schließen16 Termine
Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung