32216
Lecture
SoSe 20: Literary Realism
Florian Sedlmeier
Comments
ONLINE COURSE. As Fredric Jameson keeps reminding us: literary realism, while often dismissed by critics, brings to the fore the problem of the referent. The ostensible referentiality has at least a double orientation toward the individual and the social (we speak of psychological realism and social realism, respectively). Against this and other backdrops, the lecture opens with some general conceptions of realism, in particular in their relation to notions of mimesis reaching back to Greek antiquity, before zooming in on conventional and revisionist understandings of the historically specific U.S. literary realism, as it gradually takes shape between 1865 and 1900. On the theoretical and methodological level, students are introduced to some of the formative debates that explore the epistemological and representational conditions of realist texts. On the level of primary sources, students are confronted with various media (photography, painting, literature), several genres of literature and criticism (novel, short story; interview, preface, review), and a variety of authors from different cultural backgrounds that probe the conditions of the relay between the individual and the social.
Regular attendance and extensive reading are expected. Each session has interactive parts with focused discussions. Short written assignments complete the course requirements.
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13 Class schedule
Regular appointments
Tue, 2020-04-21 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-04-28 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-05-05 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-05-12 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-05-19 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-05-26 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-06-02 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-06-09 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-06-16 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-06-23 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-06-30 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-07-07 18:00 - 20:00
Tue, 2020-07-14 18:00 - 20:00