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WiSe 20/21: Literary Form

Florian Sedlmeier

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The seminar takes its cue from a much-noticed recent contribution by Caroline Levine, who discusses the relation between literary and social forms, which she considers underrepresented in current debates. One could indeed argue that questions of literary form are not necessarily viewed in correspondence to social formation. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the category of form becomes crucial to the aesthetic philosophy of European Romanticism. And if we follow Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, it may facilitate the emergence of the discourse of aesthetic autonomy, which is crucial for the conception of modern literature. At the inception of literary studies as an academic discipline in the twentieth century, Russian formalism, French structuralism, and Anglo-American new criticism emphasize the primacy and specificity of literary form to varying degrees, divergent effects, and different ends. At least since the New Social Movements, though, literature’s relation to the material realities of social formations has been reclaimed, to the point that the forms literature can take are tied to notions of social commitment, political protest, and historical revision. Drawing on a range of theoretical literature from Victor Shklovsky to Phillip Brian Harper, we review some key critical debates and concepts to ask how exactly both conventions and experimentations of literary form can relate to social formations. We read literary prose (short fiction, novellas and novels) by a diverse cast of writers that cover much of the spectrum of multicultural literatures, including Sherman Alexie, Sebastian Barry, Sandra Cisneros, Younghill Kang and Fran Ross. Until further notice and due to the unpredictable pandemic situation, students should expect a seminar that is largely, perhaps exclusively held online. Requirements for participation include regular, active attendance and a five-minute presentation or a two-page short essay on a specific topic/text. In order to obtain a graded “Schein,” students are expected to write a term paper. close