German Sub-faculty Lectures Michaelmas 2016 Advanced Information
Prelims The Plays – Dr Hilliard Firdays 11am I will discuss the four set texts in the order of their first production (Liebelei, Frühlings Erwachen, Von morgens bis mitternachts, Die Maßnahme).
Introduction to German Film – Dr Kuhn and Prof Morgan Mondays 9.30-11.00am The classes are for 1st years studying German sole. We will discuss each of the four set films twice; the first time covering aspects of film technique, the second time integrating the analysis of film technique into a wider discussion of themes and issues in the plays. There are compulsory screenings of the films Sunday evenings weeks 1 to 8 (starting Sunday 9th October).
Gregorius Reading Class – Prof Lähnemann The Reading Class consists of eight sessions to read and discuss key passages from Hartmann von Aue’s ‘Gregorius’. You will be expected to read and translate thirty lines each week from the following sections: 1. Incest & penance: the parents’ story. – 2. How Gregory was found & educated. – 3. The Conversation with the Abbot. – 4. Gregory marries his mother . – 5. The discovery . – 6. Penance on the stone . – 7. The search for a new pope . – 8. Pope Gregory. The sessions will start in week 5 of Michaelmas Term and continue in week 1-4 of Hilary Term. The third session will take place in the Old Library in St Edmund Hall and session four will be followed by an object handling session with medieval artefacts in the Ashmolean Museum.
FHS Old High German Lectures – Prof Lähnemann We will explore the earliest written texts in Old High German, from charms to heroic epic; in week 4, there will be a special session in the Weston Library to look at Old High German glosses in German manuscripts. The introduction to the wide variety of literary forms between orality and literacy will be combined with an introduction into the linguistic features of the Germanic roots and comparative studies with Old Saxon.
Parzival – Prof Suerbaum A lecture course on Wolfram's medieval best-seller, the parallel stories of Parzival's quest for the Grail, and Gawan's love for Orgeluse. Lectures will cover aspects such as nature versus nurture; cultural encounters between East and West; masculine and feminine identities; secular and religious values; magic and the supernatural; manuscripts and material culture; narrative voices. To include a session with medieval objects in the Ashmolean Museum. For those studying either paper VI or paper IX.
Heinrich von Morungen – Prof Kirakosian This lecture course provides a detailed examination of the work of the Minnesänger Heinrich von Morungen. It is intended primarily for students taking Paper IX, but will also be useful for students doing Minnesang as part of Paper VI. Students should bring their edition of his songs (Reclam).
Cannibals, doctors, judges and lovers: introduction to literary criticism - Prof Barry Murnane and Dr Christoph Schmitt-Maaß "Literaturkritik" is almost a genre of its own in Germany and it is possible to reconstruct the history of literature since 1730 through the medium of literary reviews/critiques. This lecture will use canonical examples and disputes across the period, from Gottsched to Goethe, from Benjamin to Reich-Ranicki, to look at some common models of criticism (healing, cannibalism, legal judgment) and how they can help us understand the literary movements from which they emerge. This will be of interest to students studying Papers VII, VIII, and X.
Paper VII Survey Course – Dr Hilliard The course is designed for 2nd-year undergraduates preparing Paper VIII. I will attempt to survey the most prominent features of the literary landscape between 1730 and 1805, and give an account of important developments in literary history during that period. The approach will be partly historical, and partly thematic. After an introductory lecture, the topics discussed will be: Aufklärung, neo-classicism, Sturm und Drang, Weimarer Klassik and Jenaer Romantik, emancipation and the crisis of authority, religion, and the idea of art.
Lessing and the German Enlightenment – Dr Macor The lectures on Lessing are aimed at providing students with a comprehensive survey of Lessing’s plays and philosophical-theological works, focusing on his early comedies, his major plays, his drama theory, and his views on the Enlightenment and religion;
Friedrich Hölderlin. Poetry Philosophy, Politics Dr Macor The lectures on Hölderlin are aimed at giving students a general knowledge of Hölderlin’s main interests as well as a survey of his reaction to the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rise and fall. Hölderlin’s early hymns, his novel ‘Hyperion’ and unfinished tragedy ‘Der Tod des Empedokles’ as well as some of his later poetry will be read.
Literature of the GDR – Prof Paul The lecture series 'Literature of the GDR' (VIII, XII, X Wolf) will cover a range of topics, from the political control of literary production in the East German state and writing under censorship via the development of literature's role as a substitute forum for public debate ('Ersatzöffentlichkeit') from the 1970s onwards to the post-1989 period when literature and film looked back on the GDR. Specific lectures in the 8-lecture series will look at gender and gender representation in GDR literature and film, poetry in the GDR, and post- unification literature.
Literature and Memory after 1945 – Dr Lloyd These lectures will examine the relationship between literature and memory in post-war and post-Wende German culture. We will consider different ‘modes of remembering’ (Astrid Erll), such as those developed by Maurice Halbwachs, Jan and Aleida Assmann, Pierre Nora and Marianne Hirsch, as well as key issues relating to the politics and ethics of memory in the post-war period. Literary examples will be drawn from works published between 1945 and 2006, by writers including Heinrich Böll, Christa Wolf, Martin Walser, Monika Maron, Tanja Dückers, and Günter Grass. These lectures will be of particular interest to those studying post-war literature, ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’, and/or German remembrance culture for Papers VIII, X, XII, and XIV.
The Modern Historical Novel – Dr Draesner The seminar sets out to explore the paradigms of writing historical fiction in post-war and post-unification Germany. It will focus on how changes in our concepts of memory and history and insights into the effects of traumatization have changed historical writing, how faction and fiction merge (or don't). We shall discuss entire novels (sets of ideas, architecture) but also focus an a couple of pages respectively for close reading. Why has the historical novel been rising in popularity since the turn of the century? What aesthetic means have been employed, which practical factors influence the genre (research, personal rights, unreliability). Comparisons to contemporary historical writing in English are welcome. Authors: Günter Grass, W.G. Sebald, Christa Wolf, Sabrina Janesch, Per Leo, Ulrike Draesner
German Cultural Theory from Schiller to Wittgenstein – Professor Morgan These eight lectures give an overview of German cultural theory since Schiller, showing the productive tensions in the work of Schiller, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Benjamin, Adorno and Wittgenstein. Connections will also be made to recent work on the embodied nature of aesthetic responses. The first lecture puts Schiller’s ‘Letters on Aesthetic Education’ in the context of reactions to the French Revolution and to Kant’s philosophy, comparing Schiller’s response to that of Edmund Burke. The conflicting impulses, towards aesthetic autonomy on the one hand, and towards the open-minded observation of the bodily grounding of culture, on the other, set the stage for tracing similar contradictions in the work of the later thinkers.