LFU:online

Institut für Anglistik Institut für Anglistik

Mag. Dr. Ulrich Pallua Mag. Dr. Ulrich Pallua, +43 512 507 4194, +43 512 507 34421

609359

British and/or Postcolonial Literature: The 18th Century as a Process of Changing Sociability and Cultural Practices

PS 2

5

wöch.

semestral

Englisch

The aim of this course is to familiarise students with key concepts of postcolonial theory for the analysis of texts written in the 18th century.

The most striking quality of the 18th century was its optimism and the celebration of the excellence of the human mind. Many people of the time thought they were passing through a golden period similar to that of the Roman emperor Augustus, thus the name “Augustan” for the early 18th century. The century is also called the Age of Enlightenment as, based on a strong belief in rationality and science, it was critical of traditional institutions, customs, and morals. This course introduces you to key texts of the 18th century: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Alexander Pope’s “Windsor Forest” (1736), John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728), and many more. Our particular focus will be on the second half of the 18th century, including the early Romantic Period featuring writers expressing reservations about enslaving human beings: William Blake’s “Little Black Boy” (1789), Thomas Bellamy’s The Benevolent Planters (1789), William Cowper’s poems from 1788, and Anne Yearsley’s “Poem on the Inhumanity of the Slave-Trade” (1788). The introduction will address issues of British imperialism, the history of the slave trade/slavery, and the age of enlightenment.

lecture, group discussions, presentations

written paper

The Oxford History of the British Empire. Ed. Roger Louis. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Ed. David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006. The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in the Romantic Period. Ed. Maxwell, Richard, and Katie Trumpener. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008.

Anmeldevoraussetzung/en: positive Beurteilung der Pflichtmodule 3 und 16 Entspricht im Diplomstudium (343): PS 2 English Literature Entspricht im Lehramtsstudium (344): PS 2 English Literature
Beginn: März 2011