124083 VK BEd 08a.3: VK Literature for Language Teachers (2022S)

In this course we will explore how postmodernist literature and film critically & playfully engage with fairy-tale and myth by employing re-writing, imagination and storytelling as subversive narrative strategies to radically question Western power-discourses.
Fairy tales, myths, and folklore are often believed to be most “authentic” sources of a people’s culture because they are deemed to harbour “the archaic”, thus function as representative vehicles of “universal truths” which are considered as trans-historically valid. Notably postmodernist (re-)writings of such texts expose two challenging perspectives:
(1) that these “truths” are rather constructed in historically & culturally specific contexts to manifest normative social & moral values often propagating hierarchical patriarchal (heteronormative) sexual politics;
(2) that these “truths” can be deconstructed and new subversive, innovative perspectives be generated which make oppressive & repressive mechanisms visible and offer new patterns of identity by giving the marginalized a voice denied to them in traditional narrative strategies. Postmodernist re-writings thus vitally contribute to a social and political re-imagination and re-configuration of gender-relations beyond oppositional hierarchical dialectics.

Our analysis of texts & representations from diverse genres follows a tripartite structure:
I) We will identify the original context of the fairy-tale, myth drawn upon & explore the ways in which these tales are re-written and transformed (in diverse genres: prose, poetry, film) or used as an intertextual subtext.
II) We will then consider which postmodernist narrative strategies are used to subversively convey a new message: e.g. with collage, heteroglossia, pastice, historiographical metaficiton, dramatic monologue, magic realism.
III) As postmodernist literature is closely in dialogue with poststructuralist cultural- and gender-theories we will focus on the interactions/intertextualities between these and the texts.

In the oral presentation, students not only introduce and analyse a topic related to the assigned text/films but also have the possibility to develop teaching-skills by elaborating the topic in a “mini-lesson” where they involve their colleagues interactively.
The lecturer will provide "topic sheets" for each presenter.
Detailed information will be given in class (requirements-sheet, syllabus & presentation-schedule (available: Unit1)