Universität Wien

128303 VO Literary and Cultural Theories and Concepts / Theory (MA) (2022W)

5.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 12 - Anglistik

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

Language: English

Examination dates

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

First session: 14 October 2022
While the covid-situation permits, the lectures will be delivered live and on site. Each lecture (60 min) is immediately followed by a live Q&A with the respective lecturer/s, the exam organizer and the tutor (30 min). Both the lecture and the Q&A are compulsory.

Friday 14.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03
Friday 21.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03
Friday 28.10. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03
Friday 04.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03
Friday 11.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03
Friday 18.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03
Friday 25.11. 11:30 - 13:00 Digital
Friday 02.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Digital
Friday 09.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Audimax, alte WU, Augasse 2-6, OG01
Friday 16.12. 11:30 - 13:00 Digital
Friday 13.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03
Friday 20.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03
Friday 27.01. 11:30 - 13:00 Hörsaal C1 UniCampus Hof 2 2G-O1-03

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

NB While the covid-situation permits, the lectures will be delivered live and on site. All theory texts and slides will be made available on Moodle. Each lecture (60 min) is immediately followed by a live Q&A with the respective lecturer/s, the exam organizer and the tutor (30 min). Both the lecture and the Q&A are compulsory. This means: The Q&A is an integral part of this course, not an optional extra event. If you cannot attend the Q&A, you should plan to attend the MA Theories & Concepts lecture next winter term, as this lecture cannot be offered during the summer term. Please consider this when planning your MA degree.Should the covid-situation deteriorate, like during the last two winter terms, we will switch to online recordings of the lecture (60 min), followed by the live Q&A (30 min) on zoom. You will be notified by email should this come to pass.During the Q&A - regardless whether it happens on site or online, you will have the opportunity to direct your questions to the lecturer/s as well as raise more general issues relevant to the lecture series.

In order to put this lecture series together for you, some of the colleagues who teach literary and cultural studies at our department have decided to pool their resources. Together, we will give you context, we will attempt to do justice to literary and cultural theory's complexities and help you disentangle what's confusing or challenging about approaches. We are committed to helping you distinguish theories from concepts and methods and we will do our best to show you how theory and cultural objects of analysis (literary or other), can be brought into a productive dialogue with each other and how to avoid smothering the object of analysis with theory. Using theory in combination with cultural objects of analysis is meant to create something new: an idea that is the beginning of your own interpretation, since this is where scholarship starts, and being able to do it is what you will have to demonstrate in your MA theses.The following approaches, including some of their theories and concepts will be discussed: Marxism, narratology, British cultural studies, new historicism, psychoanalysis, theories of modernism, postmodernism and posthumanism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, theories of 'race' and postcolonial studies, gender studies, queer theory, intersectionality, disability studies, celebrity studies, cultural memory, the environmental humanities and life-writing studies. The following colleagues from the Department will share their expertise with you: Eva Zettelmann, Kevin Potter, Sarah Heinz, Marta Werbanowska, Dieter Fuchs, Tamara Radak, Elke Mettinger-Schartmann, Monika Pietrzak-Franger, Katharina Wiedlack, Susanne Reichl, Tatiana Konrad and Sylvia Mieszkowski. The latter will also be organizing and marking the final exam.

Assessment and permitted materials

Online written exam (detailed information during the first session make sure to attend!).

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Students will gain a deeper insight into a whole range of approaches, theories, concepts and methods, which should enable them to make productive choices when it comes to designing the theory-angle of their MA theses.

Participants will be expected to demonstrate critical thinking and a sufficient degree of familarity with the terminology by passing the final written exam.

The benchmark for passing the written open-book exam is 60%.

Marks in %:
1 (very good): 90-100%
2 (good): 80-89%
3 (satisfactory): 70-79%
4 (pass): 60-69%
5 (fail): 0-59%

Examination topics

Your notes of the content covered in the course of the semester plus the preparatory material posted on Moodle plus the ppt slides will form the basis of your studying for the exam. - The first sitting will start on 3 Feb and continue until 10 Feb 2023. This will be the first of four opportunities you'll have to pass this course. All further dates will be published in due course on Moodle. The second sitting will take place in March, the third sitting during May and the last roughly at the end of June. Please remember to register (and, if you decide you don't feel ready to sit the exam after all, to de-register) on time. All sittings of the exam will be in open-book format.

Reading list

Texts and excerpts by Barthes, Sagan, Joyce, Sacido Romero, Loomba, Bayart, Felski, Lyotard, Deleuze/Guattari, Dosse, Derrida, Amin, Butler, Halberstam, Davis, Nash, James/Wu, Heise, Jamieson, Smith/Watson, Turner, and Assmann will be uploaded onto Moodle. Together with the powerpoints slides provided by the lecturers, they provide the material basis for exam preparation.

Association in the course directory

Studium: MA 844; MA 844 (2)
Code/Modul: MA3; MA 1.3
Lehrinhalt: 12-0547

Last modified: Th 11.05.2023 11:27