Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies

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WS 2008/09 Pia Wiegmink
Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies
http//bscw.avmz.uni-siegen.de/
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What do you do exactly when you study English and
American Literary Studies?
analyze literary texts written in English
? What are literary texts?
? Which works should be classified as English
literature?
? What is meant by the analysis of literary
texts?
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Literary Criticism
Literary Studies
Literary Theory
Literary History
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18.11.- 09.12. Literary History What is literary
history? Colonial Period -18th century 19th
century 20th century
16.12. - 27.01. Literary Theories/ Cultural
Studies Literary Theory Postcolonial
Theory Cultural Studies Feminism
28.10.- 11.11. Textual Analysis Poetry Textual
Analysis Drama Textual Analysis Narrative
03.02. Research methods
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Literary History

• Which works should be classified as English
  literature?
• Anglistik British (English, Welsh, Scottish),
  Irish
• Postcolonial former (British) colonies
• Amerikanistik American
• Ethnic American literatures
  (Asian-American, African American, Chicano,
  Native American)
• other literatures written in English such as
  Canadian, Australian, South African literatures

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Literary criticism

• Elements of analysis
• theme, topic
• style, structure, form
• the author
• political, socio-economic and cultural contexts
• references to other texts and genres
• contemporary or later reception of a text
• those who are involved in mediating the text and
  its meanings

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Fields of Literary Theory
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What defines a literary text?
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What defines a literary text?
fictionality?
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literature?
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Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art
more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do
shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease
hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the
eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold
complexion dimm'd And every fair from fair
sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing
course untrimm'd But thy eternal summer shall
not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou
ow'st Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his
shade, When in eternal lines to time thou
grow'st So long as men can breathe or eyes can
see, So long lives this, and this gives life to
thee.
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What defines a literary text?
fictionality?
Specific use of language?
literature as a non-pragmatic discourse?
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What defines a literary text?
fictionality?
Specific use of language?
literature as a non-pragmatic discourse?