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Amerikansk historie: Contemporary American Society: Issues and Preoccupations
Contemporary American Society: Issues and Preoccupations explores American society in 2013. As the new administration settles in, this course will explore and ascertain which issues are preoccupying Americans today. The seminar offers examinations and explanations of the major issues facing American society, notably the role of race, class, and gender in contemporary America. The course will also address where American security starts and finishes in an age of terror; whether the nation is as polarized as some commentators have claimed; the consequences of mass migration; the salience of religion; technology and changing media; and the economic effects of regionalization and globalization.
Amerikansk litteratur: Modernist Writing
The course will examine works by some of the principle modernist writers in English, addressing their aesthetic concerns and how these concerns became consolidated into what literary history terms Modernism (1905 to 1940). The writers covered in the course will include T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Wyndham Lewis.
Amerikansk litteratur: Literature of the Harlem Renaissance
This course will focus on the literature of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. During this period, the New York neighborhood of Harlem developed as not only a vibrant center of African American life, but also the locus for a loose and eclectic movement of black writers and intellectuals including Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen, and Claude McKay.
Throughout the course, we will consider a variety of sub-themes including the relationship between the Harlem Renaissance and the “Great Migration” of African Americans from the U.S. South; the role of “race” in the modern metropolis, including “passing” and interracial relationships; literary representations of and interactions with music (jazz and blues); the relationship between modernism and the Harlem Renaissance; the role of white writers and patrons in the Renaissance; and the transnational dimensions of the Renaissance (i.e., McKay’s Caribbean background, Larsen’s relationship to Denmark).
Primary texts will be selected from the following long list: James Weldon Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912, 1927); Jean Toomer, Cane (1923); Langston Hughes, selected poems and essays; Claude McKay, Home to Harlem (1928); Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928); Zora Neale Hurston, Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934) or selected short stories; Carl Van Vechten, Nigger Heaven (1926); George Schuyler, Black No More (1931); Jessie Fauset, Plum Bun (1928); Wallace Thurman, The Blacker the Berry (1929); and selected poems by Sterling Brown, Countee Cullen and others.
Britisk litteratur: Hauntings: Late Victorian tales of the supernatural
This course deals with the late Victiorian ghost story and the pervasive interest in the supernatural, in spiritualism, second sight and the inexplicable. Ghostly children, animals, haunted houses and the return of the pagan gods to modern Europe will be some of the focusing points. Students are requested to acquire the following texts before the beginning of the course:
Sheridan Le Fanu, In a Glass Darkly (1872), ed. Robert Tracy, Oxford World’s Classics ISBN 978-0-19-953798-3
Wilkie Collins, The Haunted Hotel (1878) in Miss or Mrs? The Haunted Hotel, The Guilty River, eds Norman Page and Toru Sasaki, Oxford World’s Classics ISBN 978-0-19-953818-8
Vernon Lee, Hauntings and Other Fantastic Tales (1890), eds. Catherine Maxwell and Patricia Pulham (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006) ISBN 978-1-55111-578-8
R.L. Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, ed. Roger Lockhurst, Oxford World’s Classics, ISBN 978-0-19-953622-1
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories (1898), ed. T.J. Lustig, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: OUP, 1998) ISBN 978-0-19-953617-7
Arthur Conan Doyle, Hound of the Baskervilles (1902)
Penguin Classics, new edition (London: Penguin, 2004), ISBN-13: 978-0140437867
Sprog: Regional varieties of Englih in the British Isles
For learners of English, accustomed to the reassuring stability of Received Pronunciation, a visit to the British Isles can be a somewhat disconcerting linguistic experience, especially if we venture too far north from London. The varieties of English spoken in the north of England differ markedly from those in the south, and when we cross the Scottish border, the differences become even more marked. If we venture too far to the west, we encounter another distinct bundle of English accents in Wales, and even further to the west – in the south of Ireland – a fifth distinct accent group can be identified. In addition to outlining the principal distinctive features of each of the five major groups of English accents, this course will explore the most important historical, geographical and sociological explanations for this linguistic diversity. The course is particularly suited for students who enjoyed the obligatory course in Phonetics in the second semester (yes, there will be transcriptions!), but is in no way limited to learners of English English.
Sprog: Historical Linguistics
All languages change constantly and historical linguistics is the discipline that records and analyses these changes in phonology, grammar and lexicon. The course offers an introduction to the methods and theories of historical linguistics, including genetic linguistics (“language families”) and language typology. The focus will be on English.
Linguistic fossils abound in English and Danish, giving us glimpses of previous stages of our language. In English, albeit is NOT a spelling error and wanton boys are definitely not wanted. Have you ever wondered why in Danish, when a story is told, it is snip – snap – snude? Or why Donald Duck’s nephews are called Rip, Rap and Rup, and always in that order?
We will look at possible exlanations of some major changes in English, drawing on external factors such as migration, contact and war as well as some modern sociolinguistic studies.
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