Bachelor SLK (alt) Anglistik und Amerikanistik (Teilfach)
Gesamtansicht – Wintersemester 2026/2027
SLK-BA-A-1B-S
(Grundlagen Sprachwissenschaft)
- Einführungskurs – [Ling - Leuckert] Introduction to Synchronic Linguistics
- Lehrperson
-
- Dr. Sven Leuckert
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 150
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 3. Doppelstunde HSZ/0004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- In its basic design the class is part of the Linguistics module for all first-year students (as an alternative to “Introduction to Diachronic Linguistics”). You may choose freely which version of the “Introduction” you prefer. You only need to pass one of them.
Using language is terribly simple – everyone does it every day. How to describe language and language use is the topic of this course. Together we will explore the structure of this highly complex and efficient mode of expression in its different functions. We will begin with the smallest distinctive units in language, the speech sounds, and work our way towards more complex units, namely words, phrases, and, finally, sentences. In addition, we will discuss the notion of ‘meaning’ and how meaning can be both context-dependent and context-independent. Finally, we will consider different varieties of English around the globe as well as the basics of doing linguistic research. In contrast to the “Introduction to Diachronic Linguistics”, this class focuses mainly on Present-Day English and, accordingly, provides a more detailed look at current forms of English.
The introductory course is accompanied by a tutorial (1 h per week). The specific time slots will be announced in the first session.
- Übung – [Ling - Eichhorn] What’s in a Name?
- Lehrperson
-
- Martin Eichhorn
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 1. Doppelstunde W48/0101/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- We all have one, we all use them to refer to family, friends, colleagues but also cities, villages, rivers or mountains. Even though we might not be aware of it, but names surround us in our everyday lives and interactions.
People have always had the tendency to trace their family roots – including the family name. Still, this is not the only possible focus of the study of names, onomastics. In this seminar methods and theories in name studies will be discussed and used as tools to analyse historical developments of proper names and toponyms, to investigate semantic changes as well as developments caused by language contact.
In addition, the seminar will also address names in a synchronic real-world context but also in the realm of fiction. Thus, in the end the participants will be able to name why He-who must-not-be-named bears no name and why Gandalf is not only a mere name.
- Übung – [Ling - Eichhorn] Medieval England
- Lehrperson
-
- Martin Eichhorn
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 2. Doppelstunde W48/0001/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Who were the Anglo-Saxons and what do they have to do with the English language? Who were Bede or Ælfric? These and many more questions will be tackled by this course in order for you to learn more about a culture which is 1500 to 500 years removed from the present.
At a beginner's level you will be introduced to some important historical aspects that shaped the Middle Ages in England, some of which still influencing our contemporary culture. In addition to that, we will also look into linguistic developments that have affected the English language over the course of centuries to shape what you know as Present Day English. With this, the course aims at providing a diachronic perspective onto the English language and culture.
- Übung – [Ling - Spieß genannt Bongard] - Exploring the sounds of English
- Lehrperson
-
- Maja Spieß genannt Bongard
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- There are nearly 400 million native speakers of English worldwide and many who speak it as a second or foreign language, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. Despite speaking the same language, some English speakers may struggle to understand each other and so it might happen that, for instance, a speaker from Los Angeles can hardly follow a speaker from Glasgow in a conversation. Each variety of English has a distinctive sound that distinguishes it from others. This class will delve into the sound – or rather the sounds – of selected varieties of the English language, as well as explore their historical background.
SLK-BA-A-1B-L
(Grundlagen Literaturwissenschaft)
- Übung – [AmLit - Lind] - Social Ecology & Feminist Utopia
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 28
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 9.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 1. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- “[T]he idea of dominating nature has its primary source in the domination of human by human and in the structuring of the natural world into a hierarchical chain of being” (Bookchin 1993).
Involved in some of the first anti-nuclear power campaigns in the ’50s, and beginning his career writing on overurbanisation, the role of the environment in disease, nuclear, and pesticides and other chemicals, the pioneering political philosopher and ecological thinker Murray Bookchin was preeminent in kickstarting the environmental movement in the 1960s. But it is his oeuvre-spanning theory of ‘social ecology,’ which he would develop over the following fifty years, that remains his most important contribution, elucidating the principally social roots of environmental crisis and demanding a complete overhaul of politics as we know it if we are ever to live in ecological harmony.
Still one of the most urgent interventions in the environmental humanities, the twin critique and utopian vision of social ecology is the focus of this class, from its roots in ecofeminism to its manifold diagnoses of hierarchy and power through to its nascent political vision. Across the term, we will unfold this theory together alongside two novels: Marge Piercy’s classic 1976 feminist ecotopia Woman on the Edge of Time and Ruthanna Emrys’ 2022 feminist diaperpunk/solarpunk A Half-Built Earth. Bookending the primary waves of both feminist and ecological utopia—the long 1960s, and the last fifteen years—these novels are not only invaluable for helping us to understand, problematise, and further the insights of social ecology, but will also leave you understanding the form and nature of the feminist utopia too.
- Übung – [AmLit - Woodard] - Weep for the Machine: Empathy and Artificial Life
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 25
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 9.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 6. Doppelstunde BSS/109 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Empathy, the ability to feel the emotions of another being, is an affective capacity often seen as central to human social existence. But despite this, empathy has a rather short conceptual history having initially emerged 100 years ago as an aesthetic projection of emotions onto non-human objects. This projection onto inanimate things creates a kind of irony as empathy is often viewed as that which separates human entities form non-human ones.
This course will explore empathy especially as it relates to artificial beings through science-fiction novels and films. Rather than focus on the possibility of artificial intelligence, the course will examine how artificial and the capacity for feeling intersect while also addressing themes such as the animate/inanimate relation, anthropomorphism, simulation and authenticity, as well as social normativity.
SLK-BA-A-1B-K
(Grundlagen Kulturwissenschaft)
- Einführungskurs – [BritCult -Neder] - Introduction to British Cultural Studies
- Lehrperson
-
- Judith Neder
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 150
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 3. Doppelstunde FOE/0244/H In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The interdisciplinary field of British Cultural Studies is concerned with the ways in which culture is (re)produced, negotiated and challenged within intersecting power structures and social relations and the corresponding divisions and struggles. It offers a set of theories, texts and transdisciplinary approaches to analyse facets of (everyday) culture, especially with regard to their political dimensions. Thus, questions relating to representation, materialism, subjectivity, identity and difference/alterity, power and hegemony are central. This lecture serves as an introduction to influential theoretical concepts and methods of British Cultural Studies, such as signifying practices, ideology, discourse, identity categories like class, ‘race’, gender, sexuality and nationality, as well as their transformation over time. The course consists of a weekly lecture and is accompanied by mandatory one-hour tutorials.
- Literatur
- Required reading will be made available via OPAL.
- Übung – [BritCult - Schlemper] - “You’ve never had it so good” - Post-War-Britain: Prosperity, Consenus and Relative Decline
- Lehrperson
-
- Christian Schlemper
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Via OPAL
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- When the Second World War ended in 1945, a victorious Britain cheered the peace and headed towards a new era. The second half of the twentieth century saw remarkable shifts and changes, especially in the fields of politics and economics: a consensus of Labour and the Conservatives, the introduction of the welfare state, decades of prosperity, years of so-called relative decline, the debatable politics of Thatcherism and finally New Labour.
The seminar takes a closer look at the history of Britain from 1945 till the early 2000s. We will analyse speeches and articles and study selected biographies. In the context of the historiography we will focus on the British economy, the development of national politics and their reflections in British popular culture – from the affluent society and the Swinging Sixties via the pop culture of the Eighties to Cool Britannia of the New Labour Era.
Selected texts will be provided online in the course of the semester.
- Übung – [AmCult - Aydin] - Travelling Across North America: Road Narratives from the Continent
- Lehrperson
-
- Can Aydin
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 27
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL 9.10.26 ab 12 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 3. Doppelstunde W48/103 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The promise of the “open road” remains a profound image in the American psyche. Traveling is a form of mobility. Whether social, geographic, or cultural, the concept of mobility is regarded as a defining trait of the nation’s fabric that has promoted the American continent and, after 1776, the US as a land of opportunity. In this regard, mobility is deeply connected to the national myths of the American Dream and the Self-Made man. However, this inclusive opportunity is much more complicated than it seems to be on the surface. Access to mobility remains highly uneven depending on identity categories such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, and class. In this seminar, we will examine road narratives that address physical mobility; these narratives also reveal the social tensions, structural inequalities, and cultural politics of the nation. Together, we will analyze excerpts from diverse material in form, scope, and genre, such as Colonial-American travel narratives from the seventeenth century, slave narratives from the nineteenth century (Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass), Jack Kerouac’s autofictional novel On the Road (1957), the 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road (2006), and more.
SLK-BA-A-1-SPLC
(Sprachpraxis – Language Components)
- Sprachlernseminar – Grammar
- Lehrperson
-
- Andrea Stubenrauch
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 3. Doppelstunde BSS/0133/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course deals with basic and advanced grammar concepts and targets the particular problems foreigners in general and Germans in particular commonly have with English grammar. This course builds on the knowledge of grammar gained at school, but whereas “Abitur” classes often concentrate on communicative skills, this university course will focus on accuracy and knowledge of grammatical structures. Although students have encountered and practised most aspects of English grammar at school, many do not control them well. Using a contrastive approach, this class will address the English verb system, the peculiarities of nouns and their determiners, part-of-speech analysis, parsing, gerunds vs. infinitives, collocations, phrasal verbs, types of subordinate clauses, modal verbs, word order (inversion etc), and adjective vs. adverb problems. Exercises will include: gap-filling, transformations, error correction, translation and sentence analysis. Since the philosophy of the class is partly based on a contrastive approach, translation from German into English will also play a role. Reference books will be recommended in class.
- Sprachlernseminar – Grammar
- Lehrperson
-
- Andrea Stubenrauch
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde BSS/0133/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course deals with basic and advanced grammar concepts and targets the particular problems foreigners in general and Germans in particular commonly have with English grammar. This course builds on the knowledge of grammar gained at school, but whereas “Abitur” classes often concentrate on communicative skills, this university course will focus on accuracy and knowledge of grammatical structures. Although students have encountered and practised most aspects of English grammar at school, many do not control them well. Using a contrastive approach, this class will address the English verb system, the peculiarities of nouns and their determiners, part-of-speech analysis, parsing, gerunds vs. infinitives, collocations, phrasal verbs, types of subordinate clauses, modal verbs, word order (inversion etc), and adjective vs. adverb problems. Exercises will include: gap-filling, transformations, error correction, translation and sentence analysis. Since the philosophy of the class is partly based on a contrastive approach, translation from German into English will also play a role. Reference books will be recommended in class.
- Sprachlernseminar – Grammar
- Lehrperson
-
- Andrea Stubenrauch
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 5. Doppelstunde BSS/0133/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course deals with basic and advanced grammar concepts and targets the particular problems foreigners in general and Germans in particular commonly have with English grammar. This course builds on the knowledge of grammar gained at school, but whereas “Abitur” classes often concentrate on communicative skills, this university course will focus on accuracy and knowledge of grammatical structures. Although students have encountered and practised most aspects of English grammar at school, many do not control them well. Using a contrastive approach, this class will address the English verb system, the peculiarities of nouns and their determiners, part-of-speech analysis, parsing, gerunds vs. infinitives, collocations, phrasal verbs, types of subordinate clauses, modal verbs, word order (inversion etc), and adjective vs. adverb problems. Exercises will include: gap-filling, transformations, error correction, translation and sentence analysis. Since the philosophy of the class is partly based on a contrastive approach, translation from German into English will also play a role. Reference books will be recommended in class.
- Sprachlernseminar – Vocabulary
- Lehrperson
-
- Marc Lalonde
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 2. Doppelstunde BSS/109/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The aims of this course are to raise awareness of lexical range and lexical variety (geographical, stylistic), to identify recurring lexical problem areas of German speakers of English (as far as practicable also of speakers of English with mother-tongues other than English), to improve personal performance in appropriateness, precision and range of lexical expression, to increase familiarity with deduction techniques, to provide some theoretical information on the structure of (English) vocabulary as far as of practical help, and to inform students about learning materials and techniques. In the course, students work on common problematic lexical areas, extract vocabulary (words, word groups) from texts, establish personal vocabulary lists, practise using dictionaries and thesauri, work out word fields, identify and use word formation processes, practise variations in range and variety of written and oral expression, and experiment with different learning techniques. Materials: All materials will be made available on Opal or in class. Prerequisites: the Entry Test must have been passed.
- Sprachlernseminar – Vocabulary
- Lehrperson
-
- Marc Lalonde
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 2. Doppelstunde BSS/109/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The aims of this course are to raise awareness of lexical range and lexical variety (geographical, stylistic), to identify recurring lexical problem areas of German speakers of English (as far as practicable also of speakers of English with mother-tongues other than English), to improve personal performance in appropriateness, precision and range of lexical expression, to increase familiarity with deduction techniques, to provide some theoretical information on the structure of (English) vocabulary as far as of practical help, and to inform students about learning materials and techniques. In the course, students work on common problematic lexical areas, extract vocabulary (words, word groups) from texts, establish personal vocabulary lists, practise using dictionaries and thesauri, work out word fields, identify and use word formation processes, practise variations in range and variety of written and oral expression, and experiment with different learning techniques. Materials: All materials will be made available on Opal or in class. Prerequisites: the Entry Test must have been passed.
- Sprachlernseminar – Vocabulary
- Lehrperson
-
- Marc Lalonde
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 2. Doppelstunde BSS/0E49/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The aims of this course are to raise awareness of lexical range and lexical variety (geographical, stylistic), to identify recurring lexical problem areas of German speakers of English (as far as practicable also of speakers of English with mother-tongues other than English), to improve personal performance in appropriateness, precision and range of lexical expression, to increase familiarity with deduction techniques, to provide some theoretical information on the structure of (English) vocabulary as far as of practical help, and to inform students about learning materials and techniques. In the course, students work on common problematic lexical areas, extract vocabulary (words, word groups) from texts, establish personal vocabulary lists, practise using dictionaries and thesauri, work out word fields, identify and use word formation processes, practise variations in range and variety of written and oral expression, and experiment with different learning techniques. Materials: All materials will be made available on Opal or in class. Prerequisites: the Entry Test must have been passed.
- Sprachlernseminar – Vocabulary
- Lehrperson
-
- Michael Calabranno Pérez
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 1. Doppelstunde W48/0003/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The aims of this course are to raise awareness of lexical range and lexical variety (geographical, stylistic), to identify recurring lexical problem areas of German speakers of English (as far as practicable also of speakers of English with mother-tongues other than English), to improve personal performance in appropriateness, precision and range of lexical expression, to increase familiarity with deduction techniques, to provide some theoretical information on the structure of (English) vocabulary as far as of practical help, and to inform students about learning materials and techniques. In the course, students work on common problematic lexical areas, extract vocabulary (words, word groups) from texts, establish personal vocabulary lists, practise using dictionaries and thesauri, work out word fields, identify and use word formation processes, practise variations in range and variety of written and oral expression, and experiment with different learning techniques. Materials: All materials will be made available on Opal or in class. Prerequisites: the Entry Test must have been passed.
- Sprachlernseminar – Vocabulary
- Lehrperson
-
- Michael Calabranno Pérez
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung – – Hybrid - Beschreibung
- The aims of this course are to raise awareness of lexical range and lexical variety (geographical, stylistic), to identify recurring lexical problem areas of German speakers of English (as far as practicable also of speakers of English with mother-tongues other than English), to improve personal performance in appropriateness, precision and range of lexical expression, to increase familiarity with deduction techniques, to provide some theoretical information on the structure of (English) vocabulary as far as of practical help, and to inform students about learning materials and techniques. In the course, students work on common problematic lexical areas, extract vocabulary (words, word groups) from texts, establish personal vocabulary lists, practise using dictionaries and thesauri, work out word fields, identify and use word formation processes, practise variations in range and variety of written and oral expression, and experiment with different learning techniques. Materials: The materials should be purchased at EMF Bürotechnik, Zellescher Weg 21, 01217 Dresden. Please bring these materials to the first meeting Prerequisites: the Entry Test must have been passed.
Online mit Live Session am 13.Oktober 2026 um 14:50 in SE1-209 oder auf ZOOM. - Literatur
- Online mit Live Session am 13. Oktober 2026 um 14:50 in SE1-209 oder auf ZOOM.
- Sprachlernseminar – Grammar
- Lehrperson
-
- Michael Calabranno Pérez
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Freitag 1. Doppelstunde W48/0003/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course deals with basic and advanced grammar concepts and targets the particular problems foreigners in general and Germans in particular commonly have with English grammar. This course builds on the knowledge of grammar gained at school, but whereas “Abitur” classes often concentrate on communicative skills, this university course will focus on accuracy and knowledge of grammatical structures. Although students have encountered and practised most aspects of English grammar at school, many do not control them well. Using a contrastive approach, this class will address the English verb system, the peculiarities of nouns and their determiners, part-of-speech analysis, parsing, gerunds vs. infinitives, collocations, phrasal verbs, types of subordinate clauses, modal verbs, word order (inversion etc), and adjective vs. adverb problems. Exercises will include: gap-filling, transformations, error correction, translation and sentence analysis. Since the philosophy of the class is partly based on a contrastive approach, translation from German into English will also play a role. Reference books will be recommended in class.
- Sprachlernseminar – Grammar
- Lehrperson
-
- Michael Calabranno Pérez
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Freitag 2. Doppelstunde W48/0003/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course deals with basic and advanced grammar concepts and targets the particular problems foreigners in general and Germans in particular commonly have with English grammar. This course builds on the knowledge of grammar gained at school, but whereas “Abitur” classes often concentrate on communicative skills, this university course will focus on accuracy and knowledge of grammatical structures. Although students have encountered and practised most aspects of English grammar at school, many do not control them well. Using a contrastive approach, this class will address the English verb system, the peculiarities of nouns and their determiners, part-of-speech analysis, parsing, gerunds vs. infinitives, collocations, phrasal verbs, types of subordinate clauses, modal verbs, word order (inversion etc), and adjective vs. adverb problems. Exercises will include: gap-filling, transformations, error correction, translation and sentence analysis. Since the philosophy of the class is partly based on a contrastive approach, translation from German into English will also play a role. Reference books will be recommended in class.
SLK-BA-A-2V-L
(Vertiefungsmodul – Literaturwissenschaft)
- Vorlesung – [AmLit - Ingwersen] - Issues in North American Literature: Nature and Technology
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- 09.10.2026 ab 11 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 7. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- From Puritan constructions of wilderness to the colonization of Mars, the North American imaginary is fundamentally shaped by ambiguous and interconnected attitudes towards nature and technology. While ideas of “Nature” have been employed to both legitimize Indigenous displacement and anchor American constructions of freedom and self-reliance, visions of technology oscillate between fantasies of techno-utopia and deep-seated anxieties around ecological catastrophe and the disruptions of humanist subjectivity. Sketching a trajectory from the early modern period to the present, this survey lecture offers a framework for understanding the intersection of environmental and technological imaginaries as central to the development of North American literature and key to historicizing the cultural conditions of the Anthropocene. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives from ecocriticism, critical posthumanism, and speculative fiction studies, we will explore the continuities and ruptures that lead from romanticist views of the sublime to Golden Age science fiction, from the figure of the pioneer to the engineer and space cowboy, from the environmental aesthetics of modernism to cyberpunk and ecological entanglement, from the machine age to the technosphere and climate fiction, from the colonial politics of wilderness to environmental justice movements and Indigenous futurism. With examples from a broad range of genres and modes (incl. nonfiction essays, poetry, novels, short stories, film, and music), we will revisit key stages of the North American literary tradition and explore critical dialogues with decolonial and feminist critiques of North American progress narratives and poetics of environmental placemaking.
- Proseminar – [AmLit - Lind] - Social Ecology & Feminist Utopia
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 28
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 9.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 1. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- “[T]he idea of dominating nature has its primary source in the domination of human by human and in the structuring of the natural world into a hierarchical chain of being” (Bookchin 1993).
Involved in some of the first anti-nuclear power campaigns in the ’50s, and beginning his career writing on overurbanisation, the role of the environment in disease, nuclear, and pesticides and other chemicals, the pioneering political philosopher and ecological thinker Murray Bookchin was preeminent in kickstarting the environmental movement in the 1960s. But it is his oeuvre-spanning theory of ‘social ecology,’ which he would develop over the following fifty years, that remains his most important contribution, elucidating the principally social roots of environmental crisis and demanding a complete overhaul of politics as we know it if we are ever to live in ecological harmony.
Still one of the most urgent interventions in the environmental humanities, the twin critique and utopian vision of social ecology is the focus of this class, from its roots in ecofeminism to its manifold diagnoses of hierarchy and power through to its nascent political vision. Across the term, we will unfold this theory together alongside two novels: Marge Piercy’s classic 1976 feminist ecotopia Woman on the Edge of Time and Ruthanna Emrys’ 2022 feminist diaperpunk/solarpunk A Half-Built Earth. Bookending the primary waves of both feminist and ecological utopia—the long 1960s, and the last fifteen years—these novels are not only invaluable for helping us to understand, problematise, and further the insights of social ecology, but will also leave you understanding the form and nature of the feminist utopia too.
- Proseminar – [AmLit - woodard] - Weep for the Machine: Empathy and Artificial Life
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 25
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 6. Doppelstunde BSS/109 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Empathy, the ability to feel the emotions of another being, is an affective capacity often seen as central to human social existence. But despite this, empathy has a rather short conceptual history having initially emerged 100 years ago as an aesthetic projection of emotions onto non-human objects. This projection onto inanimate things creates a kind of irony as empathy is often viewed as that which separates human entities form non-human ones.
This course will explore empathy especially as it relates to artificial beings through science-fiction novels and films. Rather than focus on the possibility of artificial intelligence, the course will examine how artificial and the capacity for feeling intersect while also addressing themes such as the animate/inanimate relation, anthropomorphism, simulation and authenticity, as well as social normativity.
SLK-BA-A-2V-K
(Vertiefungsmodul – Kulturwissenschaft)
- Vorlesung – [AmCult - Junker] - Out of Many, One (E Pluribus Unum): US Cultural History and “The American Experiment”
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 70
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This survey lecture course provides an overview of US cultural history from early European colonization to the present day. Adopting a transnational perspective, it surveys crucial sites, periods, and themes central to diverse American experiences. The course investigates dynamics of cultural change by focusing on key moments, figures, and concepts that have shaped the nation’s self-perception. A particular emphasis is placed on the emergence of different ideas of “America” and their shifting meanings for various demographic groups. It examines frictions that result from a differentiation between particular experiences of specific demographic groups and the ideal of one unified “America” that merges differences under the umbrella of one exceptionalist nation. The course conceptualizes “The American Experiment” precisely through these dynamic tensions—as an ongoing, open-ended, contested process of negotiation. Finally, the lecture considers the medial and discursive conditions that shape our understanding of the United States in a globalized world.
The lecture course begins in the first week of the semester.
- Vorlesung – [BritCult - Wächter] - Critical Disability Studies: From Social Model to Mad and Neurodiversity Paradigms
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- In 2022, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha provocatively titled her monograph The Future Is Disabled, indicating that the issue of disability is by no means only of relevance to those who currently have an impairment. Instead, her work suggests that what she calls “disabled wisdom” or “crip genius” – skills in mutual aid, interdependence and survival developed by communities marginalised (not only by) ableism – is actually essential for everyone as we face global instability and anthropogenic climate change. The question is why such knowledge has as of yet largely been subjugated. This lecture begins by tracing the shift from medicalised deficit models to the social model of disability, which identifies societal barriers and oppression as the primary causes of disablement, to Critical Disability Studies frameworks, which foreground intersectionality, postcolonial perspectives and the various ways in which people are debilitated (Puar). In the second part, we will, more specifically, talk about the interrelation between Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies, the latter prioritising first-person survivor knowledge to challenge the dominance of biomedical psychiatry and investigate the epistemic injustice faced by psychiatrised individuals. We will, moreover, discuss the neurodiversity paradigm, questioning the hegemonic standard of the “neurotypical”.
- Proseminar – [BritCult - Schlemper] - “You’ve never had it so good” - Post-War-Britain: Prosperity, Consenus and Relative Decline
- Lehrperson
-
- Christian Schlemper
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Via OPAL
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- When the Second World War ended in 1945, a victorious Britain cheered the peace and headed towards a new era. The second half of the twentieth century saw remarkable shifts and changes, especially in the fields of politics and economics: a consensus of Labour and the Conservatives, the introduction of the welfare state, decades of prosperity, years of so-called relative decline, the debatable politics of Thatcherism and finally New Labour.
The seminar takes a closer look at the history of Britain from 1945 till the early 2000s. We will analyse speeches and articles and study selected biographies. In the context of the historiography we will focus on the British economy, the development of national politics and their reflections in British popular culture – from the affluent society and the Swinging Sixties via the pop culture of the Eighties to Cool Britannia of the New Labour Era.
Selected texts will be provided online in the course of the semester.
- Proseminar – [AmCult - Aydin] - Travelling Across North America: Road Narratives from the Continent
- Lehrperson
-
- Can Aydin
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL 9.10.26 ab 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 3. Doppelstunde W48/103 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The promise of the “open road” remains a profound image in the American psyche. Traveling is a form of mobility. Whether social, geographic, or cultural, the concept of mobility is regarded as a defining trait of the nation’s fabric that has promoted the American continent and, after 1776, the US as a land of opportunity. In this regard, mobility is deeply connected to the national myths of the American Dream and the Self-Made man. However, this inclusive opportunity is much more complicated than it seems to be on the surface. Access to mobility remains highly uneven depending on identity categories such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, and class. In this seminar, we will examine road narratives that address physical mobility; these narratives also reveal the social tensions, structural inequalities, and cultural politics of the nation. Together, we will analyze excerpts from diverse material in form, scope, and genre, such as Colonial-American travel narratives from the seventeenth century, slave narratives from the nineteenth century (Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass), Jack Kerouac’s autofictional novel On the Road (1957), the 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road (2006), and more.
SLK-BA-A-2K-LK
(Komplementärmodul Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft)
- Vorlesung – [AmCult - Junker] - Out of Many, One (E Pluribus Unum): US Cultural History and “The American Experiment”
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 70
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This survey lecture course provides an overview of US cultural history from early European colonization to the present day. Adopting a transnational perspective, it surveys crucial sites, periods, and themes central to diverse American experiences. The course investigates dynamics of cultural change by focusing on key moments, figures, and concepts that have shaped the nation’s self-perception. A particular emphasis is placed on the emergence of different ideas of “America” and their shifting meanings for various demographic groups. It examines frictions that result from a differentiation between particular experiences of specific demographic groups and the ideal of one unified “America” that merges differences under the umbrella of one exceptionalist nation. The course conceptualizes “The American Experiment” precisely through these dynamic tensions—as an ongoing, open-ended, contested process of negotiation. Finally, the lecture considers the medial and discursive conditions that shape our understanding of the United States in a globalized world.
The lecture course begins in the first week of the semester.
- Vorlesung – [BritCult - Wächter] - Critical Disability Studies: From Social Model to Mad and Neurodiversity Paradigms
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- In 2022, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha provocatively titled her monograph The Future Is Disabled, indicating that the issue of disability is by no means only of relevance to those who currently have an impairment. Instead, her work suggests that what she calls “disabled wisdom” or “crip genius” – skills in mutual aid, interdependence and survival developed by communities marginalised (not only by) ableism – is actually essential for everyone as we face global instability and anthropogenic climate change. The question is why such knowledge has as of yet largely been subjugated. This lecture begins by tracing the shift from medicalised deficit models to the social model of disability, which identifies societal barriers and oppression as the primary causes of disablement, to Critical Disability Studies frameworks, which foreground intersectionality, postcolonial perspectives and the various ways in which people are debilitated (Puar). In the second part, we will, more specifically, talk about the interrelation between Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies, the latter prioritising first-person survivor knowledge to challenge the dominance of biomedical psychiatry and investigate the epistemic injustice faced by psychiatrised individuals. We will, moreover, discuss the neurodiversity paradigm, questioning the hegemonic standard of the “neurotypical”.
- Proseminar – [BritCult - Schlemper] - “You’ve never had it so good” - Post-War-Britain: Prosperity, Consenus and Relative Decline
- Lehrperson
-
- Christian Schlemper
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Via OPAL
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- When the Second World War ended in 1945, a victorious Britain cheered the peace and headed towards a new era. The second half of the twentieth century saw remarkable shifts and changes, especially in the fields of politics and economics: a consensus of Labour and the Conservatives, the introduction of the welfare state, decades of prosperity, years of so-called relative decline, the debatable politics of Thatcherism and finally New Labour.
The seminar takes a closer look at the history of Britain from 1945 till the early 2000s. We will analyse speeches and articles and study selected biographies. In the context of the historiography we will focus on the British economy, the development of national politics and their reflections in British popular culture – from the affluent society and the Swinging Sixties via the pop culture of the Eighties to Cool Britannia of the New Labour Era.
Selected texts will be provided online in the course of the semester.
- Vorlesung – [AmLit - Ingwersen] - Issues in North American Literature: Nature and Technology
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- 09.10.2026 ab 11 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 7. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- From Puritan constructions of wilderness to the colonization of Mars, the North American imaginary is fundamentally shaped by ambiguous and interconnected attitudes towards nature and technology. While ideas of “Nature” have been employed to both legitimize Indigenous displacement and anchor American constructions of freedom and self-reliance, visions of technology oscillate between fantasies of techno-utopia and deep-seated anxieties around ecological catastrophe and the disruptions of humanist subjectivity. Sketching a trajectory from the early modern period to the present, this survey lecture offers a framework for understanding the intersection of environmental and technological imaginaries as central to the development of North American literature and key to historicizing the cultural conditions of the Anthropocene. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives from ecocriticism, critical posthumanism, and speculative fiction studies, we will explore the continuities and ruptures that lead from romanticist views of the sublime to Golden Age science fiction, from the figure of the pioneer to the engineer and space cowboy, from the environmental aesthetics of modernism to cyberpunk and ecological entanglement, from the machine age to the technosphere and climate fiction, from the colonial politics of wilderness to environmental justice movements and Indigenous futurism. With examples from a broad range of genres and modes (incl. nonfiction essays, poetry, novels, short stories, film, and music), we will revisit key stages of the North American literary tradition and explore critical dialogues with decolonial and feminist critiques of North American progress narratives and poetics of environmental placemaking.
- Proseminar – [AmCult - Aydin] - Travelling Across North America: Road Narratives from the Continent
- Lehrperson
-
- Can Aydin
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL 9.10.26 ab 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 3. Doppelstunde W48/103 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The promise of the “open road” remains a profound image in the American psyche. Traveling is a form of mobility. Whether social, geographic, or cultural, the concept of mobility is regarded as a defining trait of the nation’s fabric that has promoted the American continent and, after 1776, the US as a land of opportunity. In this regard, mobility is deeply connected to the national myths of the American Dream and the Self-Made man. However, this inclusive opportunity is much more complicated than it seems to be on the surface. Access to mobility remains highly uneven depending on identity categories such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, and class. In this seminar, we will examine road narratives that address physical mobility; these narratives also reveal the social tensions, structural inequalities, and cultural politics of the nation. Together, we will analyze excerpts from diverse material in form, scope, and genre, such as Colonial-American travel narratives from the seventeenth century, slave narratives from the nineteenth century (Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass), Jack Kerouac’s autofictional novel On the Road (1957), the 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road (2006), and more.
- Proseminar – [AmLit - Lind] - Social Ecology & Feminist Utopia
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 28
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 9.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 1. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- “[T]he idea of dominating nature has its primary source in the domination of human by human and in the structuring of the natural world into a hierarchical chain of being” (Bookchin 1993).
Involved in some of the first anti-nuclear power campaigns in the ’50s, and beginning his career writing on overurbanisation, the role of the environment in disease, nuclear, and pesticides and other chemicals, the pioneering political philosopher and ecological thinker Murray Bookchin was preeminent in kickstarting the environmental movement in the 1960s. But it is his oeuvre-spanning theory of ‘social ecology,’ which he would develop over the following fifty years, that remains his most important contribution, elucidating the principally social roots of environmental crisis and demanding a complete overhaul of politics as we know it if we are ever to live in ecological harmony.
Still one of the most urgent interventions in the environmental humanities, the twin critique and utopian vision of social ecology is the focus of this class, from its roots in ecofeminism to its manifold diagnoses of hierarchy and power through to its nascent political vision. Across the term, we will unfold this theory together alongside two novels: Marge Piercy’s classic 1976 feminist ecotopia Woman on the Edge of Time and Ruthanna Emrys’ 2022 feminist diaperpunk/solarpunk A Half-Built Earth. Bookending the primary waves of both feminist and ecological utopia—the long 1960s, and the last fifteen years—these novels are not only invaluable for helping us to understand, problematise, and further the insights of social ecology, but will also leave you understanding the form and nature of the feminist utopia too.
SLK-BA-A-2K-SK
(Komplementärmodul Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft)
- Vorlesung – [Ling - Lange] - Linguistics in Outer Space
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Freitag 3. Doppelstunde HSZ/403 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Some people with a degree in Linguistics end up in glamorous jobs in the entertainment industry: they work as dialect coaches for elves and other creatures in Lord of the Rings, they create alien languages like Klingon for Star Trek or Na’vi for Avatar, or they come up with gadgets like chatbots and automatic translators. Some even write Science Fiction novels: there is one in which linguists rule the world!
This lecture will take you where no linguist has gone before: we will investigate the many fascinating linguistic aspects related to selected Science Fiction and Fantasy films. We will devote some time to the study of Klingon and other extraterrestrial languages as well as alien writing systems and look at the issues involved in machine translation and automatic speech processing. We will also come back to what is distinctly human about human language when we try to answer the question why Data as an android is so bad at telling jokes.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Lange] - Linguistics goes to the movies
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 3. Doppelstunde W48/001 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Linguists have more fun at the movies – after this course, you will be able to spot and enjoy the linguistically relevant aspects even in films that consist mainly of car chases. This course will introduce you to different aspects of language use in film, or telecinematic discourse. We will investigate how specific ways of using language(s) shape our perception of movie characters, for example nonstandard dialects, switching between different languages, politeness and impoliteness, swearing, and other expressive devices that are abundant in a good film plot.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Leuckert] - English in North America
- Lehrperson
-
- Dr. Sven Leuckert
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde W48/0101/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- English in North America has become the dominant language of popular media, but it is also characterised by a surprising amount of diversity. In addition to a more standard-like General American English, there are many regional varieties, such as African American Vernacular English, New York City English, Chicano English, and many others.
In this class, we will first trace the history of English in North America and discuss how the relation of English to indigenous languages has developed over time. We will then highlight a set of different varieties of American English and their linguistic features before moving on to what has been called the ‘Americanisation’ of Englishes around the world. As part of the class, we will also consider the representation of varieties of American English in the media (for instance in song lyrics and movies), which has had a significant impact on how English is talked about and learned in different parts of the world.
As part of this class, all students will be required to come up with, carry out, and present an individual research project. While the tools for doing so will be provided in class, please be prepared to work actively.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Leuckert] - Linguistics in the Classroom
- Lehrperson
-
- Dr. Sven Leuckert
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung – – W48/ABS/HSZ In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This class is an opportunity for aspiring teachers of English, but also for students of other degrees, to deal with the question of how and why linguistic knowledge may effectively be used to enrich the English-language classroom – but also to discuss what we can learn about language acquisition and teacher-student interaction from linguistics.
At the end of the seminar, you will be able to assess the potential of linguistics in teaching, to present and shape linguistic topics according to the needs of your audience, and to understand which linguistic processes are of relevance in the English-language classroom.
All students participating in this class will be required to prepare a mock lesson on a linguistic topic. While the tools for doing so will be provided in class, please be prepared to work actively.
The dates for this class are as follows:
• 8 January 2027.: 11:10-14:30
• 22 January 2027: 11:10-14:30
• 8 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 9 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 10 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 11 February 2027: 10:00-13:00
Please keep in mind that missing sessions in this class will hinder your progress and your ability to contribute in a meaningful way. Thus, if you know in advance that you will be unable to participate in several sessions, please consider enrolling in a different class.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Eichhorn] The Art of Translation
- Lehrperson
-
- Martin Eichhorn
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Beschreibung
- What is translation? The answer seems simple: It is a transfer of words from one language into another. If it was that easy a task, the results of machine translated texts would not leave us puzzled, only “understanding railway station”. Thus, this seemingly simple question we will try to answer in the course of this seminar – and we might come to realise that it is everything but simple. In order to do so, it shall be explained what translation actually is and how its understanding and practice has developed over time. We will also look critically into the different approaches towards translation and the respective vastness of theories. Additionally, we will also investigate the manifold linguistic as well as cultural stumbling blocks of translating texts. These linguistic peculiarities are especially a challenge for the many attempts of successful machine translation which we will also critically analyse and evaluate. A final outlook into the presentation of translation in science-fiction will then conclude the seminar with an imaginary future outlook.
Note: In order to participate in in-class exercises, command of the German language is mandatory.
- Proseminar – [BritLit - Röber, Ling - Eichhorn] – An Adventurer Like You: Video Games, Language and Literature(s)
- Lehrpersonen
-
- Martin Eichhorn
- Franziska Röber
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung: Linguistik (Eichhorn) ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL; BritLit (Röber) ab 09.10.2026, 11 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 5. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Video games have been dismissed as trivial, childish, or nerdy and regarded as a marginal form of entertainment. Yet such dismissals are increasingly untenable. As of 2024, video games constitute one of the fastest-growing global entertainment markets, drawing not only substantial financial investment but also significant amounts of players. Far from peripheral, games now shape cultural life in ways comparable to film, television, and literature.
Despite this growing cultural weight, video games remain comparatively underexamined within academic research. This seminar seeks to redress that imbalance. Together, we will approach video games in an academic context, asking what kinds of questions literature and linguistics in particular can bring to the study of games.
Our work will be structured around two primary perspectives. First, we will approach games as texts, not only in terms of how they tell stories, but also in relation to their underlying structures and modes of interaction. Second, we will consider the broader cultural negotiations that games stage: questions of identity, gender, sexuality, memory, history, and the shaping of cultural spaces and practices.
Alongside literary and cultural approaches, we will also attend to the linguistic dimensions of video games. They generate new forms of digital discourse, draw on and reshape narrative conventions, and foster interactive communication between players and game worlds as well as among player communities. Thus, video games open up fertile ground for linguistic inquiry – inviting us to consider how language both reflects and produces meaning in digital spaces. - Literatur
- All required materials will be provided at the beginning of the semester via OPAL.
- Vorlesung – [AmCult - Junker] - Out of Many, One (E Pluribus Unum): US Cultural History and “The American Experiment”
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 70
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This survey lecture course provides an overview of US cultural history from early European colonization to the present day. Adopting a transnational perspective, it surveys crucial sites, periods, and themes central to diverse American experiences. The course investigates dynamics of cultural change by focusing on key moments, figures, and concepts that have shaped the nation’s self-perception. A particular emphasis is placed on the emergence of different ideas of “America” and their shifting meanings for various demographic groups. It examines frictions that result from a differentiation between particular experiences of specific demographic groups and the ideal of one unified “America” that merges differences under the umbrella of one exceptionalist nation. The course conceptualizes “The American Experiment” precisely through these dynamic tensions—as an ongoing, open-ended, contested process of negotiation. Finally, the lecture considers the medial and discursive conditions that shape our understanding of the United States in a globalized world.
The lecture course begins in the first week of the semester.
- Vorlesung – [BritCult - Wächter] - Critical Disability Studies: From Social Model to Mad and Neurodiversity Paradigms
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- In 2022, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha provocatively titled her monograph The Future Is Disabled, indicating that the issue of disability is by no means only of relevance to those who currently have an impairment. Instead, her work suggests that what she calls “disabled wisdom” or “crip genius” – skills in mutual aid, interdependence and survival developed by communities marginalised (not only by) ableism – is actually essential for everyone as we face global instability and anthropogenic climate change. The question is why such knowledge has as of yet largely been subjugated. This lecture begins by tracing the shift from medicalised deficit models to the social model of disability, which identifies societal barriers and oppression as the primary causes of disablement, to Critical Disability Studies frameworks, which foreground intersectionality, postcolonial perspectives and the various ways in which people are debilitated (Puar). In the second part, we will, more specifically, talk about the interrelation between Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies, the latter prioritising first-person survivor knowledge to challenge the dominance of biomedical psychiatry and investigate the epistemic injustice faced by psychiatrised individuals. We will, moreover, discuss the neurodiversity paradigm, questioning the hegemonic standard of the “neurotypical”.
- Proseminar – [BritCult - Schlemper] - “You’ve never had it so good” - Post-War-Britain: Prosperity, Consenus and Relative Decline
- Lehrperson
-
- Christian Schlemper
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Via OPAL
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- When the Second World War ended in 1945, a victorious Britain cheered the peace and headed towards a new era. The second half of the twentieth century saw remarkable shifts and changes, especially in the fields of politics and economics: a consensus of Labour and the Conservatives, the introduction of the welfare state, decades of prosperity, years of so-called relative decline, the debatable politics of Thatcherism and finally New Labour.
The seminar takes a closer look at the history of Britain from 1945 till the early 2000s. We will analyse speeches and articles and study selected biographies. In the context of the historiography we will focus on the British economy, the development of national politics and their reflections in British popular culture – from the affluent society and the Swinging Sixties via the pop culture of the Eighties to Cool Britannia of the New Labour Era.
Selected texts will be provided online in the course of the semester.
- Proseminar – [AmCult - Aydin] - Travelling Across North America: Road Narratives from the Continent
- Lehrperson
-
- Can Aydin
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL 9.10.26 ab 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 3. Doppelstunde W48/103 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- The promise of the “open road” remains a profound image in the American psyche. Traveling is a form of mobility. Whether social, geographic, or cultural, the concept of mobility is regarded as a defining trait of the nation’s fabric that has promoted the American continent and, after 1776, the US as a land of opportunity. In this regard, mobility is deeply connected to the national myths of the American Dream and the Self-Made man. However, this inclusive opportunity is much more complicated than it seems to be on the surface. Access to mobility remains highly uneven depending on identity categories such as ethnicity, gender, sexuality, nationality, and class. In this seminar, we will examine road narratives that address physical mobility; these narratives also reveal the social tensions, structural inequalities, and cultural politics of the nation. Together, we will analyze excerpts from diverse material in form, scope, and genre, such as Colonial-American travel narratives from the seventeenth century, slave narratives from the nineteenth century (Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass), Jack Kerouac’s autofictional novel On the Road (1957), the 2009 film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road (2006), and more.
SLK-BA-A-2K-SL
(Komplementärmodul Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft)
- Vorlesung – [Ling - Lange] - Linguistics in Outer Space
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Freitag 3. Doppelstunde HSZ/403 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Some people with a degree in Linguistics end up in glamorous jobs in the entertainment industry: they work as dialect coaches for elves and other creatures in Lord of the Rings, they create alien languages like Klingon for Star Trek or Na’vi for Avatar, or they come up with gadgets like chatbots and automatic translators. Some even write Science Fiction novels: there is one in which linguists rule the world!
This lecture will take you where no linguist has gone before: we will investigate the many fascinating linguistic aspects related to selected Science Fiction and Fantasy films. We will devote some time to the study of Klingon and other extraterrestrial languages as well as alien writing systems and look at the issues involved in machine translation and automatic speech processing. We will also come back to what is distinctly human about human language when we try to answer the question why Data as an android is so bad at telling jokes.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Lange] - Linguistics goes to the movies
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 3. Doppelstunde W48/001 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Linguists have more fun at the movies – after this course, you will be able to spot and enjoy the linguistically relevant aspects even in films that consist mainly of car chases. This course will introduce you to different aspects of language use in film, or telecinematic discourse. We will investigate how specific ways of using language(s) shape our perception of movie characters, for example nonstandard dialects, switching between different languages, politeness and impoliteness, swearing, and other expressive devices that are abundant in a good film plot.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Leuckert] - English in North America
- Lehrperson
-
- Dr. Sven Leuckert
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde W48/0101/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- English in North America has become the dominant language of popular media, but it is also characterised by a surprising amount of diversity. In addition to a more standard-like General American English, there are many regional varieties, such as African American Vernacular English, New York City English, Chicano English, and many others.
In this class, we will first trace the history of English in North America and discuss how the relation of English to indigenous languages has developed over time. We will then highlight a set of different varieties of American English and their linguistic features before moving on to what has been called the ‘Americanisation’ of Englishes around the world. As part of the class, we will also consider the representation of varieties of American English in the media (for instance in song lyrics and movies), which has had a significant impact on how English is talked about and learned in different parts of the world.
As part of this class, all students will be required to come up with, carry out, and present an individual research project. While the tools for doing so will be provided in class, please be prepared to work actively.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Leuckert] - Linguistics in the Classroom
- Lehrperson
-
- Dr. Sven Leuckert
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung – – W48/ABS/HSZ In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This class is an opportunity for aspiring teachers of English, but also for students of other degrees, to deal with the question of how and why linguistic knowledge may effectively be used to enrich the English-language classroom – but also to discuss what we can learn about language acquisition and teacher-student interaction from linguistics.
At the end of the seminar, you will be able to assess the potential of linguistics in teaching, to present and shape linguistic topics according to the needs of your audience, and to understand which linguistic processes are of relevance in the English-language classroom.
All students participating in this class will be required to prepare a mock lesson on a linguistic topic. While the tools for doing so will be provided in class, please be prepared to work actively.
The dates for this class are as follows:
• 8 January 2027.: 11:10-14:30
• 22 January 2027: 11:10-14:30
• 8 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 9 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 10 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 11 February 2027: 10:00-13:00
Please keep in mind that missing sessions in this class will hinder your progress and your ability to contribute in a meaningful way. Thus, if you know in advance that you will be unable to participate in several sessions, please consider enrolling in a different class.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Eichhorn] The Art of Translation
- Lehrperson
-
- Martin Eichhorn
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Beschreibung
- What is translation? The answer seems simple: It is a transfer of words from one language into another. If it was that easy a task, the results of machine translated texts would not leave us puzzled, only “understanding railway station”. Thus, this seemingly simple question we will try to answer in the course of this seminar – and we might come to realise that it is everything but simple. In order to do so, it shall be explained what translation actually is and how its understanding and practice has developed over time. We will also look critically into the different approaches towards translation and the respective vastness of theories. Additionally, we will also investigate the manifold linguistic as well as cultural stumbling blocks of translating texts. These linguistic peculiarities are especially a challenge for the many attempts of successful machine translation which we will also critically analyse and evaluate. A final outlook into the presentation of translation in science-fiction will then conclude the seminar with an imaginary future outlook.
Note: In order to participate in in-class exercises, command of the German language is mandatory.
- Proseminar – [BritLit - Röber, Ling - Eichhorn] – An Adventurer Like You: Video Games, Language and Literature(s)
- Lehrpersonen
-
- Martin Eichhorn
- Franziska Röber
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung: Linguistik (Eichhorn) ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL; BritLit (Röber) ab 09.10.2026, 11 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 5. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Video games have been dismissed as trivial, childish, or nerdy and regarded as a marginal form of entertainment. Yet such dismissals are increasingly untenable. As of 2024, video games constitute one of the fastest-growing global entertainment markets, drawing not only substantial financial investment but also significant amounts of players. Far from peripheral, games now shape cultural life in ways comparable to film, television, and literature.
Despite this growing cultural weight, video games remain comparatively underexamined within academic research. This seminar seeks to redress that imbalance. Together, we will approach video games in an academic context, asking what kinds of questions literature and linguistics in particular can bring to the study of games.
Our work will be structured around two primary perspectives. First, we will approach games as texts, not only in terms of how they tell stories, but also in relation to their underlying structures and modes of interaction. Second, we will consider the broader cultural negotiations that games stage: questions of identity, gender, sexuality, memory, history, and the shaping of cultural spaces and practices.
Alongside literary and cultural approaches, we will also attend to the linguistic dimensions of video games. They generate new forms of digital discourse, draw on and reshape narrative conventions, and foster interactive communication between players and game worlds as well as among player communities. Thus, video games open up fertile ground for linguistic inquiry – inviting us to consider how language both reflects and produces meaning in digital spaces. - Literatur
- All required materials will be provided at the beginning of the semester via OPAL.
- Vorlesung – [AmLit - Ingwersen] - Issues in North American Literature: Nature and Technology
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- 09.10.2026 ab 11 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 7. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- From Puritan constructions of wilderness to the colonization of Mars, the North American imaginary is fundamentally shaped by ambiguous and interconnected attitudes towards nature and technology. While ideas of “Nature” have been employed to both legitimize Indigenous displacement and anchor American constructions of freedom and self-reliance, visions of technology oscillate between fantasies of techno-utopia and deep-seated anxieties around ecological catastrophe and the disruptions of humanist subjectivity. Sketching a trajectory from the early modern period to the present, this survey lecture offers a framework for understanding the intersection of environmental and technological imaginaries as central to the development of North American literature and key to historicizing the cultural conditions of the Anthropocene. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives from ecocriticism, critical posthumanism, and speculative fiction studies, we will explore the continuities and ruptures that lead from romanticist views of the sublime to Golden Age science fiction, from the figure of the pioneer to the engineer and space cowboy, from the environmental aesthetics of modernism to cyberpunk and ecological entanglement, from the machine age to the technosphere and climate fiction, from the colonial politics of wilderness to environmental justice movements and Indigenous futurism. With examples from a broad range of genres and modes (incl. nonfiction essays, poetry, novels, short stories, film, and music), we will revisit key stages of the North American literary tradition and explore critical dialogues with decolonial and feminist critiques of North American progress narratives and poetics of environmental placemaking.
- Proseminar – [AmLit - Lind] - Social Ecology & Feminist Utopia
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 28
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 9.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 1. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- “[T]he idea of dominating nature has its primary source in the domination of human by human and in the structuring of the natural world into a hierarchical chain of being” (Bookchin 1993).
Involved in some of the first anti-nuclear power campaigns in the ’50s, and beginning his career writing on overurbanisation, the role of the environment in disease, nuclear, and pesticides and other chemicals, the pioneering political philosopher and ecological thinker Murray Bookchin was preeminent in kickstarting the environmental movement in the 1960s. But it is his oeuvre-spanning theory of ‘social ecology,’ which he would develop over the following fifty years, that remains his most important contribution, elucidating the principally social roots of environmental crisis and demanding a complete overhaul of politics as we know it if we are ever to live in ecological harmony.
Still one of the most urgent interventions in the environmental humanities, the twin critique and utopian vision of social ecology is the focus of this class, from its roots in ecofeminism to its manifold diagnoses of hierarchy and power through to its nascent political vision. Across the term, we will unfold this theory together alongside two novels: Marge Piercy’s classic 1976 feminist ecotopia Woman on the Edge of Time and Ruthanna Emrys’ 2022 feminist diaperpunk/solarpunk A Half-Built Earth. Bookending the primary waves of both feminist and ecological utopia—the long 1960s, and the last fifteen years—these novels are not only invaluable for helping us to understand, problematise, and further the insights of social ecology, but will also leave you understanding the form and nature of the feminist utopia too.
SLK-BA-A-3S-S
(Spezialisierungsmodul – Sprachwissenschaft)
- Vorlesung – [Ling - Lange] - Linguistics in Outer Space
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Freitag 3. Doppelstunde HSZ/403 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Some people with a degree in Linguistics end up in glamorous jobs in the entertainment industry: they work as dialect coaches for elves and other creatures in Lord of the Rings, they create alien languages like Klingon for Star Trek or Na’vi for Avatar, or they come up with gadgets like chatbots and automatic translators. Some even write Science Fiction novels: there is one in which linguists rule the world!
This lecture will take you where no linguist has gone before: we will investigate the many fascinating linguistic aspects related to selected Science Fiction and Fantasy films. We will devote some time to the study of Klingon and other extraterrestrial languages as well as alien writing systems and look at the issues involved in machine translation and automatic speech processing. We will also come back to what is distinctly human about human language when we try to answer the question why Data as an android is so bad at telling jokes.
- Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - Language: The first 20 years
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 2. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course will follow our linguistic development from our very first experience with language up to adolescence. We will chart the fascinating and highly complex progress of first language acquisition, a process that comes so naturally to children but is still a mystery in many respects. Some of us grow up in a multilingual environment and may acquire several languages. Later, the impact of the peer group kicks in and gives rise to a range of distinct youth styles: We will treat the linguistic choices of Jocks and Burnouts, Nerd Girls and Frat Boys, street gangs and young urban professionals. Finally, we will inquire into the status or stability of the language in our youth over time.
- Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - English in South Asia: Past, present, and future
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- English in India is firmly established as the country’s associate official language, as the official language of many regional states, and as the inter- and intranational link language for a speech community that massively outnumbers other ‘native’ speakers. This course will trace the development of English in India from its modest beginnings as one colonial traders’ language among many to its entrenchment across the whole of South Asia. We will also consider the shorter history of English in Sri Lanka. We will further be concerned with colonial language policy, language conflicts relating to the role of English, and English education in India and Sri Lanka past and present. We will of course also get to know in more detail the actual features of Indian and Sri Lankan English.
SLK-BA-A-3S-BS
(Spezialisierungsmodul – British Studies)
- Hauptseminar – [BritCult - Wächter] - Disability and Madness on Screen
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde VMB/0302/U In Präsenz
- Vorlesung – [BritCult - Wächter] - Critical Disability Studies: From Social Model to Mad and Neurodiversity Paradigms
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- In 2022, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha provocatively titled her monograph The Future Is Disabled, indicating that the issue of disability is by no means only of relevance to those who currently have an impairment. Instead, her work suggests that what she calls “disabled wisdom” or “crip genius” – skills in mutual aid, interdependence and survival developed by communities marginalised (not only by) ableism – is actually essential for everyone as we face global instability and anthropogenic climate change. The question is why such knowledge has as of yet largely been subjugated. This lecture begins by tracing the shift from medicalised deficit models to the social model of disability, which identifies societal barriers and oppression as the primary causes of disablement, to Critical Disability Studies frameworks, which foreground intersectionality, postcolonial perspectives and the various ways in which people are debilitated (Puar). In the second part, we will, more specifically, talk about the interrelation between Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies, the latter prioritising first-person survivor knowledge to challenge the dominance of biomedical psychiatry and investigate the epistemic injustice faced by psychiatrised individuals. We will, moreover, discuss the neurodiversity paradigm, questioning the hegemonic standard of the “neurotypical”.
- Hauptseminar – [BritCult - Wächter] - Totalitarianism and Instrumentarianism in British Fiction
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde ABS/2-07/U In Präsenz
SLK-BA-A-3S-NS
(Spezialisierungsmodul – North American Studies)
- Vorlesung – [AmCult - Junker] - Out of Many, One (E Pluribus Unum): US Cultural History and “The American Experiment”
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 70
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This survey lecture course provides an overview of US cultural history from early European colonization to the present day. Adopting a transnational perspective, it surveys crucial sites, periods, and themes central to diverse American experiences. The course investigates dynamics of cultural change by focusing on key moments, figures, and concepts that have shaped the nation’s self-perception. A particular emphasis is placed on the emergence of different ideas of “America” and their shifting meanings for various demographic groups. It examines frictions that result from a differentiation between particular experiences of specific demographic groups and the ideal of one unified “America” that merges differences under the umbrella of one exceptionalist nation. The course conceptualizes “The American Experiment” precisely through these dynamic tensions—as an ongoing, open-ended, contested process of negotiation. Finally, the lecture considers the medial and discursive conditions that shape our understanding of the United States in a globalized world.
The lecture course begins in the first week of the semester.
- Hauptseminar – [AmCult - Junker] - Climate Crisis as a Challenge for the Humanities
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 9.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 2. Doppelstunde BSS/0E41/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This seminar addresses how the climate crisis poses a profound challenge to knowledge, responsibility, and justice within American Cultural Studies. Based on foundational texts in the reader Climate Crisis as a Challenge for the Humanities (ed. Karin Esders, De Gruyter, 2026), the course examines how dominant and counter-hegemonic discourses situate the climate crisis as historically produced and shaped by structural inequality. In doing so, we will address how climatic transformations intersect with colonial legacies, so-called petro-politics, and racial capitalism. The course familiarizes students with key theoretical frameworks in the environmental humanities, focusing centrally on marginalized voices, including from Black, Indigenous, feminist, and decolonial approaches. Additionally, we will analyze artistic interventions and aesthetic strategies across various media—from climate cinema to videogames and narrative media.
This seminar begins in the first week of the semester.
- Hauptseminar – [AmCult - Junker] - The 1920s and 1930s: American Culture from Boom to Bust
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 7. Doppelstunde W48/102 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This seminar explores the dramatic cultural and social transformations of the United States during two pivotal, contrasting decades. We will examine how the euphoric, consumer-driven modernism of the "Roaring Twenties" collided with the profound socioeconomic crises and cultural reorientations of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Investigating a diverse range of cultural artifacts—including literature, film, photography, and music—the course analyzes how Americans negotiated shifting gender roles, racial dynamics (such as the Harlem Renaissance), and class struggles. Special emphasis will be placed on how federal initiatives like the New Deal refashioned notions of national self-identification, labor, and community formation. Ultimately, this course critically interrogates how the cultural production of this era reflected and shaped the turbulent transition from unprecedented prosperity to systemic bust.
The seminar begins in the first week of the semester.
- Vorlesung – [AmLit - Ingwersen] - Issues in North American Literature: Nature and Technology
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- 09.10.2026 ab 11 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 7. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- From Puritan constructions of wilderness to the colonization of Mars, the North American imaginary is fundamentally shaped by ambiguous and interconnected attitudes towards nature and technology. While ideas of “Nature” have been employed to both legitimize Indigenous displacement and anchor American constructions of freedom and self-reliance, visions of technology oscillate between fantasies of techno-utopia and deep-seated anxieties around ecological catastrophe and the disruptions of humanist subjectivity. Sketching a trajectory from the early modern period to the present, this survey lecture offers a framework for understanding the intersection of environmental and technological imaginaries as central to the development of North American literature and key to historicizing the cultural conditions of the Anthropocene. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives from ecocriticism, critical posthumanism, and speculative fiction studies, we will explore the continuities and ruptures that lead from romanticist views of the sublime to Golden Age science fiction, from the figure of the pioneer to the engineer and space cowboy, from the environmental aesthetics of modernism to cyberpunk and ecological entanglement, from the machine age to the technosphere and climate fiction, from the colonial politics of wilderness to environmental justice movements and Indigenous futurism. With examples from a broad range of genres and modes (incl. nonfiction essays, poetry, novels, short stories, film, and music), we will revisit key stages of the North American literary tradition and explore critical dialogues with decolonial and feminist critiques of North American progress narratives and poetics of environmental placemaking.
- Hauptseminar – [AmLit - ingwersen] - Cyberspace, Matrix, Metaverse: The Cyberpunk Roots of the Digital Age
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/101 In Präsenz
- Hauptseminar – [AmLit - Woodard] – Mutual Aid and Mutualism: Evolution, Politics, and Science-Fiction
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 25
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung über OPAL am 09.10.2026 ab 11:00 Uhr
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde BSS/109 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course will look at two intertwined concepts: mutualism ( the biological concept of how species benefit one another in complex ways) and mutual aid (the anarcho-communist organizational principle of sharing resources, knowledge, and capacities as a social ideal). The work of Peter Kropotkin, most famous for bringing together these themes, has long been derided in the west as a propagandist reflex to the rise of social Darwinism when, in fact, this erases a long history of socialist Darwinism thereby casting social Darwinism as the norm.
In addition to exploring Kropotkin’s work, this course will examine whether it makes sense to link these concepts together or whether it is always dangerous to draw political lessons from the natural world. Furthermore, the texts will provide an opportunity to discuss tensions between anarchism and communism, capitalist and Soviet interpretations of evolutionary theory, colonial history as well as other topics. To this end the course will also engage with the portrayal of mutual aid in fictional and speculative realms.
SLK-BA-A-3E-BNAS
(Ergänzungsmodul British und North American Studies)
- Vorlesung – [AmCult - Junker] - Out of Many, One (E Pluribus Unum): US Cultural History and “The American Experiment”
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 70
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This survey lecture course provides an overview of US cultural history from early European colonization to the present day. Adopting a transnational perspective, it surveys crucial sites, periods, and themes central to diverse American experiences. The course investigates dynamics of cultural change by focusing on key moments, figures, and concepts that have shaped the nation’s self-perception. A particular emphasis is placed on the emergence of different ideas of “America” and their shifting meanings for various demographic groups. It examines frictions that result from a differentiation between particular experiences of specific demographic groups and the ideal of one unified “America” that merges differences under the umbrella of one exceptionalist nation. The course conceptualizes “The American Experiment” precisely through these dynamic tensions—as an ongoing, open-ended, contested process of negotiation. Finally, the lecture considers the medial and discursive conditions that shape our understanding of the United States in a globalized world.
The lecture course begins in the first week of the semester.
- Hauptseminar – [AmCult - Junker] - Climate Crisis as a Challenge for the Humanities
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 9.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 2. Doppelstunde BSS/0E41/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This seminar addresses how the climate crisis poses a profound challenge to knowledge, responsibility, and justice within American Cultural Studies. Based on foundational texts in the reader Climate Crisis as a Challenge for the Humanities (ed. Karin Esders, De Gruyter, 2026), the course examines how dominant and counter-hegemonic discourses situate the climate crisis as historically produced and shaped by structural inequality. In doing so, we will address how climatic transformations intersect with colonial legacies, so-called petro-politics, and racial capitalism. The course familiarizes students with key theoretical frameworks in the environmental humanities, focusing centrally on marginalized voices, including from Black, Indigenous, feminist, and decolonial approaches. Additionally, we will analyze artistic interventions and aesthetic strategies across various media—from climate cinema to videogames and narrative media.
This seminar begins in the first week of the semester.
- Hauptseminar – [BritCult - Wächter] - Disability and Madness on Screen
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde VMB/0302/U In Präsenz
- Vorlesung – [BritCult - Wächter] - Critical Disability Studies: From Social Model to Mad and Neurodiversity Paradigms
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- In 2022, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha provocatively titled her monograph The Future Is Disabled, indicating that the issue of disability is by no means only of relevance to those who currently have an impairment. Instead, her work suggests that what she calls “disabled wisdom” or “crip genius” – skills in mutual aid, interdependence and survival developed by communities marginalised (not only by) ableism – is actually essential for everyone as we face global instability and anthropogenic climate change. The question is why such knowledge has as of yet largely been subjugated. This lecture begins by tracing the shift from medicalised deficit models to the social model of disability, which identifies societal barriers and oppression as the primary causes of disablement, to Critical Disability Studies frameworks, which foreground intersectionality, postcolonial perspectives and the various ways in which people are debilitated (Puar). In the second part, we will, more specifically, talk about the interrelation between Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies, the latter prioritising first-person survivor knowledge to challenge the dominance of biomedical psychiatry and investigate the epistemic injustice faced by psychiatrised individuals. We will, moreover, discuss the neurodiversity paradigm, questioning the hegemonic standard of the “neurotypical”.
- Hauptseminar – [BritCult - Wächter] - Totalitarianism and Instrumentarianism in British Fiction
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde ABS/2-07/U In Präsenz
- Hauptseminar – [AmCult - Junker] - The 1920s and 1930s: American Culture from Boom to Bust
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 7. Doppelstunde W48/102 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This seminar explores the dramatic cultural and social transformations of the United States during two pivotal, contrasting decades. We will examine how the euphoric, consumer-driven modernism of the "Roaring Twenties" collided with the profound socioeconomic crises and cultural reorientations of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Investigating a diverse range of cultural artifacts—including literature, film, photography, and music—the course analyzes how Americans negotiated shifting gender roles, racial dynamics (such as the Harlem Renaissance), and class struggles. Special emphasis will be placed on how federal initiatives like the New Deal refashioned notions of national self-identification, labor, and community formation. Ultimately, this course critically interrogates how the cultural production of this era reflected and shaped the turbulent transition from unprecedented prosperity to systemic bust.
The seminar begins in the first week of the semester.
- Vorlesung – [AmLit - Ingwersen] - Issues in North American Literature: Nature and Technology
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- 09.10.2026 ab 11 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 7. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- From Puritan constructions of wilderness to the colonization of Mars, the North American imaginary is fundamentally shaped by ambiguous and interconnected attitudes towards nature and technology. While ideas of “Nature” have been employed to both legitimize Indigenous displacement and anchor American constructions of freedom and self-reliance, visions of technology oscillate between fantasies of techno-utopia and deep-seated anxieties around ecological catastrophe and the disruptions of humanist subjectivity. Sketching a trajectory from the early modern period to the present, this survey lecture offers a framework for understanding the intersection of environmental and technological imaginaries as central to the development of North American literature and key to historicizing the cultural conditions of the Anthropocene. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives from ecocriticism, critical posthumanism, and speculative fiction studies, we will explore the continuities and ruptures that lead from romanticist views of the sublime to Golden Age science fiction, from the figure of the pioneer to the engineer and space cowboy, from the environmental aesthetics of modernism to cyberpunk and ecological entanglement, from the machine age to the technosphere and climate fiction, from the colonial politics of wilderness to environmental justice movements and Indigenous futurism. With examples from a broad range of genres and modes (incl. nonfiction essays, poetry, novels, short stories, film, and music), we will revisit key stages of the North American literary tradition and explore critical dialogues with decolonial and feminist critiques of North American progress narratives and poetics of environmental placemaking.
- Hauptseminar – [AmLit - ingwersen] - Cyberspace, Matrix, Metaverse: The Cyberpunk Roots of the Digital Age
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/101 In Präsenz
- Hauptseminar – [AmLit - Woodard] – Mutual Aid and Mutualism: Evolution, Politics, and Science-Fiction
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 25
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung über OPAL am 09.10.2026 ab 11:00 Uhr
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde BSS/109 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course will look at two intertwined concepts: mutualism ( the biological concept of how species benefit one another in complex ways) and mutual aid (the anarcho-communist organizational principle of sharing resources, knowledge, and capacities as a social ideal). The work of Peter Kropotkin, most famous for bringing together these themes, has long been derided in the west as a propagandist reflex to the rise of social Darwinism when, in fact, this erases a long history of socialist Darwinism thereby casting social Darwinism as the norm.
In addition to exploring Kropotkin’s work, this course will examine whether it makes sense to link these concepts together or whether it is always dangerous to draw political lessons from the natural world. Furthermore, the texts will provide an opportunity to discuss tensions between anarchism and communism, capitalist and Soviet interpretations of evolutionary theory, colonial history as well as other topics. To this end the course will also engage with the portrayal of mutual aid in fictional and speculative realms.
SLK-BA-A-3E-NASS
(Ergänzungsmodul North American Studies und Sprachwissenschaft)
- Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - Language: The first 20 years
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 2. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course will follow our linguistic development from our very first experience with language up to adolescence. We will chart the fascinating and highly complex progress of first language acquisition, a process that comes so naturally to children but is still a mystery in many respects. Some of us grow up in a multilingual environment and may acquire several languages. Later, the impact of the peer group kicks in and gives rise to a range of distinct youth styles: We will treat the linguistic choices of Jocks and Burnouts, Nerd Girls and Frat Boys, street gangs and young urban professionals. Finally, we will inquire into the status or stability of the language in our youth over time.
- Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - English in South Asia: Past, present, and future
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- English in India is firmly established as the country’s associate official language, as the official language of many regional states, and as the inter- and intranational link language for a speech community that massively outnumbers other ‘native’ speakers. This course will trace the development of English in India from its modest beginnings as one colonial traders’ language among many to its entrenchment across the whole of South Asia. We will also consider the shorter history of English in Sri Lanka. We will further be concerned with colonial language policy, language conflicts relating to the role of English, and English education in India and Sri Lanka past and present. We will of course also get to know in more detail the actual features of Indian and Sri Lankan English.
- Vorlesung – [AmCult - Junker] - Out of Many, One (E Pluribus Unum): US Cultural History and “The American Experiment”
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 70
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This survey lecture course provides an overview of US cultural history from early European colonization to the present day. Adopting a transnational perspective, it surveys crucial sites, periods, and themes central to diverse American experiences. The course investigates dynamics of cultural change by focusing on key moments, figures, and concepts that have shaped the nation’s self-perception. A particular emphasis is placed on the emergence of different ideas of “America” and their shifting meanings for various demographic groups. It examines frictions that result from a differentiation between particular experiences of specific demographic groups and the ideal of one unified “America” that merges differences under the umbrella of one exceptionalist nation. The course conceptualizes “The American Experiment” precisely through these dynamic tensions—as an ongoing, open-ended, contested process of negotiation. Finally, the lecture considers the medial and discursive conditions that shape our understanding of the United States in a globalized world.
The lecture course begins in the first week of the semester.
- Hauptseminar – [AmCult - Junker] - Climate Crisis as a Challenge for the Humanities
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 9.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 2. Doppelstunde BSS/0E41/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This seminar addresses how the climate crisis poses a profound challenge to knowledge, responsibility, and justice within American Cultural Studies. Based on foundational texts in the reader Climate Crisis as a Challenge for the Humanities (ed. Karin Esders, De Gruyter, 2026), the course examines how dominant and counter-hegemonic discourses situate the climate crisis as historically produced and shaped by structural inequality. In doing so, we will address how climatic transformations intersect with colonial legacies, so-called petro-politics, and racial capitalism. The course familiarizes students with key theoretical frameworks in the environmental humanities, focusing centrally on marginalized voices, including from Black, Indigenous, feminist, and decolonial approaches. Additionally, we will analyze artistic interventions and aesthetic strategies across various media—from climate cinema to videogames and narrative media.
This seminar begins in the first week of the semester.
- Hauptseminar – [AmCult - Junker] - The 1920s and 1930s: American Culture from Boom to Bust
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Carsten Junker
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 12:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 7. Doppelstunde W48/102 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This seminar explores the dramatic cultural and social transformations of the United States during two pivotal, contrasting decades. We will examine how the euphoric, consumer-driven modernism of the "Roaring Twenties" collided with the profound socioeconomic crises and cultural reorientations of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Investigating a diverse range of cultural artifacts—including literature, film, photography, and music—the course analyzes how Americans negotiated shifting gender roles, racial dynamics (such as the Harlem Renaissance), and class struggles. Special emphasis will be placed on how federal initiatives like the New Deal refashioned notions of national self-identification, labor, and community formation. Ultimately, this course critically interrogates how the cultural production of this era reflected and shaped the turbulent transition from unprecedented prosperity to systemic bust.
The seminar begins in the first week of the semester.
- Vorlesung – [AmLit - Ingwersen] - Issues in North American Literature: Nature and Technology
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 80
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- 09.10.2026 ab 11 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 7. Doppelstunde W48/003 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- From Puritan constructions of wilderness to the colonization of Mars, the North American imaginary is fundamentally shaped by ambiguous and interconnected attitudes towards nature and technology. While ideas of “Nature” have been employed to both legitimize Indigenous displacement and anchor American constructions of freedom and self-reliance, visions of technology oscillate between fantasies of techno-utopia and deep-seated anxieties around ecological catastrophe and the disruptions of humanist subjectivity. Sketching a trajectory from the early modern period to the present, this survey lecture offers a framework for understanding the intersection of environmental and technological imaginaries as central to the development of North American literature and key to historicizing the cultural conditions of the Anthropocene. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives from ecocriticism, critical posthumanism, and speculative fiction studies, we will explore the continuities and ruptures that lead from romanticist views of the sublime to Golden Age science fiction, from the figure of the pioneer to the engineer and space cowboy, from the environmental aesthetics of modernism to cyberpunk and ecological entanglement, from the machine age to the technosphere and climate fiction, from the colonial politics of wilderness to environmental justice movements and Indigenous futurism. With examples from a broad range of genres and modes (incl. nonfiction essays, poetry, novels, short stories, film, and music), we will revisit key stages of the North American literary tradition and explore critical dialogues with decolonial and feminist critiques of North American progress narratives and poetics of environmental placemaking.
- Hauptseminar – [AmLit - ingwersen] - Cyberspace, Matrix, Metaverse: The Cyberpunk Roots of the Digital Age
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 30
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- OPAL ab 09.10.2026 11:00 Uhr
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/101 In Präsenz
- Hauptseminar – [AmLit - Woodard] – Mutual Aid and Mutualism: Evolution, Politics, and Science-Fiction
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Moritz Ingwersen
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 25
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung über OPAL am 09.10.2026 ab 11:00 Uhr
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde BSS/109 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course will look at two intertwined concepts: mutualism ( the biological concept of how species benefit one another in complex ways) and mutual aid (the anarcho-communist organizational principle of sharing resources, knowledge, and capacities as a social ideal). The work of Peter Kropotkin, most famous for bringing together these themes, has long been derided in the west as a propagandist reflex to the rise of social Darwinism when, in fact, this erases a long history of socialist Darwinism thereby casting social Darwinism as the norm.
In addition to exploring Kropotkin’s work, this course will examine whether it makes sense to link these concepts together or whether it is always dangerous to draw political lessons from the natural world. Furthermore, the texts will provide an opportunity to discuss tensions between anarchism and communism, capitalist and Soviet interpretations of evolutionary theory, colonial history as well as other topics. To this end the course will also engage with the portrayal of mutual aid in fictional and speculative realms.
SLK-BA-A-3E-BSS
(Ergänzungsmodul British Studies und Sprachwissenschaft)
- Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - Language: The first 20 years
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 2. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course will follow our linguistic development from our very first experience with language up to adolescence. We will chart the fascinating and highly complex progress of first language acquisition, a process that comes so naturally to children but is still a mystery in many respects. Some of us grow up in a multilingual environment and may acquire several languages. Later, the impact of the peer group kicks in and gives rise to a range of distinct youth styles: We will treat the linguistic choices of Jocks and Burnouts, Nerd Girls and Frat Boys, street gangs and young urban professionals. Finally, we will inquire into the status or stability of the language in our youth over time.
- Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - English in South Asia: Past, present, and future
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 4. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- English in India is firmly established as the country’s associate official language, as the official language of many regional states, and as the inter- and intranational link language for a speech community that massively outnumbers other ‘native’ speakers. This course will trace the development of English in India from its modest beginnings as one colonial traders’ language among many to its entrenchment across the whole of South Asia. We will also consider the shorter history of English in Sri Lanka. We will further be concerned with colonial language policy, language conflicts relating to the role of English, and English education in India and Sri Lanka past and present. We will of course also get to know in more detail the actual features of Indian and Sri Lankan English.
- Hauptseminar – [BritCult - Wächter] - Disability and Madness on Screen
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde VMB/0302/U In Präsenz
- Vorlesung – [BritCult - Wächter] - Critical Disability Studies: From Social Model to Mad and Neurodiversity Paradigms
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 6. Doppelstunde W48/0004/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- In 2022, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha provocatively titled her monograph The Future Is Disabled, indicating that the issue of disability is by no means only of relevance to those who currently have an impairment. Instead, her work suggests that what she calls “disabled wisdom” or “crip genius” – skills in mutual aid, interdependence and survival developed by communities marginalised (not only by) ableism – is actually essential for everyone as we face global instability and anthropogenic climate change. The question is why such knowledge has as of yet largely been subjugated. This lecture begins by tracing the shift from medicalised deficit models to the social model of disability, which identifies societal barriers and oppression as the primary causes of disablement, to Critical Disability Studies frameworks, which foreground intersectionality, postcolonial perspectives and the various ways in which people are debilitated (Puar). In the second part, we will, more specifically, talk about the interrelation between Critical Disability Studies and Mad Studies, the latter prioritising first-person survivor knowledge to challenge the dominance of biomedical psychiatry and investigate the epistemic injustice faced by psychiatrised individuals. We will, moreover, discuss the neurodiversity paradigm, questioning the hegemonic standard of the “neurotypical”.
- Hauptseminar – [BritCult - Wächter] - Totalitarianism and Instrumentarianism in British Fiction
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wächter
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde ABS/2-07/U In Präsenz
SLK-BA-A-2V-S
(Vertiefungsmodul – Sprachwissenschaft)
- Proseminar – [Ling - Lange] - Linguistics goes to the movies
- Lehrperson
-
- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Mittwoch 3. Doppelstunde W48/001 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Linguists have more fun at the movies – after this course, you will be able to spot and enjoy the linguistically relevant aspects even in films that consist mainly of car chases. This course will introduce you to different aspects of language use in film, or telecinematic discourse. We will investigate how specific ways of using language(s) shape our perception of movie characters, for example nonstandard dialects, switching between different languages, politeness and impoliteness, swearing, and other expressive devices that are abundant in a good film plot.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Leuckert] - English in North America
- Lehrperson
-
- Dr. Sven Leuckert
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Montag 4. Doppelstunde W48/0101/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- English in North America has become the dominant language of popular media, but it is also characterised by a surprising amount of diversity. In addition to a more standard-like General American English, there are many regional varieties, such as African American Vernacular English, New York City English, Chicano English, and many others.
In this class, we will first trace the history of English in North America and discuss how the relation of English to indigenous languages has developed over time. We will then highlight a set of different varieties of American English and their linguistic features before moving on to what has been called the ‘Americanisation’ of Englishes around the world. As part of the class, we will also consider the representation of varieties of American English in the media (for instance in song lyrics and movies), which has had a significant impact on how English is talked about and learned in different parts of the world.
As part of this class, all students will be required to come up with, carry out, and present an individual research project. While the tools for doing so will be provided in class, please be prepared to work actively.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Leuckert] - Linguistics in the Classroom
- Lehrperson
-
- Dr. Sven Leuckert
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 40
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
-
Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung – – W48/ABS/HSZ In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This class is an opportunity for aspiring teachers of English, but also for students of other degrees, to deal with the question of how and why linguistic knowledge may effectively be used to enrich the English-language classroom – but also to discuss what we can learn about language acquisition and teacher-student interaction from linguistics.
At the end of the seminar, you will be able to assess the potential of linguistics in teaching, to present and shape linguistic topics according to the needs of your audience, and to understand which linguistic processes are of relevance in the English-language classroom.
All students participating in this class will be required to prepare a mock lesson on a linguistic topic. While the tools for doing so will be provided in class, please be prepared to work actively.
The dates for this class are as follows:
• 8 January 2027.: 11:10-14:30
• 22 January 2027: 11:10-14:30
• 8 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 9 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 10 February 2027: 10:00-15:00
• 11 February 2027: 10:00-13:00
Please keep in mind that missing sessions in this class will hinder your progress and your ability to contribute in a meaningful way. Thus, if you know in advance that you will be unable to participate in several sessions, please consider enrolling in a different class.
- Proseminar – [Ling - Eichhorn] The Art of Translation
- Lehrperson
-
- Martin Eichhorn
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 35
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Beschreibung
- What is translation? The answer seems simple: It is a transfer of words from one language into another. If it was that easy a task, the results of machine translated texts would not leave us puzzled, only “understanding railway station”. Thus, this seemingly simple question we will try to answer in the course of this seminar – and we might come to realise that it is everything but simple. In order to do so, it shall be explained what translation actually is and how its understanding and practice has developed over time. We will also look critically into the different approaches towards translation and the respective vastness of theories. Additionally, we will also investigate the manifold linguistic as well as cultural stumbling blocks of translating texts. These linguistic peculiarities are especially a challenge for the many attempts of successful machine translation which we will also critically analyse and evaluate. A final outlook into the presentation of translation in science-fiction will then conclude the seminar with an imaginary future outlook.
Note: In order to participate in in-class exercises, command of the German language is mandatory.
- Proseminar – [BritLit - Röber, Ling - Eichhorn] – An Adventurer Like You: Video Games, Language and Literature(s)
- Lehrpersonen
-
- Martin Eichhorn
- Franziska Röber
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 60
- Einschreibung
-
- Einschreibung über
- Einschreibung: Linguistik (Eichhorn) ab 09.10.2026, 10 Uhr bei OPAL; BritLit (Röber) ab 09.10.2026, 11 Uhr bei OPAL
- Termine
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Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 5. Doppelstunde W48/004 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- Video games have been dismissed as trivial, childish, or nerdy and regarded as a marginal form of entertainment. Yet such dismissals are increasingly untenable. As of 2024, video games constitute one of the fastest-growing global entertainment markets, drawing not only substantial financial investment but also significant amounts of players. Far from peripheral, games now shape cultural life in ways comparable to film, television, and literature.
Despite this growing cultural weight, video games remain comparatively underexamined within academic research. This seminar seeks to redress that imbalance. Together, we will approach video games in an academic context, asking what kinds of questions literature and linguistics in particular can bring to the study of games.
Our work will be structured around two primary perspectives. First, we will approach games as texts, not only in terms of how they tell stories, but also in relation to their underlying structures and modes of interaction. Second, we will consider the broader cultural negotiations that games stage: questions of identity, gender, sexuality, memory, history, and the shaping of cultural spaces and practices.
Alongside literary and cultural approaches, we will also attend to the linguistic dimensions of video games. They generate new forms of digital discourse, draw on and reshape narrative conventions, and foster interactive communication between players and game worlds as well as among player communities. Thus, video games open up fertile ground for linguistic inquiry – inviting us to consider how language both reflects and produces meaning in digital spaces. - Literatur
- All required materials will be provided at the beginning of the semester via OPAL.
SLK-BA-A-3-SPLC2
(Sprachpraxis – Language Creativity)
- Sprachlernseminar – Option Links Abroad
- Lehrperson
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- Marc Lalonde
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
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- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
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- Termine
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Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Freitag 3. Doppelstunde BSS/109 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course is offered as an Option course to both B.A. and State Exam candidates and also as an extra voluntary course to any students who feel they need extra support. Foreign exchange students of English are very welcome. The course will analyse the typical errors made by learners in spoken and written English. The course will also try to establish the strengths and weaknesses of each participant and then suggest strategies and provide materials to help overcome any problems. The course will involve discussion topics based on reading texts, exercises in grammar, pronunciation/intonation and vocabulary, as well as writing assignments. Regular participation and the fulfilling of homework assignments are of utmost importance. Materials: The Mistakes Clinic by G. Parkes (please bring €12.50 to the first meeting) Course materials should be purchased at EMF Bürotechnik, Zellescher Weg 21, 01217 Dresden. Please bring these materials to the first meeting. Prerequisites: 1: the Entry Test must have been passed. 2: the courses in Pronunciation and Intonation, Grammar, and Vocabulary must have been completed.
- Sprachlernseminar – Option: Error Analysis
- Lehrperson
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- Michael Calabranno Pérez
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 11
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Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung – – Hybrid – – In Präsenz Dienstag 2. Doppelstunde W48/0003/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course is offered as an Option course to both B.A. and State Exam candidates and also as an extra voluntary course to any students who feel they need extra support. Foreign exchange students of English are very welcome. The course will analyse the typical errors made by learners in spoken and written English. It will also try to establish the strengths and weaknesses of each participant and then suggest strategies and provide materials to help overcome any problems. The course will involve exercises in grammar, pronunciation/intonation and vocabulary. Regular participation and the fulfilling of homework assignments are of utmost importance. Materials: The Mistakes Clinic by G. Parkes (€12.50 - can be bought during the first meeting); further materials will be provided on OPAL. Prerequisites: 1: the Entry Test must have been passed. 2: the courses in Pronunciation and Intonation, Grammar, and Vocabulary must have been completed.
Online mit Live Sessions am 13.Oktober 2026 & 08.Dezember 2026 jeweils um 16:40 in SE1-209 oder auf ZOOM sowie am 19. Januar 2027 um 16:40 nur in SE1-209. Klausur am 02. Februar 2027 um 16:40 in SE1-209. - Literatur
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- „The Mistakes Clinic by G. Parkes (€12.50 - can be bought from Christin Bartossek, Wiener Straße 48, room 3.03. Please make an appointment via: christin.bartossek@tu-dresden.de
- Online mit Live Sessions am 13.Oktober 2026 & 08. Dezember 2026 jeweils um 16:40 in SE1-209 oder auf ZOOM sowie am 19. Januar 2027 um 16:40 nur in SE1-209. Klausur am 02. Februar 2027 um 16:40 in SE1-209.
- Sprachlernseminar – Option: Creative Writing
- Lehrperson
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- Michael Calabranno Pérez
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
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- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
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Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 2. Doppelstunde SE1-218 In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course is offered as an Option course to both B.A. and State Exam candidates and also as an extra voluntary course to any other students. Foreign exchange students of English are very welcome. The course will be a workshop for the writing of creative texts of different sorts, whereby the focus is on creativity. Regular participation and the fulfilling of homework assignments are of utmost importance. Materials will be provided on OPAL. Prerequisites: 1: the Entry Test must have been passed. 2: the courses in Pronunciation and Intonation, Grammar, and Vocabulary must have been completed.
- Sprachlernseminar – Option Links Abroad
- Lehrperson
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- Marc Lalonde
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 22
- Einschreibung
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- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
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Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Donnerstag 3. Doppelstunde BSS/0109/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course is offered as an Option course to both B.A. and State Exam candidates and also as an extra voluntary course to any students who feel they need extra support. Foreign exchange students of English are very welcome. The course will analyse the typical errors made by learners in spoken and written English. The course will also try to establish the strengths and weaknesses of each participant and then suggest strategies and provide materials to help overcome any problems. The course will involve discussion topics based on reading texts, exercises in grammar, pronunciation/intonation and vocabulary, as well as writing assignments. Regular participation and the fulfilling of homework assignments are of utmost importance. Materials: The Mistakes Clinic by G. Parkes (please bring €12.50 to the first meeting) Course materials should be purchased at EMF Bürotechnik, Zellescher Weg 21, 01217 Dresden. Please bring these materials to the first meeting. Prerequisites: 1: the Entry Test must have been passed. 2: the courses in Pronunciation and Intonation, Grammar, and Vocabulary must have been completed.
- Sprachlernseminar – Option: Theatre Workshop
- Lehrperson
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- Marc Lalonde
- Maximale Teilnehmeranzahl
- 15
- Einschreibung
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- Einschreibung über
- Über URL einschreiben
- Einschreibefrist
- Ab
- Termine
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Wochentag Uhrzeit Ort Durchführung Dienstag 2. Doppelstunde SE2/0102/U In Präsenz Dienstag 4. Doppelstunde BZW/B101/U In Präsenz Donnerstag 4. Doppelstunde BSS/0149/U In Präsenz - Beschreibung
- This course is offered as an Option course to both B.A. and State Exam candidates and also as an extra voluntary course to any students who feel they need some extra support. Foreign exchange students of English are very welcome. In this course we will be practising some basic play-writing, acting and directing techniques, as well as pronunciation, intonation and voice projection. A presentation in the form of a public performance will be organised for the end of the semester. Prerequisites: 1: the Entry Test must have been passed. 2: the courses in Pronunciation and Intonation, Grammar, and Vocabulary must have been completed.