Information for guest auditors
| Expected number of participants: |
|---|
| 24 |
| Time: |
| Tuesday: 14:00 - 16:00, weekly (from 15/10/24), Location: A15 1-113, V03 0-C001 |
| Location: |
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| Pre-requisites: |
| Note on participation: |
| Die Veranstaltung wird in englischer Sprache gehalten. Sichere Beherrschung des Englischen auf dem CEF-Niveau C1 ist erforderlich. |
| Content: |
| Since the 2000s, stories about Salem’s witch trials have undergone a remarkable renaissance. In their contemporary re-narrations of often powerful female protagonists, women authors in particular have re-appropriated the figure of the witch in postmodernist contexts. However, revisionist fiction about Salem’s infamous events can be traced back not only to America’s early historiography but also to the historical fiction of nineteenth-century men and women writers. In this course, we will study five examples of revisionist novels about the Salem witchcraft trials by women authors from different centuries and literary periods. We will focus on questions of representation, cultural memory, cultural myths and their revision. How do these novels represent and, thus, produce the her- and history of the trials? What new light do their narrations and artistic choices throw on this infamous chapter of America's colonial past? What contemporary concerns inform these representations? What are the functions that these revisions ascribe to the figure of the witch? And how does the revisionist storytelling by these women writers comment on American historiography, cultural myth and memory? Please read the following novels: - Eliza Buckminster Lee, Delusion; Or The Witch of New England (1840): https://archive.org/details/delusionorwitcho00leee_0/page/n5/mode/2up. - Elizabeth Gaskell, Lois the Witch (1859): https://archive.org/details/loiswitchandoth00gaskgoog/page/n6/mode/2up. - Esther Forbes, A Mirror for Witches (1928): https://archive.org/details/mirrorforwitches0000esth/page/n5/mode/2up. Please purchase and read (no specific edition is required): - Maryse Condé, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem (1986), transl. by Richard Philcox (1992). - Brunonia Barry, The Lace Reader (2006). Course requirements: Active participation and regular attendance (see syllabus on Stud.IP). |
| Teaching language: |
| englisch |
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