Prof. Dr. Fritz Gutbrodt

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

This seminar will focus on narratives about doubles or doppelgänger, an English loanword from German to describe the ghostly double of a living person. While doubles have always played an important role in popular imagination, they became most prominent in Romanticism. Prompted by the term of the doppelgänger, we will read E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Der Sandmann” (German and English), which provides a basis for our discussion of Freud’s essay on “The Uncanny / Das Unheimliche” as one of the theoretical texts informing the topic. Other texts to be discussed are from English literature. We will focus on Romanticism and its monstrous Other (Shelley’s Frankenstein and Poe’s tales such as “William Wilson”), on the Victorian struggle between the good and evil self (Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), on aesthetics or aestheticism as a crisis of identity (Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray), and on some (post-)modern confusions (Nabokov’s Despair and Auster’s City of Glass). The final schedule will be presented at the Vorbesprechung. The seminar is designed for students of English Literature; students of Comparative Literature are also welcome.

Wann: Di 16:15-18:00 / Beginn: 20.03.2007
Wo: wird noch bekanntgegeben

Vorbesprechung: 31. Januar 2007, 13:15 Uhr, Zimmer 102 des Englischen Seminars