Vorlesungsverzeichnis

Imagined Geography: Strange places and people in 19th and 20th century literature (Seminar)

Dozent/in: Emer O'Sullivan

Termin:
wöchentlich | Dienstag | 14:15 - 15:45 | 06.04.2020 - 10.07.2020 | C 5.310 Seminarraum

Inhalt: Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726), amongst the first novels ever written, inspired two major narrative traditions in relation to portraying strange places and people: adventure stories set in exotic locations but told in a realistic mode, and fantastic journeys to invented realms. Since then, representations of the foreign, the exotic, both in the form of invented places but also in the form of imaginated discourse on purportedly real places and people, have been central elements in narrative fiction, and it is these that this seminar will examine. Guided by theoretical approaches furnished by imagology, theories of representation, postcolonialism, and the spatial turn in cultural studies, we will examine representations of imaginary and purportedly real foreign people and places in literary texts from different traditions such as travel literature, fantasy, and children’s literature, from early 19th century ABC books, through late 19th century board games and books inspired by Jules Verne’s journey around the world in 80 days, 20th century atlases of imaginary worlds, postmodern simulacra and contemporary texts in which foreign locations are given a playful, performative treatment.

• Leuphana Bachelor - Major Kulturwissenschaften - Literarische Grenzüberschreitungen