32116
Hauptseminar
WiSe 23/24: The American Campus: Space, Narrative, Media
Karin Höpker, Alexander Starre
Kommentar
The American college campus has always been more than an architectural space. Over the course of its historical
development, it has encoded forms of an idealized national community and various utopian social visions. -----
Whether it’s the latest US Supreme Court decision on affirmative action, public debates over legacy systems and
student loans, or the latest celebrity admissions scandal, the field of US higher education has seen fierce struggles
over class, race, and gender, over white privilege, modes of inclusion and exclusion, and the affordances of
education. This course will delve into the imaginaries of the American college campus by surveying representations
of student life and the academic workplace in novels, in films, and in TV series. As a genre, campus fiction has
historically been the site of academic self-reflection and criticism, oscillating between nostalgia and satire. We
will analyze and discuss how, within the social microcosm of the fictional campus, conflicting ideas of pedagogy and
knowledge production clash and traditional narratives of meritocracy and individualism are thrown into question. -----
Our conceptual framings will include the history and development of American higher education, the recent rise of
“critical university studies,” as well as the ongoing campus culture wars, which are often fueled by conservative and
right-wing media. Class readings/viewings will include the campus novels White Noise (1985) by Don DeLillo and Real
Life (2020) by Brandon Taylor, the film Dear White People (2014), and the Netflix series The Chair (2021). Additional
readings will be shared via BlackBoard, with room for student interests and preferences.
Schließen
16 Termine
Regelmäßige Termine der Lehrveranstaltung
Di, 17.10.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 24.10.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 31.10.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 07.11.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 14.11.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 21.11.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 28.11.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 05.12.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 12.12.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 19.12.2023 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 09.01.2024 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 16.01.2024 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 23.01.2024 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 30.01.2024 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 06.02.2024 18:00 - 20:00
Di, 13.02.2024 18:00 - 20:00