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Seminar: 10-76-3-D1/WD1-04 Key Topics in Literature and Culture: The Gothic and Sensation in Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Culture - Details

Seminar: 10-76-3-D1/WD1-04 Key Topics in Literature and Culture: The Gothic and Sensation in Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Culture - Details

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Veranstaltungsname Seminar: 10-76-3-D1/WD1-04 Key Topics in Literature and Culture: The Gothic and Sensation in Nineteenth-Century British Literature and Culture
Untertitel
Veranstaltungsnummer 10-76-3-D1/WD1-04
Semester WiSe 2025/2026
Aktuelle Anzahl der Teilnehmenden 41
erwartete Teilnehmendenanzahl 35
Heimat-Einrichtung Anglistik/Amerikanistik
Veranstaltungstyp Seminar in der Kategorie Lehre
Nächster Termin Dienstag, 09.12.2025 16:15 - 17:45, Ort: MZH 1460
Art/Form
Englischsprachige Veranstaltung Ja
Veranstaltung für ältere Erwachsene Ja

Räume und Zeiten

MZH 1460
Dienstag: 16:15 - 17:45, wöchentlich (14x)

Modulzuordnungen

Kommentar/Beschreibung

Course description:
Even though the gothic originates in the eighteenth century, with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) as the first text to call itself “A Gothic Story” in its subtitle, it is around the turn of the nineteenth century that the gothic suddenly gains in popularity, above all with a female readership. Even though it was criticised, looked down upon, and satirised for its sensationalism, the gothic remained an influential genre throughout the century and well until today. In the course of the nineteenth century, it significantly influenced the main Victorian genre, realism, and many realist novels, such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and different novels by Charles Dickens contain gothic elements and scenes. Towards the mid-century, the gothic developed into a new genre, sensation fiction, but re-asserted itself in more clearly gothic form in the 1890s. It remains a profoundly influential mode in contemporary literature, film, and culture more generally.
In this seminar, we will explore the evolution of the gothic across the nineteenth century. We will focus on three central texts in order to tease out continuities and developments: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). Together, we will consider several questions, such as whether there is a specific gothic/sensation aesthetics, why the gothic and sensation might have been so attractive for female readers and authors, why these modes were frowned upon, what role specific landscapes and environments play for the gothic and sensation fiction, and how ‘the other’ and the exotic feature in the gothic.

Reading: Please buy the following texts, which have been ordered by the university bookshop deinunibuch.
Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret (1862)
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)
Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)
Preferred editions are Penguin Classics, Oxford World’s Classics, and Norton Critical Editions. In any case, please buy an edition that contains an introduction and explanatory notes. No digital editions, please. Copies have been ordered by the Universitätsbuchhandlung Bremen, on campus.

!!! Important note on course preparation: As is normally the case with nineteenth-century literature, the texts are relatively long, so please plan enough time for reading. We will read the texts in this order: Shelley – Braddon – Stoker. This means that all students should have read Frankenstein by the time the course starts, though knowledge of all texts at this stage will, of course, be an advantage.

Anmeldemodus

Die Auswahl der Teilnehmenden wird nach der Eintragung manuell vorgenommen.

Nutzer/-innen, die sich für diese Veranstaltung eintragen möchten, erhalten nähere Hinweise und können sich dann noch gegen eine Teilnahme entscheiden.