Summer Semester 2026
Lecture - The Literature of Sensibility
No specific time (videocast); two non-mandatory Zoom meetings Fri 9-10
The eighteenth century saw the rise of sensibility (Empfindsamkeit in German), a movement based on empathy, good nature and a benevolent attitude to our neighbours. Sensibility has often been dismissed as sentimental emotionalism, but it has been going surprisingly strong ever since its beginnings about three hundred years ago, surfacing in today’s culture primarily in advertising and film. The lecture will focus on literary works from the eighteenth century, including masterpieces like Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, while also analysing the presence of sensibility in related cultural fields such as philosophy or painting. Other topics to be dealt with include the backlash against sensibility (how did such authors as Richard Sheridan or Jane Austen make fun if it?), the politics of sensibility (was it conservative or progressive?) and the origin of sensibility (where did it come from?). The lecture will be offered as a videocast with two additional Zoom sessions (not mandatory), in which students will have a chance to ask questions.
Assessment/requirements: reading a selection of texts; oral or written exam.
Übung - Canadian Short Stories
This course has a double aim: students should become familiar with characteristic themes and motifs of Canadian Literature and improve their skills in analysing fiction in general. We will read one story per week, focusing on structural aspects such as setting, narrator, point of view or beginnings, and on thematic aspects such as gender, survival in a hostile natural environment or family dynamics. Writers to be discussed will include Margaret Atwood, Jack Hodgins, Stephen Leacock and Alice Munro, but the precise choice of writers and stories will be made during the break. There will also be a focus on academic writing; students will have to hand in written assignments throughout the semester instead of writing a paper after the course is over.
Required texts: the short stories will be provided in the Moodle course.
Requirements: active participation; writing assignments throughout the semester.
Seminar - Satire in the Long Eighteenth Century
The eighteenth century saw the rise of sensibility (Empfindsamkeit in German), which is based on empathy, good nature and a benevolent attitude to our neighbours. However, the eighteenth century was also the golden age of English satire, which is based on suspicion, indignation, and a critical attitude to the human species. In the seminar we will analyse major examples of eighteenth-century satire, including Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, as well as shorter texts by the Earl of Rochester, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. We will discuss definitions of satire, establish its key features, identify its political and social values, and discuss the puzzling question of its co-existence with the literature of sensibility, which flourished at roughly the same time (students may consider taking the seminar in connection with the same teacher’s lecture on “The Literature of Sensibility”).
Required text: the Penguin edition of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (ISBN 9780141439495). Other texts will be provided by way of Moodle.
Requirements for seminar (5 CP): participation in expert group and research paper; for Übung (3 CP): participation in expert group and short paper.
Seminar - Contemporary British and Irish Novels
This course is meant to provide an overview of the contemporary novel in Britain and Ireland. Each week, one student will give a thirty-minute presentation that contains a reading of or an argument on a novel of their choice; the other students will have to prepare by reading a 20-page excerpt chosen by the presenter. Students who would like to participate should contact the teacher as early as possible (if you are not sure about the choice of a novel, I will offer suggestions).
Required texts: the excerpts from the novels chosen by the presenters will be provided in Moodle.
Requirements for an Übung (3 CP): presentation; for a seminar (5 CP): presentation plus paper.