| Bemerkung |
M.R. James (1862-1936) was a prominent academic, an expert on the Middle Ages. He held important posts such as provost, i.e. head of King’s College, Cambridge, and later provost of Eton. He was also extremely good at writing ghost stories which are still very much worth reading today. He took Gothic literature to a new level, creating ghost stories that are widely regarded as being among the best ever written in the English language. His work could be described as “Gothic Academia”, as many of his characters encountering the supernatural are professors, perhaps hoping to enjoy peaceful holidays away from their university, when suddenly … well, we shall see what precisely happens to them. I can promise it will be rather scary.
We are going to find out what makes a good ghost story, and why this genre flourished in late Victorian times. We are going to learn a great deal about the art of storytelling in general. M.R. James read his stories aloud by candlelight to students and friends. Many of them were written as Christmas entertainments. In order to find out how this sort of performance affects the reception of such texts, we shall try to re-create this sort of setting, sometimes reading aloud by candlelight in an otherwise entirely dark seminar room. (Ok, by the light of LED candles, so as not to set off our smoke alarms.) It is worth bearing in mind that the art of reading aloud in a captivating manner is an important skill for future teachers, so this is very much worth doing. Working on late Victorian or slightly later ghost stories goes well with a digital de-tox approach, so we shall experiment with sessions in which no digital devices will be used at all. Therefore, you absolutely need to have an actual book and an actual pencil. Please buy: M. R. James, Collected Ghost Stories (Oxford World’s Classics), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0199674893.
Requirements: Good preparation for each session, active participation, and a willingness to work with a book and a pencil and to explore what you can do with your voice. As always: read, think, enjoy (!), annotate, and look things up if necessary. Also: written work or oral exam according to your particular Studienordnung.
Just in case your application is rejected by the LSF system: If you want to do this course because you are genuinely interested, you will be most welcome, no matter what LSF says. Please get in touch with aj.naujoks-sprengel@uni-due.de who will enrol you manually. The worst that might happen to you is that you cannot do a Leistungsnachweis if you lack the formal requirements. |
