Victorian Classics Rewritten - Einzelansicht

What happens to such cherished Victorian classics as Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray or Lewis Carroll's Alice books when they fall into the hands of hip young writers of our own time? How does a feminist version of R.L. Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde read? And, more generally, to what effects do contemporary British writers go back to 19th-century texts and rewrite them? Focusing on three revisions of popular classics, we will not only examine how the respective texts revise, modify or deliberately distort the originals they hark back to; we will also engage with some general theoretical aspects of intertextuality and cultural recycling. 

Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorain Gray (Penguin Classics 2003; intr. Robert Mighall)

Will Self: Dorian (Penguin 2003)

Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass (Oxford World Classics 1998; intr. Roger L. Green)

Jeff Noon: Automated Alice (Transworld Publ. 2000)

Robert Louis Stevenson: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Penguin Classics 2002; intr. Robert Mighall)

Emma Tennant: Two Women of London (Faber & Faber); also in Emma Tennant: Travesties (Faber & Faber 1995)

Ideally, this should be a face-to-face course under G3/G2 conditions. However, due to the hygiene regulations in force and the shortage of large enough rooms on campus, this will at best be possible on an alternating basis, in which the seminar group will be divided into two sub-groups that will meet alternately every two weeks on site. Accordingly, the seminar programme will include an increased amount of self-study, especially in the form of a substantial reading workload. Moreover, participants are expected to contribute to moodle forums to ensure a continuous discussion among the whole seminar group.

On account of the extensive reading assignment it is advisable that participants will already have read The Picture of Dorian Gray and Lewis Carroll's Alice books by the beginning of term.  

N.B.: Whether or not the seminar structure above can be implemented at all is contingent on the dynamics of the pandemic and the concomitant regulations and restrictions. Updates and further information will be made available here as soon as possible.

3 CPs non-graded for

* regular attendance and active participation by contributing to at least two forum sessions;

*a response paper (1000 words) to be submitted at the end of the semester.

3 CPs graded for

* regular attendance and active participation by contributing to at least two forum sessions;

* a critical bibliography of one novel to be sumitted by March 1, 2022;

* a response paper (1000 words) to be submitted at the end of the semester.