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The Americas/Las Américas (Master of Arts) >>
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Politics and Aesthetics of Sleep (AE_HSPolS)
- Dozent/in
- Marius Henderson, M.A.
- Angaben
- Hauptseminar
Online 2 SWS, ECTS-Studium, Sprache Englisch
Zeit: Di 16:15 - 17:45
- Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches
- Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all winter term classes will be taught online.
Das Hauptseminar gehört in folgenden Studiengängen jeweils zu folgenden Modulen:
MA North American Studies - Culture and Literature: Modul 7,8
MA The Americas / Las Américas: Modul 3b,4
MA Literaturstudien - intermedial und interkulturell: Modul 4,5,7,8
Lehramt Englisch an Gymnasien: Hauptmodul L-GYM Literature (Zulassungsvoraussetzung: Zwischenmodul L-GYM Literature)
BA English and American Studies: Hauptmodul A
Für BA-Studierende ist an diesen Kurs eine Independent Study Group angeschlossen.
- Inhalt
- "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" (Billie Eilish 2019). The title of popular musician Billie Eilish's immensely successful album raises a question which will also be of concern to this seminar, which, as the seminar title already indicates, seeks to inquire into politics and aesthetics of sleep. Yet, in order to be more fitting as a guiding question for the seminar, this question could be reformulated in the following way: "When We All Fall Asleep, What Do We Do?" Thus, this seminar will discuss critical theoretical conceptualizations and aesthetic renditions of sleep that treat sleep as a somewhat performative and historically conditioned doing, as a cultural technique, and not as an ahistorical, naturalized given. Our discussion of sleep as a mode of doing, however, will also take into consideration theorizations of sleep as a radical undoing of agency and autonomy, as foundational aspects of hegemonic Western conceptualizations of subjectivity. Moreover, under contemporary neoliberal capitalist conditions the practice of sleep seemingly undermines the normative call for permanent productivity and rational self-optimization, as theorists such as Jonathan Crary argue. At the same time, a 'sleep industry' appears to have emerged which markets an array of services and products aimed at the enhancement of sleep quality. We will examine how the critical nexus of work and sleep is being attended to in cultural productions and theory along with the related issue of 'dream-work.'
In the course of the seminar we will investigate theoretical and aesthetic approaches toward sleep from the 19th century until the present, with a strong focus on the late 20th and early 21st century. Questions that we will ponder throughout the semester include the following: How are resonances and interferences between issues of political economy and libidinal economy being negotiated via representations of sleep in aesthetic practices? How is sleep, and its ostensible antonym wakefulness, being metaphorically employed in literary texts and political rhetoric? In how far are politics and aesthetics of sleep inflected by aspects of race, gender, class and other intersecting categories of social positionality?
We will analyze representations and renditions of sleep in a variety of cultural productions and across various media: from literary texts, ranging from 19th century romanticist short fiction and poetry to Ottessa Moshfeghs's 2018 novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation, via films, such as Andy Warhol's experimental film Sleep (1964), Gus Van Sant's New Queer Cinema classic My Own Private Idaho (1991) and current horror and sci-fi films, to performance art and phenomena in contemporary popular music, such as vaporwave and hypnagogic pop.
- Empfohlene Literatur
- Please purchase the following novel:
Moshfegh, Ottessa. My Year of Rest and Relaxation. New York/London: Penguin, 2018.Further Recommended Reading
Crary, Jonathan. 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. London: Verso, 2013.
Nancy, Jean-Luc. The Fall of Sleep. Trans. Charlotte Mandell. New York: Fordham UP, 2009.
- Zusätzliche Informationen
- Maximale Teilnehmerzahl: 20
Für diese Lehrveranstaltung ist eine Anmeldung erforderlich. Die Anmeldung erfolgt von Montag, 24.8.2020, 19.00 Uhr bis Samstag, 7.11.2020, 22.00 Uhr über: mein Campus.
- Verwendung in folgenden UnivIS-Modulen
- Startsemester WS 2020/2021:
- Amerikanistik, Modul 8 B (M 8)
- Amerikanistik, Modul 9 B (M 9)
- North America: Culture and Literature (AM4 bis 20182)
- North America: Culture and Literature (AM4 ab 20182)
- North American Studies (AM3b)
- Schwerpunktmodul Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften I (KuK I)
- Schwerpunktmodul Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften I (KuK I+)
- Schwerpunktmodul Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften II (KuK II)
- Vertiefungsmodul Cultural Studies (Master Modul 7)
- Vertiefungsmodul Literary Studies (Master Modul 8)
- Institution: Lehrstuhl für Amerikanistik, insbesondere nordamerikanische Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft (Prof. Dr. Paul)
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