Aufbauseminar The Grotesque in Twentieth Century American Fiction Fr 8.30

*** Dieses Seminar ist überbelegt. Alle Studierenden, die nicht zugelassen wurden, sind auf der Warteliste und werden von mir schnellstmöglich informiert, falls Plätze frei werden. ***   You see the interest in all this lies in the figures that went before the eyes of the writer. They were all grotesques. All of the men and women the writer had ever known had become grotesques.-                                                                                                                                                                                             - Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio   In his infamous work Rabelais and his World, literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin claims that exaggeration, hyperbolism, [and] excessiveness are generally considered fundamental attributes of the grotesque style. Especially the representation of the grotesque body has a long tradition in literature; transgressive images of bodies are portrayed and often mocked in abusive language. In this seminar we will analyze what function the grotesque mode of representation has and how American writers in the 20th century have incorporated it in various ways in their works.   Bakhtin, Mikhail: Rabelais and his World. (excerpt, Semesterapparat) Crane, Stephen: The Monster. (Semesterapparat) Anderson, Sherwood: Winesburg, Ohio. ISBN: 978-0-393967951 West, Nathanael: Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust. ISBN: 978-0099573166 O'Connor, Flannery: Wise Blood. ISBN: 978-0571241309 Pynchon, Thomas: Gravity's Rainbow (excerpt, Semesterapparat).   BN: presentation or essay AP: oral or written Anglistik u.Amerikanistik (BA, PO 2013) Kernfach Universität Düsseldorf WiSe 2016/17 Popovic Julijana