How It All Begins

In an age which sees a vast number of new novels coming out each year, a book buyer's decision for or against a particular title is influenced not least by the publisher's marketing strategies. But even in a commercialized world, much still depends on the very opening lines of a book. Known also as its incipit, the opening sentence crucially determines whether or not a reader wants to continue perusing the text. The evocative power of incipits is sometimes phenomenal – consider such classics as: -Call me Ishmael-, or -It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.- We will study a corpus of such novel openings, placing them in relation to other constitutive textual elements and considering possibilities of categorizing incipits. Beyond conventional, book-based novels, we will also look at hyperfiction. The discursive nature of a seminar makes it necessary for all students in this class to take an active part in classroom proceedings: apart from oral presentations, this notably concerns contributions to ordinary classroom discussions. PLEASE NOTE: Students taking this class are expected to be familiar with the basic features of narrative texts (one way of gaining this knowledge is to read the recommended texts by Fludernik and Jahn, s. below). A set of texts for reading in this course will be made available at the start of the semester. Recommended Preparatory Reading: Monika Fludernik, An Introduction to Narratology. London: Routledge, 2009. The section titled -Narratology- from Manfred Jahn. Poems, Plays, and Prose: A Guide to the Theory of Literary Genres. English Department, University of Cologne, 2001. Web. 12 August 2015.. Seminar für Anglistik Beachten Sie, dass Sie diesen Kurs nach den Prüfungsordnungen ab 2011 nicht besuchen dürfen, wenn Sie die für dieses Modulelement laut Fachspezifischen Bestimmungen und Modulhandbuch notwendigen Voraussetzungen noch nicht erfüllen. 3 LP Studienleistung: active participation in class AND oral presentation 3 LP Prüfungsleistung: active participation in class AND written term paper (3.500-4.500 words, deadline: 28 February 2016) 5 LP: active participation in class AND oral presentation AND written elaboration (1.500-2.500 words, due two weeks after the presentation) 5 LP Studienleistung MA LA GymGe, Modul 2.2: active participation in class AND oral presentation AND summaries of two scholarly essays (800-1000 words each, due two weeks after the presentation) 7 LP: active participation in class AND oral presentation AND written term paper (3.500-4.500 words, deadline: 28 February 2016) Universität Siegen WiSe 2015/16 Priv.-Doz. Dr. Egbert Marie Luise Priv Doz