Literary Awards

Literary awards have become an immensely important factor in the commercial success or otherwise of a book. Where Anglophone fiction from Britain and the post-colonial world is concerned, the Man Booker Prize is certainly the best-known award (commercially, it is the most important one internationally). But there are, in addition, a host of other literary prizes with various emphases (The Guardian First Book Award, The Women's Prize for Fiction, The Costa Book Award, to name but a few). Apart from studying a selection of award-winning novels, we will consider notions of 'literary excellence' underlying the assignment of awards and their role for the formation of a literary canon. Furthermore, we will examine vested interests by asking who is responsible for the selection of the winners and who donates the prize money. 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: As you will be asked to nominate novels that you consider worthy of a prize yourself, please create a list of your favourite five (you can keep revising it as the semester progressses). Please get your own copy of the following editions of the two novels and start reading them as soon as you have been accepted for the course: Romesh Gunesekera. Reef. London: Granta, 2014 [first publ. 1994]. Julian Barnes. The Sense of an Ending. London: Vintage, 2012 [first publ. 2011]. 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) 7 LP: active participation in class AND oral presentation AND written term paper (3.500-4.500 words, deadline: 28 February 2016) Universität Siegen 20152 WiSe 2015/16 Priv.-Doz. Dr. Egbert Marie Luise Priv Doz