The Global Novel

This seminar will be concerned with contemporary literary writing in English, which is often hard to attribute to one particular country of origin. The novel has gone global these days, authors are difficult to locate because they move between countries and continents, and also the traditions and formats of writing seem to be much more malleable and flexible than they used to be in the days of the big ‘British’ or ‘American’ novel. But are they really? It has been said that the tag of the global novel is just a smokescreen to hide a tacit ‘Americanization’ of the novel in process worldwide. Thus Xiaolu Guo, the Chinese-British author and filmmaker, has argued that to be successful on the global literary market, everybody has to write ‘American style’ these days, and that other national or regional literary traditions are getting forgotten or repressed in the process. Xiaolu Guo’s own success as a writer, however, may be counterproof to her thesis. We will read her novel I Am China (2014), as well as selected other novels in the course of the semester, and we will try to come to terms with the developments in the field on the grounds of these readings. If you do not like long novels, this class is not for you. The selection of novels for the seminar will be announced on StudIP before the semester starts. Students who are interested in participating in this class should also attend Xiaolu Guo’s reading in the Literarischer Salon on September 15, 2015, 8.00 p.m. Precise information will follow on StudIP. Advanced Anglophone Studies, Master of Arts AmerA / AAS2, AAS3 Registration – StudIP 01.09.2015 - 30.09.2015 /Prerequisites – Intermediate Literature and Culture Module (for FüBa studens)/size restriction –25 /Further information – ruth.mayer@engsem~ Universität Hannover WiSe 2015/16 Englisch, Master LA Gymnasium Prof. Dr. phil. Mayer Ruth phil