Vertiefungsseminar The Cultural Legacy of Medieval England Do 10:30 12:00

This course deals with the origins of modern social and cultural norms and institutions in the world of the Middle Ages. Concepts of love and marriage, life and death, science and religion, destiny and free will, and many more are deeply rooted in medieval life and can be analysed by a careful reading of Old and Middle English texts. In some cases we will understand medieval forms of life as being completely different from ours, in others, however, we will find more or less direct lines of tradition to our own cultural identities and concepts. Thus, we will apply contrastive and evolutionary ways of procedure respectively. After having attended the course you will be able to: • relate topics of medieval literature to correspondent social or cultural phenomena in functional interpretations • recognise forms and topics of medieval literature as having created cultural traditions • explain the alterity or otherness of medieval literature as forming social and mental identities • interpret norms and institutions of the Middle Ages in their literary manifestations and explain their seminal function for modern concepts • communicate in a correct and adequate way about the topics of the course • make a confident use of research facilities and methods of presentation !!! Bedingt durch Platzmangel können nicht mehr als 33 Studierende teilnehmen. Weitere Anmeldungen werden daher auf die Warteliste verschoben und gegebenenfalls zugelassen, falls sich bereits zugelassene Studenten wieder abmelden. !!! All texts will be made available on ILIAS. Bemerkung BN: t.b.a. AP: oral exam, term paper Voraussetzungen The completion of Basic Module I (Ältere Anglistik) is required. Although translations will be provided in most cases, students should be willing to work with Old and Middle English texts. Anglistik u.Amerikanistik (BA, PO 2013) Kernfach The completion of Basic Module I (Ältere Anglistik) is required. Although translations will be provided in most cases, students should be willing to work with Old and Middle English texts. Universität Düsseldorf SoSe 2016 Umbach Carolin