This is the exam page for the online version of the Modulprüfung Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies, WS 2020/21.

This page is for students with surnames A-M.

What meanings emerge from Andy Warhol`s serial prints of coke bottles, cans of soup and Marilyn Monroe`s face? Why is recent crime fiction, more often than not, concerned with serial killers as the worst form of depravity that society must confront? Why does it matter that a significant number of nineteenth-century novels was first published in serial form? And what are we to make of the immense success of recent TV series such as `Sherlock Holmes` and `The Wire`?
Our seminar draws on insights from media studies, art theory, narratology and feminism to analyse the concept of seriality. We will discuss the relationship between repetition and originality, examine the tensions between closure and open-endedness that are inherent in the series form and investigate the effects of seriality on established genre conventions.

Our summer colloquium addresses one of the key categories of modernity, the subject. Contemporary cultural and literary theories usually dismiss a ‘humanistic’, ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘liberal’ notion of the subject conceived as a sovereign, self-determining individual and emphasise in its stead the inherent duality of the subject as both agent and ‘effect’ of external determinants. The course programme will open with discussions of ed canonical conceptualisations of the subject from Descartes, Locke and Kant and then focus on some of the most influential interrogations of this genuinely modern legacy, including psychoanalytical, sociological, feminist and poststructuralist positions.
Moreover, the colloquium will offer advanced graduate students the opportunity to present and discuss their thesis projects.