Description
The study of literary texts can be dramatically enriched if one takes into account the material form in which they are presented to the reader: print or non-print, book or magazine, manuscript or film adaptation, etc. In this course, we will focus on the relationships between text and medium, more precisely between the text and the other elements that may surround it (like illustrations) or between the text and the various material forms that shape it (like the digital hypertext format). These perspectives will be linked with fundamental issues of literary analysis (such as: what is actually the difference between fiction and non-fiction? or: what does it mean to say that a narrator is sincere and reliable?). Theoretical reflections and close readings alternate in this course, and we will take our examples from the classic and modern books that everybody is talking about, such as the work by W.G. Sebald, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, or Bret Easton Ellis.
The course consists of eight modules each focusing on a different topic and taught by a different university with faculty interaction and feedback provided. Read More.
Topics covered include:
- Week One: Extended literature: Introducing digital literature (Sanchez-Mesa)
- Week Two: Literature & Photography (Baetens)
- Week Three: Negotiating high culture and low culture at the treshold of Modernism: Literature and magazines, literature and illustrations (Meneghelli & Turci)
- Week Four: Some narratological key concepts: generic framing, interpretive and evaluative regimes (Korthals-Altes)
- Week Five: Fictionality beyond fiction: changes and exchanges in art and politics (Nielsen, Kjerkegaard and Mohring Reesdorf)
- Week Six: New Complex Narratives Across Media (Grishakova)
Prerequisites
Participants in this course should have a thorough knowledge of at least one of the languages and literatures taught in the programme and have acquired scientific skills in the domain of literary studies (collecting information, knowledge of methodologies, analysis of and reporting on specific problems).
Participants should have an interest in literature, literary analysis and the larger debate about culture and literature.
Required Materials
The course treats on many books and journal articles that the students need to read. Although we make an effort to choose for publicly available materials, it might be that some titles need to be found at a library, in print or digital edition.
Objectives
The course objectives can be formulated in three levels, depending on the individual students' aim when taking the course:
- Introductory objective: initiation in the field of intermediality studies, with a focus on both historical and contemporary media, always in an European (multilingual, multicultural) perspective
- Intermediary objective: introduction to major issues of the contemporary research agenda in the field
- Final objective: obtaining advanced insights to tackle a cutting-edge issue in relation to the broad framework as sketched in the first part of the course
