Petzold, Jochen

When Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe in 1719, he could not have known that he had started a new sub-genre of adventure fiction, which would derive its name from the hero of his tale. Robinson Crusoe was immensely popular, and other Robinsonades followed in quick succession, in English and in other languages (e.g., Johann David Wyss, Der Schweizerische Robinson (1812)). The genre has remained productive ever since, and it has since branched out into outer space (e.g., Wolfgang Petersen (Dir.), Enemy Mine (1985)).

In this seminar, we will look at some of the key developments between 1719 and 1986. Starting with Defoe's work, we will move on to Robert Michael Ballantyne's The Coral Island (1857), which uses three teenage boys as central characters. Later in the 19th century, The Girl's Own Paper ran Elizabeth Whittaker's serial story Robina Crusoe (1882-83), a Robinsonade that centres on a single female castaway. Roughly 100 years after Ballantyne, William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies (1954), using The Coral Island as a foil, but here the fun and games of the Victorian text quickly turn into a harrowing struggle for survival. With J.M. Coetzee's Foe (1986) we close the circle, as it were, since the novel is a postmodern/post-colonial reworking of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.

No matter if you study "Englisch" to become a teacher at a German school, or if you do British Studies as part of our BA programme, once you graduate people will exepct you to 'know things' about "England" or "Great Britain" (often used as an umbrella term to mean all kinds of things), and to know 'how things are done' there. And even if you don't want to conform to other people's expectations of you: if you want to 'do' British Studies, you will need to know certain theoretical concepts but also structures and institutions that shaped and still shape British society.

In this lecture, we will look at various aspects of the society and culture(s) of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (and, to a much lesser extent, of the Republic of Ireland). We will explore a broad range of topics, and look at the historical processes that shaped them. Starting from a brief discussion of what is meant by 'society' and 'culture', we will look, for example, at the geographical area at the centre of our attention; at the political system in the UK; at the role of the monarchy; at the role of 'race' and 'class'; at the education sector; at the welfare state; or at some aspects of 'popular culture' like national sports. Hence, the lecture is supposed to give you a sense of what historical processes formed and what shapes UK culture(s) and society today -- providing you with contexts to studying British literature and culture in your various study programmes.

From 1948 to the 1990s, the South African government implemented a
policy of "Apartheid" (separateness), segregating the supposed "races"
and discriminating non-white South Africans. In this seminar, we will
read a selection of texts that scrutinize South African society under
apartheid, examining the consequences of racism and violence on
individuals and the community at large. We will start our exploration
with André Brink's Looking on Darkness (1973), the first novel
written in Afrikaans to be banned in South Africa (and consequently
translated into English by the author so that it could be published and
read abroad), but the main focus will lie on the 1980s, when many
critics saw South Africa heading towards all-out civil war.