Beyond Borders: Transnational Literature by Central European Writers

Syllabus

* Weekly Schedule:

Note: The course plan is subject to minor changes. Revisions will be announced by e-mail, and/or in class.

* Week 1 Situating Transnational Literature

Introduction to the Course

Week 2 Situating Transnational Literature

Required Reading: Eva Hoffmann, Lost in Translation, E.P. Dutton, 1989: pp. 99-163.

Supplemental Reading: Azade Seyhan, Writing Outside The Nation, Princeton University Press, 2001: pp. 3-18.

Claire Kramsch, The Multilingual Subject, Oxford University Press, 2009: pp. 127-153.

* Week 3 Writing from the Margins: Herta Müller’s Romanian Childhood

Required Reading: Herta Müller, Nadirs, University of Nebraska Press, 1999: pp. 10-76.

Supplemental Reading: Valentina Glajar, “Banat-Swabian, Romanian and German: Conflicting Identities in Herta Müller’s Herztier.” Monatshefte. 89/4 (1997): pp. 521-540.

Week 4 Writing in Exile: Milan Kundera’s World Literature

Required Reading: Milan Kundera, The Curtain, Harper Collins, 2005: pp. 31-56.

Supplemental Reading: Charles Sabatos, “Criticism and Destiny: Kundera and Havel on the Legacy of 1968” Europe-Asia Studies, 60/10 (2008): pp. 1827-1845.

Steven Ungar, “Kundera's Variations: Passing Thoughts on Novel and Nation”

South Central Review, 25/ 3 (2008): pp. 57-67.

Week 5 Self-fashioned Russianness Conquering the World: Wladimir Kaminer

Required Reading: Wladimir Kaminer, Russian Disco. Ebury Press, 2002: pp.: 13-62.

Film Discussion: Russian Disco (2012)

Supplemental Material: Adrian Wanner. “Wladimir Kaminer: A Russian Picaro Conquers Germany.” The Russian Review 64 (2005): pp. 590-604.

Week 6 Going Global: Bosnian-American Expat Aleksandar Hemon

Required Reading: Aleksandar Hemon, Nowhere Man, Doubleday, 2002: pp. 31-127.

Supplemental Reading: Caren Irr, “Toward the World Novel: Genre Shifts in Twenty-First-Century Expatriate Fiction” American Literary History, 23/ 3 (2011): pp. 660-679.

Week 7 Truly Transnational: Terézia Mora

Required Reading: Terézia Mora, Day In Day Out, Harper Collins, 2007: pp. 6-73.

Supplemental Material: Anke Biendarra. “Terézia Mora, Alle Tage: Transnational Traumas.” In Lyn Marven and Stuart Taberner, eds. Emerging German-Language Novelists of the Twenty-First Century. Camden House, 2011: pp. 46-61.

Terézia Mora, “Strange Matter.” Chicago Review 48/2 (2002): pp. 205-212.

* Week 8 Truly Transnational: Terézia Mora (continued)

Required Reading: Terézia Mora, Day In Day Out, Harper Collins, 2007: pp. 77-126, 401-418.

Supplemental Material: Paul Buchholz, “Bordering on Names: Strategies of Mapping in the Prose of Terézia Mora and Peter Handke.” Transit, 7/1 (2011): pp. 1-21

Week 9 A New Generation Looking Back: Saša Stanišić Reimagines the Past

Required Reading: Saša Stanišić, How the soldier repairs the Gramophone. Anthea Bell, 2008: pp. 1-88.

Supplemental Material: Brigid Haines. “Saša Stanišić, Wie der Soldat das Grammofon repariert: Reinscribing Bosnia, or: Sad Things, Positively.” In Lyn Marven and Stuart Taberner, eds. Emerging German-Language Novelists of the Twenty-First Century. Camden House, 2011: pp. 105-118.

Week 10 A New Generation in the Here and Now: Alina Bronsky’s Ghetto Girl

Required Reading: Alina Bronsky, Broken Glass Park. Europa Editions 2010: pp. 11-54.

Supplemental Material: Barbara Mennel. “Alina Bronsky, Scherbenpark: Global Ghetto Girl” In Lyn Marven and Stuart Taberner, eds. Emerging German-Language Novelists of the Twenty-First Century. Camden House, 2011: pp. 162-178.

* Week 11 Transnational Movements After The Fall of the Iron Curtain

Part I Readings: Milan Kundera. “From the Art of the Novel.” In The Wall In My Head. Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain Rochester, 2009: pp. 8-12.

Wladimir Kaminer. “ Paris Lost.” In The Wall In My Head. Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain. Rochester, 2009: pp. 13-15.

Uwe Tellkamp. “From The Tower.” In The Wall in My Head. Words and Images from the Fall of the Iron Curtain. Rochester, 2009: pp. 59-65.

* Week 12

Final paper presentation

Conclusion, summary, outlook

Annotation

This course is an introduction to contemporary transnational literature by Central European writers. We will explore literature that challenges traditional national, cultural or linguistic boundaries and examine how living and writing in a second language reshapes our identity.

Students will be introduced to the concept of transnationalism alongside other paradigms such as minority literature, intercultural writing and multilingual literature.