Degree structure and modules
Module objectives
| Module | Credit Points | Objectives |
|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Anglophone Modernities | 6 | Students will gain an introductory knowledge of various perspectives on the concept of modernity from various areas of research in Anglophone literary studies and cultural studies. They will become able to critically and conceptually engage with a pluralized understanding of modernity. They will learn to explain and reflect upon their own positions and to justify them in dialogue with other positions. |
| Literary/Cultural Theories of Modernity | 15 | Students will be able to describe complex methods for theorizing modernity and independently apply them to concrete investigations of literary and cultural phenomena and practices. In the process, they will apply basic knowledge they have already acquired to expanded and theoretically more challenging questions. They will thus become capable of critical engagement with competing scholarly positions and of forming their own independent judgment. Students will be able to make methodologically consistent arguments that meet scholarly standards and will practice these skills in the oral presentation of their research results, thus perfecting their dialogical competence. |
| Literature and Modernity | 15 | Students will learn to precisely examine and aesthetically assess literary texts at different levels of analysis, to reflect upon and make methodologically founded arguments about the mediality and sociality of texts; to comprehend the connection of literature and culture from a historical perspective, to question periodizations, to recognize the diverse interactions between texts and contexts and between national literatures; to grasp different kinds of literary-theoretical approaches and independently apply these in the concrete analysis of texts; to critically engage with competing scholarly positions and come to independent, yet dialogically developed judgments. |
| Culture and Modernity | 15 | Students will learn to assess the role of culture for the dynamic dimensions of social processes in modernity. By examining regionally specific developments in connection with international interactions, they will develop competences in analyzing the transnationality of cultural transfer processes. This investigation aims to recognize forms of individual and collective mobility a s constitutive moments of cultural practice in modernity. Students will comprehend the city as an ambivalent site of modernity. They will simultaneously see the city as a nerve center for global processes of interconnection, as a space of extreme economic, social, ethnic and gender-specific inequality and of the highly conflictual negotiation of this inequality. This will enable them to develop differentiated analyses of the complex interactions within the different urban spaces of the English-speaking world and to make oral and written arguments about these spaces that are methodologically reflective and consistent in their scholarly approach. |
| Academic English | 9 | In seminars devoted to language practice, students will learn and more intensively practice preparing and critically analyzing argumentative texts, and they will expand their command of academic English and its academically specific vocabulary in written form. This also includes flexibility in being able to shift registers depending on the genre of text and situation. Additionally, the module teaches advanced skills in the translation of literary and academic texts. In the translation internship, students will apply their previous knowledge and the skills they obtained in the practical language courses in the master’s degree program in the area of translation, and they are given guidance and advise to help them deepen these skills in independent project-based work and in continuous communication with international partners. Through working intensively with core texts of research into modernity, the students will develop an increased awareness for the possibilities and limits of translating central terminology and concepts. At the same time, they will gain advanced collaboration skills. |
| Internship | 9 | The ability to collaborate and intercultural communicative competence will be strengthened through the use of discipline-specific ways of working in selected areas of practice. Students will experience the interplay of theory and practice by reflecting on the scope of different methods and working out individual or cooperative strategies for developing and realizing a program of research. Gaining familiarity with selected areas of application in science and research management, in communicating scholarly content and arguments, inindependent archival work or in preparing and editing publications will also help students establish contacts that can prepare them for their careers. |
| International Research and Exchange | 9 | The intercultural competence of the students, especially with regard to different academic cultures, will be deepened through a stay at a foreign university or by mentoring a visiting student. Students will gain insight into the cultural conditioning of their own academic socialization and theplurality of academic and university systems. They will thereby gain the ability to critically reflect upon and relativize their own ways of approaching problems and points of view, and they will deepen their competence in representing and communicating differences and commonalities with partners from cultural contexts different from their own. |
| Research Colloquium | 12 | Students will be introduced to current disciplinary methods and controversies, become familiar with different research perspectives in the subject and its sub-disciplines and critically engage with these approaches. They will be able to independently prepare a relevant research project, to present it in an appropriate and comprehensible form and to practice scholarly dialogue in a discussion. |
| Masters Thesis | 30 |
The module catalogue, including more information on the content of the modules and their requirements, can be found here.