Video Lectures Archive: Thematical
Below you will find dozens of recorded lectures from the English Department dealing with various topics and texts from the field of literary studies. The list below is sorted thematically by text type (drama, poetry, prose and film).
Should you prefer a different order, there are lists sorted:
Or you can return to the more general list of lectures on literature and literary studies/criticism.
Some lectures come with accompanying material, such as lecture slides. To access this material you have to log in (top right).
Drama
- William Shakespeare. A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595/96): Early Modern Theatre, the Play-within-the-Play and Dramatic Communication (Zirker, WiSe 13/14)
- William Shakespeare. Richard III (ca. 1593/97): Building a Character(Hotz-Davies, WiSe 22/23)
- William Shakespeare. Richard III (ca. 1593/97) & Othello (1603): Villains in Shakespeare's Plays (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 22/23)
- William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet (1597): What Tragedy Is All About (Bauer, WiSe 17/18)
- William Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet (1597): Page or Stage? (Bauer, WiSe 17/18)
- William Shakespeare. Othello (1603): What Tragedy is All About (Zirker, WiSe 18/19)
- William Shakespeare. Othello (1603): From Page to Stage (Bauer, WiSe 18/19)
- William Shakespeare. King Lear (1605-06): Why Tragedy Need Not Always Be Sad (Bauer, WiSe 14/15)
- William Shakespeare. Antony and Cleopatra (ca. 1607): Framing the Action (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 20/21)
- William Shakespeare. Antony and Cleopatra (ca. 1607): Transgressive Lovers in Shakespeare's Plays (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 20/21)
- William Shakespeare. The Tempest (1611): Early Modern Drama/Theatre (Zirker, WiSe 16/17)
- William Shakespeare. As You Like It (1623) (Zirker, WiSe 12/13)
- Margaret Cavendish. The Convent of Pleasure (1668): The Pleasures of Gender Confusion in the Early Modern Age (Wallraven, WiSe 15/16)
- Joanna Baillie. De Monfort (1789): Staging the Inner Life of Characters (Reinfandt, WiSe 23/24)
- Joanna Baillie. De Monfort (1789): Romanticism and the Theatre (Reinfandt, WiSe 23/24)
- Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman (1949): Modernist Drama (Tonn-Meller, WiSe 19/20)
- Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman (1949): Modernism, the Myth of the American Dream (Tonn-Meller, WiSe 19/20)
- Edward Albee. The American Dream (1960): Postmodernism, Drama (Tonn, WiSe 16/17)
- Sarah Kane. Blasted (1995): Communicating on Stage (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 21/22)
- Sarah Kane. Blasted (1995): The Challenges of In-Yer-Face Theatre (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 21/22)
- Mike Bartlett. Charles III (2014): A 'Future History Play' (Zirker, WiSe 15/16)
Poetry
- The Dream of the Rood. Ruthwell Cross; Vercelli (Kemmler, WiSe 13/14)
- "The Battle of Brunanburh" (937): Historiography and National Identity (Kemmler, WiSe 12/13)
- The Battle of Maldon (10th century): Poetry and Politics in Late 10th-century England (Kemmler, WiSe 15/16)
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. The Relation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1542): Early New World Encounters (Tonn, WiSe 13/14)
- Sir Philip Sidney. Astrophil and Stella (1591): What is poetry? Why Do We Read It? (Atkinson, WiSe 23/24)
- Sir Philip Sidney. Astrophil and Stella (1591): Close Reading Poetry - Rhythm and Metre, Rhyme and Stanza (Atkinson, WiSe 23/24)
- William Shakespeare. Dark Lady Sonnets: Close Reading (Zirker, WiSe 21/22)
- William Shakespeare. Dark Lady Sonnets: Renaissance Poems Talking to each Other (Zirker, WiSe 21/22)
- William Shakespeare. Sonnets (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 13/14)
- Sir Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare, Lady Mary Wroth. Sonnets (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 12/13)
- John Donne. A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning (1602-11): Mysteries, Love and the Metaphysical Conceit (Bauer, WiSe 12/13)
- William Shakespeare. Sonnet 130 (1609): What to Look for in a Poem (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 17/18)
- Andrew Marvell. An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland (1650) (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 14/15)
- John Milton. Paradise Lost (1667): Justifying God (Bauer, WiSe 15/16)
- Anne Bradstreet. On my dear Grandchild... (1678): Private and Public Mourning in Puritan Poetry - (Franke, WiSe 12/13)
- Alexander Pope. Windsor Forest (1713): Eighteenth Century: Augustan Order and Disorder (West-Pavlov, WiSe 16/17)
- Phillis Wheatley. On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield (1770): Private and Public Mourning in Puritan Poetry (Franke, WiSe 12/13)
- Phillis Wheatley. On Being Brought from Africa to America (1773): The Intention of the Author (Franke, WiSe 13/14)
- Charlotte Smith. Elegiac Sonnets (1784): Inaugurating the Romantic Sonnet Revival (Reinfandt, WiSe 15/16)
- William Blake. Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794): Into Romanticism (Reinfadnt, WiSe 20/21)
- William Blake. Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794): Afterlives in Literature, Art, and Music (Reinfandt, WiSe 20/21)
- William Wordsworth. Nutting (1798/1800): Romantic Nature, Romantic Culture (Reinfandt, WiSe 12/13)
- George Gordon, Lord Byron. Manfred (1816/17): The Romantic Self (Anastasaki, 13/14)
- George Moses Horton. On Hearing of the Intention of a Gentleman to Purchase the Poet's Freedom (1829): Literature and Oppression (Franke, WiSe 15/16)
- Henry W. Longfellow. Poems on Slavery (1842) - The Intention of the Author (Franke, WiSe 14/15)
- Emily Dickinson. Because I Could Not Stop for Death (publ. 1890): Late Nineteenth-Century Poetry (Butter, WiSe 16/17)
- Wilfred Owen. Dulce et Decorum Est (1917): The Form(s) and Function(s) of First World War Poetry (Zirker, WiSe 14/15)
- Claude McKay. If We Must Die (1919): African American Poetry and the Literary Tradition (Butter, WiSe 14/15)
- T.S. Eliot. The Waste Land (1922): Difficulty and the Canon of Modern Literature (Reinfandt, WiSe 15/16)
- E.E. Cummings. next to of course god america i (1926): Modernism and the Modern Self (Tonn, WiSe 15/16)
- Robert Lowell. A Mad Negro Soldier Confined at Munich (1959): Close Reading (Franke, WiSe 18/19)
- Robert Lowell. A Mad Negro Soldier Confined at Munich (1959): Hermeneutic Circle (Franke, WiSe 18/19)
- Carol Ann Duffy. The World's Wife (1999): Poetry - Form, Meaning, Context(s) (Zirker, WiSe 19/20)
- Carol Ann Duffy. The World's Wife (1999): Poetry and/as Communication (Zirker, WiSe 19/20)
- Malcolm Guite. On being told my poetry was found in a broken photo-copier: A Close Reading (Zirker, WiSe 22/23)
- Malcolm Guite. The Singing Bowl (2012): Understanding a Poem or How Form Isn't Innocent (Zirker, WiSe 22/23)
Prose/Narrative
- Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. The Relation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1542): Early New World Encounters (Tonn, WiSe 13/14)
- Mary Rowlandson. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God (1682): The Cultural Work of the Puritan Captivity Narrative (Butter, WiSe 14/15)
- Horace Walpole. The Castle of Otranto (1764) - The Gothic Paradigm (Reinfandt, WiSe 14/15)
- Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (1813): What's in a Novel? (Zirker, WiSe 18/19)
- Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (1813): Novel-Writing around 1800 (Haas, WiSe 18/19)
- Mary Shelley. Frankenstein (1818): The Gothic Novel (Bauer, WiSe 16/17)
- Mary Shelley. Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818): Narration and the Problem of Truth (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 13/14)
- James Fenimore Cooper. The Pioneers (1823): Writing the Nation (Clark, WiSe 13/14)
- Charles Dickens. The Chimes (1844): The Sound of Victorian Fiction (Bauer, WiSe 13/14)
- Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights (1847): Narrative between Romanticism and the Victorian Age (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 12/13)
- Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island (1883): Victorian Fiction (Zähringer, WiSe 16/17)
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Yellow Wallpaper (1892): Forms and Functions of Unreliable Narration (Butter, WiSe 15/16)
- Kate Chopin. The Awakening (1899): Why We Need (Feminist) Theory (Franke, WiSe 13/14)
- Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness (1899): Modernism (West-Pavlov, WiSe 20/21)
- Joseph Conrad. Heart of Darkness (1899): Postcolonialism (West-Pavlov, WiSe 20/21)
- Upton Sinclair. The Jungle (1906): How Realistic is Realist Fiction? (Hirschfelder, WiSe 15/16)
- James Joyce. Dubliners (1914): Modernist Narrative and the Irish Predicament (Reinfandt, WiSe 14/15)
- H.D. Oread (1915): Modernist Poetry: Imagism and Beyond (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 16/17)
- Virginia Woolf. Mrs Dalloway (1925): The Turn of the Novel (Reinfandt, WiSe 12/13)
- Ernest Hemingway. Hills Like White Elephants (1927) (Butter, WiSe 22/23)
- J.R.R. Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings (1954-55) - How (Not) To Become Part of the Literary Canon (Clark, WiSe 14/15)
- Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart (1958): Launching the Modern African Novel (West-Pavlov, WiSe 15/16)
- Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart (1958): Oral and Writtten Narratives in a Global Encounter (West-Pavlov, WiSe 21/22)
- Chinua Achebe. Things Fall Apart (1958): Postcolonial Intertextuality (West-Pavlov, WiSe 21/22)
- Ferdinand Oyono. Houseboy (1966): Reading the Diary Novel - Analysing Prose: Setting, Place, Time (Kosgei, WiSe 23/24)
- Ferdinand Oyono. Houseboy (1966): Reading the Diary Novel - Analysing Prose: Character, Theme, Language Use and Style (Kosgei, WiSe 23/24)
- Ngugi wa Thiong'o. A Grain of Wheat (1967) and The Wizard of the Crow (2006): From the Colonial to the Neocolonial and Beyond (West-Pavlov, WiSe 15/16)
- Norman Mailer. The Armies of the Night (1968): A Novelist's America (Tonn, WiSe 15/16)
- Anita Desai. Clear Light of Day (1980): The Indian Novel in English (Dengel-Janic, WiSe 16/17)
- David Dabydeen. The Intended (1991): Postcolonial Literatures (West-Pavlov, WiSe 13/14)
- David Dabydeen. The Intended (1991): Postcolonial Literatures (West-Pavlov, WiSe 19/20)
- David Dabydeen. The Intended (1991): Immigrant Bildungsroman (West-Pavlov, WiSe 19/20)
- Amitav Ghosh. In an Antique Land (1992) - Provincializing Europe (West-Pavlov, WiSe 14/15)
- Colson Whitehead. John Henry Days (2001): Functions of Intertextuality (Franke, WiSe 15/16)
- Colson Whitehead. Apex Hides the Hurt (2006): Is there an African American Literature or: What was all that struggle? (Franke, WiSe 12/13)
- Colson Whitehead. Apex Hides the Hurt (2006): Cultural Studies Meets Narratology (Franke, WiSe 14/15)
- Tom McCarthy. C (2010): The Novel Today (Reinfandt, WiSe 13/14)
- Tom Franklin. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (2010): What Novels Can Do (Tonn, WiSe 17/18)
- Tom Franklin. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (2010): Region and Race - The Literature of the Southern U.S.A. (Tonn, WiSe 17/18)
- Mukoma wa Ngugi. Nairobi Heat (2011): The New Wave in African Literature (West-Pavlov, WiSe 14/15)
- A.L. Kennedy. The Blue Book (2012): Writing Beyond the Linguistic Turn (Hotz-Davies, WiSe 14/15)
Film/TV
- D.W. Griffith. Birth of a Nation (1915): Film Analysis - Techniques & Terminology (Franke, WiSe 20/21)
- D.W. Griffith. Birth of a Nation (1915): Racism (Franke, WiSe 20/21)
- Frank Capra. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939): Terminology and The Power of the Happy End (Franke, WiSe 19/20)
- Frank Capra. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939): Transparent Minds, Filibuster, Happy End (Franke, WiSe 19/20)
- Alfred Hitchcock. North by Northwest (1959): The Way Hollywood Tells It (Butter, WiSe 18/19)
- Alfred Hitchcock. North by Northwest (1959): In the Context of Conformism, Momism, Communism (Butter, WiSe 18/19)
- Gary Marshall. Pretty Woman (1990): How to Read a Film (Butter, WiSe 23/24)
- Gary Marshall. Pretty Woman (1990): Criticizing Finance Capitalism (Butter, WiSe 23/24)
- Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games (2008-2015): What Novels Can Do That Films Can't (and Vice Versa) (Butter, WiSe 15/16)
- Black Mirror (2011), "Fifteen Million Merits" (S1E2): Reading Televiion? (Zähringer, WiSe 22/23)
- Black Mirror (2011), "Nosedive": Seriality, Community, 'Complex TV' (Zähringer, WiSe 22/23)