Time Schedule:
Brigitte Prutti
GERMAN 580
Seattle Campus
Open topics seminar with varying content.
Class description
Late Modernist Prose: Thomas Bernhard
Who’s (still) afraid of Thomas Bernhard? or: How to read late modernist prose that appears both extremely seductive and hypnotic while at the same time being highly resistant to reading?
The latter will be our main task in this course in conjunction with specific thematic and formal concerns. The Austrian novelist and playwright Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) is a writer of international acclaim; one of the major German-speaking postwar writers; a self-styled misanthrope and joker who sported the habitus of the landed gentry; an enfant terrible who often scandalized the Austrian public; and above all else, a formidable challenge to read. He has been acknowledged as an important model by other well-known writers such as W.G. Sebald and has generated an extensive critical discourse. His literary oeuvre consists of a substantial body of prose fiction, published between 1963 and 1986 (several longer stories, novels, shorter prose texts), five volumes of autobiographical writings, 18 full-length plays, and some early poetry etc. In this course we will focus on Bernhard’s accomplishments as a prose writer and discuss some of his most famous novels, stories and autobiographical texts (Frost, Das Kalkwerk, Alte Meister, Amras, Wittgensteins Neffe, Der Italiener, Gehen, Die Ursache, Ein Kind etc.) along with some pertinent critical essays. Our readings will engage Bernhard’s aesthetics of negativity, his fictional discourse on nature and artifice, specific modes of indirection, the topographical and genealogical order of his texts, their anti-narrative stance, histrionic and humorous qualities along with other significant aspects of structure and style.
Student learning goals
This course is to: introduce students to a provocative 20th Austrian writer
and sharpen students' analytical skills regarding narrative prose
General method of instruction
Brief lectures and seminar discussion.
Recommended preparation
I ask that participants review basic narratological concepts in preparation of the seminar and plan to have read Matias/Martinez, Einführung in die Erzähltheorie (ordered at the UW Bookstore and available at Suzzallo) by week two of the course.
Class assignments and grading
Readings, oral reports, paper.
Active participation in class discussions, brief oral presentations, an annotated bibliography, and a critical paper (circa 15 pp.).
