Texts and Contexts
Taught by Mikkel Jensen
Welcome to the course “Texts and Contexts.” The main aim of this course is to introduce you to ways of thinking about the past and especially about the relationship between context and text. While you (i.e. those of you who major in English Studies) in your first semester project examined the link between text and literary history, this semester emphasizes the cultural and social contexts rather than the ‘purely’ aesthetic one of literary history. Together with the courses on British and American history, this course prepares you for you your second semester project work.
First lecture:
The Basics of Contextualization
This lecture outlines a range of core issues related to reading texts in context. The reading and viewing required will prepare you for following the main points in the lecture.
Jensen, Mikkel. “Textual Agency: Quentin Skinner and American Studies.” (working paper)
Show Me a Hero (David Simon, 2015). Available through HBO.
Second lecture: Marxism
Lois Tyson. Critical Theory Today. London: Routledge, 2006. Chapter 3: Marxist Criticism.
Third lecture: New Historicism
Lois Tyson. Critical Theory Today. London: Routledge, 2006. Chapter 9: New historical and cultural criticism.
Fourth lecture: Intellectual History
Mikkel Thorup. “Taget ud af sammenhæng – Om kontekst i idéhistorie.” Slagmark 67 (2013): 77-108. (Bruger jeg selv til selve forelæsningens indhold.)
Fifth lecture: Social History
John Tosh. The Pursuit of History. Chapter 8.
Howard Zinn. A People’s History of the United States, Chapter ???.
Sixth lecture: Film as History
Robert Rosenstone. History on Film / Film on History