Courses

The course explores how literary texts of the last two centuries have problematized the relationship between the human and its "other" through the portrayal of various kinds of artificial, semi-human beings. From puppets that come alive to automatons that act (almost) like people to monsters that resemble—but also threaten—their human creators: the literary imagination of the Romantic and modern periods is full of creatures that challenge traditional notions of human identity, agency, and sovereignty. We will discuss the literary strategies that serve to stage these challenges and simultaneously ask about the historical conditions that make their emergence possible.,

Course materials include texts by E.T.A. Hoffmann, Kleist, Brentano, Arnim, Poe, Shelley, Meyrink, Rilke, and others, as well as films by Wegener and Lang.