Introductory seminar course: THICC Lit: Karen Tei Yamashita's "I Hotel" - Details

Introductory seminar course: THICC Lit: Karen Tei Yamashita's "I Hotel" - Details

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General information

Course name Introductory seminar course: THICC Lit: Karen Tei Yamashita's "I Hotel"
Subtitle
Course number 4512613
Semester SoSe 2024
Current number of participants 24
maximum number of participants 25
Home institute Abteilung für Nordamerikastudien
Courses type Introductory seminar course in category Teaching
First date Thursday, 11.04.2024 14:00 - 16:00, Room: (KWZ 1.601 (KWZ))
Type/Form
Performance record Modul B.EP.21 / B.Eng.401: Take Home Exam im Seminar, Teilnahme an der Vorlesung
Modul B.EP.41 / B.Eng.403: Hausarbeit im Seminar oder Klausur in der Vorlesung
→Ab hier automatisch erfasste Informationen / Beyond this point, the information is filled in automatically←

Prüfungsleistung(en) je Modul / Exam details per module:

* [(B.AS.101.Mp) Analysis and Interpretation][1]
* Klausurähnliche Hausarbeit: Mo, 05.08.2024
* [(B.Eng.401.Mp) Aufbaumodul 1: Kultur- und Literaturwissenschaft des nordamerikanischen Raums][2]
* Klausurähnliche Hausarbeit: Mo, 05.08.2024
* [(B.Eng.403.Mp) Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft im nordamerikanischen Raum III][3]
* Abgabe Hausarbeit: Fr, 30.08.2024
* [(B.Eng.451.Mp) Top Up Nordamerikastudien][4]
* Klausurähnliche Hausarbeit: Mo, 05.08.2024
* [(B.EP.21.Mp) Aufbaumodul 1: Kultur- und Literaturwissenschaft des nordamerikanischen Raums I][5]
* Klausurähnliche Hausarbeit: Mo, 05.08.2024
* [(B.EP.41.HA) Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft im nordamerikanischen Raum III (Hausarbeit)][6]
* Abgabe Hausarbeit: Fr, 30.08.2024
* [(B.EP.T21.Mp) Top Up Nordamerikastudien][7]
* Klausurähnliche Hausarbeit: Mo, 05.08.2024
* [(B.WLI.123b.Mp) Englischsprachige Literatur im nordamerikanischen Raum][8]
* Abgabe Hausarbeit: Fr, 30.08.2024

[1]: https://ecampus.uni-goettingen.de/h1/pages/startFlow.xhtml?_flowId=detailView-flow&unitId=16726&periodId=272
[2]: https://ecampus.uni-goettingen.de/h1/pages/startFlow.xhtml?_flowId=detailView-flow&unitId=28357&periodId=272
[3]: https://ecampus.uni-goettingen.de/h1/pages/startFlow.xhtml?_flowId=detailView-flow&unitId=28365&periodId=272
[4]: https://ecampus.uni-goettingen.de/h1/pages/startFlow.xhtml?_flowId=detailView-flow&unitId=28491&periodId=272
[5]: https://ecampus.uni-goettingen.de/h1/pages/startFlow.xhtml?_flowId=detailView-flow&unitId=42931&periodId=272
[6]: https://ecampus.uni-goettingen.de/h1/pages/startFlow.xhtml?_flowId=detailView-flow&unitId=44269&periodId=272
[7]: https://ecampus.uni-goettingen.de/h1/pages/startFlow.xhtml?_flowId=detailView-flow&unitId=44189&periodId=272
[8]: https://ecampus.uni-goettingen.de/h1/pages/startFlow.xhtml?_flowId=detailView-flow&unitId=31397&periodId=272

Rooms and times

(KWZ 1.601 (KWZ))
Thursday: 14:00 - 16:00, weekly (13x)

Fields of study

Module assignments

Comment/Description

Novels in the nineties came THICC and fast. In the span of three short years, four long works landed with a thud on the doorsteps of critics and reviewers, who went on to lavish them with praise. The Tunnel, Underworld, Mason & Dixon, all three were hailed as the crowning achievements of their authors' long and successful careers; Infinite Jest, meanwhile, was said to mark the arrival of a dazzling new talent. For anyone aspiring to write "serious" fiction, the message was clear—clearer, perhaps, than it had ever been in the four decades since the publication of William Gaddis's postwar Urtext, The Recognitions. That message, spelled out in the quintessential nineties phrase embraced by publishers and venture capitalists alike, was this: either go big or go home.

Those words, it seems, reverberated through the early twenty-first century, which produced a whole new spate of postmodern meganovels. Chief among them is I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita, one of only a few female, nonwhite authors who have found success in this white, male-dominated genre of the "big, ambitious novel," to use James Wood's influential term. In fact, nonwhite characters are central to Yamashita's experimental work. In a series of interlocking novellas that all revolve around a dingy residential hotel, I Hotel covers a tumultuous decade in the life of San Francisco's Chinatown, from 1968 to '77, and by extension the Asian experience in an America haunted by the Vietnam War.

In this class, we will explore precisely how Yamashita achieves this, how she blends experimental storytelling with cultural and socio-political commentary to arrive at her own, distinctive Asian American portrait of America. We will begin by looking at her celebrated 1997 novel, A Tropic of Orange, to identify some early examples of her narrative style and technique, before we move on to her magnum opus, I Hotel, which we will study by means of a semester-long close reading that divides the novel into weekly segments of approximately 70-80 pages.

Please be advised, therefore, that this is a reading-intensive course intended only for students who are prepared to take on a literary challenge and who are willing to actively participate in class discussion.

Required reading:
Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange (Coffee House Press)
Karen Tei Yamashita, I Hotel (Coffee House Press)
Please make sure to have purchased both novels well in advance of our first session. Any other course materials will be provided in class.

Registration: Attendance for this class is limited to 25 students. Binding (!) registration on Stud.IP between 01 March and 31 March 2024 is required. All news concerning this class will be posted on Stud.IP as well. The class will start in the first week of the semester. For final registration, participants need to attend the first session of class.

For further information: < jurrit.daalder@phil.uni-goettingen.de >

Please note that out of the following classes, you can only sign up for one class: Daalder (course number: 4512613), Sommerfeld (course number: 4512524), Gross (course number: 4512539) and Gross (course number: 4512534).​​​​​​​

Admission settings

The course is part of admission "SS 2024_NAS-PSS".
The following rules apply for the admission:
  • This setting is active from 01.03.2024 08:00 to 31.03.2024 23:59.
    Enrolment is allowed for up to 1 courses of the admission set.
  • A defined number of seats will be assigned to these courses.
    The seats will be assigned in order of enrolment.
  • The enrolment is possible from 01.03.2024, 08:00 to 31.03.2024, 23:59.
Assignment of courses: