Humanities (English)

This course offers its participants an opportunity to experience, reflect on and apply a goal-oriented approach to intercultural learning. In addition to exploring some of the recommendations offered by researchers on facilitating intercultural communication and deepening understandings of one's own and the other's culture, the course takes on a rather hands-on approach, allowing students to perform cultural mini-dramas, view video clips as the basis for analyzing key concepts discussed, write about critical incidents and discuss evolving understandings of the nature of interaction in intercultural encounters.

The overarching aim of the course, therefore, is to develop skills and competences which facilitate an openness towards and understanding of other cultures in local as well as foreign contexts.

Please note: This course approaches the concept of Intercultural Communication from  a Cultural Studies rather than a Business Studies perspective and is, therefore, not a class on Business Communication.

Course work: Active participation, mini project presentation, written reflexion of a critical incident

Intercultural, multicultural, transcultural or crosscultural? In the context of culture and communication we come across a huge variety of terms and concepts. In this course, we take a critical look at the different definitions of these terms. We will focus on major theoretical concepts like language, identity, stereotypes, othering and racism, gender and hybridity in the broad context of inter-/multi-/transcultural communication. Furthermore, we will highlight the challenges of intercultural communication and globalization with a special focus on the internet/social media.
Along with analyzing the theoretical concepts, participants will also be involved in role play, group work, activities, and discussions on the topic. In addition, students will have the chance to reflect upon personal intercultural experiences.

By the end of the semester, participants will have a broad understanding of the variety of concepts of intercultural communication. Further, participants will be able to critically evaluate different approaches based on theoretical input and interdisciplinary perspectives. Due to the international setting of the class, participants will have their individual experiences in working and learning in an intercultural environment.

This course traces the development of Black and Asian British cinema against the socio-political backdrop of debates on immigration, multiculturalism and identity politics. Looking at films from the 1970s through to the 2000s, we will discuss how different modes of representation and their respective ways of negotiating identity and difference are employed to deal with questions of discrimination, marginalization, and belonging. From straightforwardly political films like Pressure (1975), we will move on to surprise box office hits like the comedy East Is East (1999), which marks the genre’s entrance to mainstream in the midst of discussions about the rebranding of British national identity in light of an increasingly pluralist society. Focusing on the ‘politics of representation’, as introduced by Stuart Hall (e.g. 1997), the course engages with key theories and approaches from cultural studies such as postcolonialism, intersectionality (including categories such as, e.g., gender, race, generation), and cultural memory. In order to get a broader picture of British cultural politics, excerpts from selected writing by BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) authors will complement our reading material and discussions.

Course Work: Reading of Texts, In-Class Participation, Presentation

Body culture studies mark an interface of different disciplines. The development of anatomy gave an internal view of the body, which changed its’ perception in philosophy and the natural sciences. The whole started to crumble, new concepts and theories were developed and a process of cultural valuation of the body was stimulated. With the establishment of cultural studies, the body became not only a projection surface for trends or social status, but also for the discussion of role models concerning gender questions.

In this seminar, we’ll have a look at the development of different body concepts (“body civilization”) during the last 200 years up to the present, with texts by Claude Levi-Strauss, Marcel Mauss or Judith Butler – including current issues (a return of the body in pop culture) and the impact of social media. We’ll also discuss the meaning of artificial bodys, i.e. the metaphorical potential of prostheses or androids and herein the limits of body. Finally, we’ll try a pracitical transfer in the analyzation of literary texts, i.e. of Elfride Jelinek or Christian Kracht.

Course Work: Active Participation

This course asks what is at stake in imagining the future. What anxieties or hopes within the present are amplified for the projection of futuristic scenarios, who is included or excluded from future worlds, and what do imaginaries of the future from the U.S., Canada, or Great Britain tell us about our moment today? In asking these questions, the course is particularly interested in exploring more recent (or more recently noted) developments in speculative fiction, such as Afrofuturism, Indigenous futurism, or climate fiction. For this purpose, the course will attend to authors such as Octavia Butler and Cherie Dimaline (Métis), as well as films such as Black Panther and Children of Men. In the course, we will also reflect on how some of these imaginings of the future resonate for us today, at a moment in which the notion of having a future for humanity at all has become nothing short of a political demand.

The Summer School is an excellent opportunity both for students of the University of Mannheim and students of our partner institutions. The 3-week intense program will give you the chance to explore and discuss current trends in various fields of the Humanities and learn from professors from all over the world. And if that wasn't enough already, our leisure program will provide plenty of opportunity to  get to know Mannheim and the region it is located in and to expand your international network of friends and fellow students.
For more info, check out our Summer School website.

REGISTRATION: ALL students interested in participating in the School of Humanities' Summer School need to sign-up via the online sign-up sheet on the Summer School website. Signing-up via Portal² ist NOT possible.
ANMELDUNG: Alle Studierenden, die an der Summer School der Philosophischen Fakultät teilnehmen möchten, müssen sich über das Online-Anmeldeformular auf der Summer School Website anmelden. Eine Anmeldung über Portal² ist NICHT möglich.

Course Description:
The academic content of the course is the exploration of World Theatre. As this subject is theoretically endless (as famously described by Peter Brook in his book The Empty Space), World Theatre is an introductory course that is necessarily selective – while always pointing to further horizons for students to explore on their own. The course itself is great preparation for doing so.

World Theatre examines wildly varying plays from wildly varying cultures, with a particular emphasis on the modern and contemporary. Our close reading of actual plays – presenting diverse theatrical forms, traditions, styles, and themes – is complemented with a study of their respective cultural contexts: how the two interact is at the heart of this course.

At the same time, World Theatre recognises the limits of any particular example; there is no such thing as ‘a typical Brazil play’ or ‘a typical Japanese play’ any more than there is ‘a typical German play’. Within a culture there are, however, shared histories and prevailing traditions that each of its playwrights must reckon with, even if they wish to dismantle a tradition or innovate upon it. We will explore many such crucial examples, from a wide variety of cultures.

The course begins with the biggest possible questions, such as ‘what is theatre?’ Geography structures our journey through theatrical cultures in Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and North America.

The Summer School is an excellent opportunity both for students of the University of Mannheim and students of our partner institutions. The 3-week intense program will give you the chance to explore and discuss current trends in various fields of the Humanities and learn from professors from all over the world. And if that wasn't enough already, our leisure program will provide plenty of opportunity to  get to know Mannheim and the region it is located in and to expand your international network of friends and fellow students.
For more info, check out our Summer School website.

REGISTRATION: ALL students interested in participating in the School of Humanities' Summer School need to sign-up via the online sign-up sheet on the Summer School website. Signing-up via Portal² ist NOT possible.

ANMELDUNG: Alle Studierenden, die an der Summer School der Philosophischen Fakultät teilnehmen möchten, müssen sich über das Online-Anmeldeformular auf der Summer School Website anmelden. Eine Anmeldung über Portal² ist NICHT möglich.

Course Description:
Drawing upon our own experiences of the socio-cultural importance of language, this course will explore the intricate link between language planning and language policy in different multicultural societies and contexts and endeavor to demonstrate the opportunities and challenges that emerge therefrom.
The course will describe and examine the implementation of language and/or cultural policies in various sociolinguistic contexts. Throughout the course, due consideration will be given to the application of the theoretical knowledge gained to real world situations. The course will focus on what language politics consists of, how it operates, its history, and the various ways in which it can be studied empirically and theoretically at different levels: globally, nationally and locally. Typical questions that will guide the conversations during seminars are:
How did English become a world language?
Why is English the only official language in a multilingual country like Namibia?
What does the linguistic landscape of the University of Mannheim tell us about its language policy?
Which languages do you prefer to use with family, friends, in school, when acessing public services, and on social media etc.?
What can be done to improve the visibility and sociolinguistic status of minority and endangered languages?

In addressing questions such as these, the seminars will delve into topics such as:
- the legal status of languages and language rights;
- The relations­hip between Languages of Wider Communication and Languages of Limited Communication in different sociolinguistic contexts;
- the relations­hip between language attitudes and ideologies and language policy and language planning;
- the interrelations between globalisation, nationalism, ethnicity, identity and language policy;
- linguistic ecology;
- language in education;
- language and cultural shift;
- language vitality;
- language maintenance;
- multilingualism as a resource rather than a problem;
- language minoritisation and endangerment;
- linguistic landscapes;
- linguistic markets;
- translanguaging;
- language standardization in different societies.

The Summer School is an excellent opportunity both for students of the University of Mannheim and students of our partner institutions. The 3-week intense program will give you the chance to explore and discuss current trends in various fields of the Humanities and learn from professors from all over the world. And if that wasn't enough already, our leisure program will provide plenty of opportunity to  get to know Mannheim and the region it is located in and to expand your international network of friends and fellow students.
For more info, check out our Summer School website.

REGISTRATION: ALL students interested in participating in the School of Humanities' Summer School need to sign-up via the online sign-up sheet on the Summer School website. Signing-up via Portal² ist NOT possible.
ANMELDUNG: Alle Studierenden, die an der Summer School der Philosophischen Fakultät teilnehmen möchten, müssen sich über das Online-Anmeldeformular auf der Summer School Website anmelden. Eine Anmeldung über Portal² ist NICHT möglich.

Course Description:
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy and still worldwide stage and screen transposed. This seminar intends to explore the passage from script to screen, and to compare several film adaptations, from various periods of times (running from 1948 to 2000) and various cultural approaches (English, Italian, American, Russian).
Focusing (with a close-reading approach) on key scenes in the tragedy (the uncanny apparition of Hamlet’s father’s ghost; the enco­unter between Hamlet and Ophelia orchestrated by eavesdropping Polonius and Claudius; the ‘mousetrap’ to catch the conscience of the murderer; the confrontation between Hamlet and his ‘lustful’ mother; Ophelia’s madness and drowning; the gravediggers’ scene; the final sword fight between Hamlet and Laertes) in the films by Laurence Olivier (1948), Grigori Kozintsev (1964), Franco Zeffirelli (1990), Kenneth Branagh (1996) and Michael Almereyda (2000), this seminar will invite a
comparative approach.
Both socio-political stakes and aesthetics choices will be taken into account, so as 1) to analyse timeless notions such as dread, fratricide, regicide, revenge, intelligence, repudiation, action, sacrifice and madness, and 2) to see how film directors both adapt a play dating back to 1600 to their own cultural context and time, while still transmitting its timeless pieces of thought on human nature.

The Summer School is an excellent opportunity both for students of the University of Mannheim and students of our partner institutions. The 3-week intense program will give you the chance to explore and discuss current trends in various fields of the Humanities and learn from professors from all over the world. And if that wasn't enough already, our leisure program will provide plenty of opportunity to  get to know Mannheim and the region it is located in and to expand your international network of friends and fellow students.
For more info, check out our Summer School website.

REGISTRATION: ALL students interested in participating in the School of Humanities' Summer School need to sign-up via the online sign-up sheet on the Summer School website. Signing-up via Portal² ist NOT possible.
ANMELDUNG: Alle Studierenden, die an der Summer School der Philosophischen Fakultät teilnehmen möchten, müssen sich über das Online-Anmeldeformular auf der Summer School Website anmelden. Eine Anmeldung über Portal² ist NICHT möglich.

Course Description:
In this course, an introduction to Cognition and Perception will be provided both from the perspective of theoretical frameworks and applications and methods. The course will explore core processes in perception and cognition and will highlight some of the most prominent problems in the current research. The underlying motivation of this course is to show how external (incoming/input) information is transformed into knowledge (in the broadest sense of the word; i.e., cognitive representation). Cognitive representation will be introduced as the main theoretical concept in cognitive and perception sciences. Different types of cognitive representations will be defined and some of the theoretical and empirical discussions and controversies will be discussed.

The Summer School is an excellent opportunity both for students of the University of Mannheim and students of our partner institutions. The 3-week intense program will give you the chance to explore and discuss current trends in various fields of the Humanities and learn from professors from all over the world. And if that wasn't enough already, our leisure program will provide plenty of opportunity to  get to know Mannheim and the region it is located in and to expand your international network of friends and fellow students.
For more info, check out our Summer School website.

REGISTRATION: ALL students interested in participating in the School of Humanities' Summer School need to sign-up via the online sign-up sheet on the Summer School website. Signing-up via Portal² ist NOT possible.
ANMELDUNG: Alle Studierenden, die an der Summer School der Philosophischen Fakultät teilnehmen möchten, müssen sich über das Online-Anmeldeformular auf der Summer School Website anmelden. Eine Anmeldung über Portal² ist NICHT möglich.

Course Description:
At a time when artificial intelligence, intelligent machines, and the internet of things no longer belong to the realm of science fiction, it seems to be urgent to investigate virtual reality and how possible forms of “intelligence” or “cognition” have been imagined by writers and thinkers. As has been argued, a large amount of what science has discovered and technology has developed had already been imagined before. Thus, science fiction and other literary forms of imaginative inquiry into what is possible are important resources for thinking about what our future might look like. We will read a significant text by Jorge Luis Borges about how the world might look like if completely different premises were in force, read short stories that fictionally test how neural networks, androids, and intelligent machines in general might interact with people, and also read about possible encounters with aliens of all kinds of sorts. We will discuss science fiction stories, some of them analyzed in Steven Shaviro’s Discognition (2015), and also films such as Ex Machina,Her, Arrival, and Blade Runner.

The Phonetics Lecture focuses on the key features of English phonetics and phonology. First, the course will cover speech production and perception (the anatomy and physiology of speech, acoustic as well as auditory phonetics) and introduce key phonological concepts. We will then focus on the patterns of speech sounds found in the English language (vowels and consonants) before moving on to an analysis of phonetic and phonological variation in English around the world. In combination with the Phonetics Übung - a weekly practice session in our language lab – the lecture will help students become more aware of their own pronunciation problems in English while also teaching them to appreciate the phonological diversity of World Englishes. The course offers insights into some of the major problems German native speakers face when they learn English as a second language, thereby making it easier for future teachers to identify and, if necessary, rectify their pupils' pronunciation errors.

The Phonetics Lecture focuses on the key features of English phonetics and phonology. First, the course will cover speech production and perception (the anatomy and physiology of speech, acoustic as well as auditory phonetics) and introduce key phonological concepts. We will then focus on the patterns of speech sounds found in the English language (vowels and consonants) before moving on to an analysis of phonetic and phonological variation in English around the world. In combination with the Phonetics Übung - a weekly practice session in our language lab – the lecture will help students become more aware of their own pronunciation problems in English while also teaching them to appreciate the phonological diversity of World Englishes. The course offers insights into some of the major problems German native speakers face when they learn English as a second language, thereby making it easier for future teachers to identify and, if necessary, rectify their pupils' pronunciation errors.

• First, you learn about the basics of the scientific method, research designs, data collection and why we need statistics in linguistics.
• Second, we look at authentic linguistic research in the areas of Sounds, Sentences, and Words, and you learn to understand and evaluate it.
• Third, we turn to analyzing empirical data with descriptive statistics and to statistical hypotheses testing. You will apply your new statistical knowledge during hands-on exercises with the use of statistical software packages.
• Along the way, we consider essentials of creating and reporting research. We address key issues such as finding relevant literature, finding research questions, creating items, and working with references. All topics will be illustrated with authentic research (data) from psycho- or sociolinguistics.

• First, you learn about the basics of the scientific method, research designs, data collection and why we need statistics in linguistics.
• Second, we look at authentic linguistic research in the areas of Sounds, Sentences, and Words, and you learn to understand and evaluate it.
• Third, we turn to analyzing empirical data with descriptive statistics and to statistical hypotheses testing. You will apply your new statistical knowledge during hands-on exercises with the use of statistical software packages.
• Along the way, we consider essentials of creating and reporting research. We address key issues such as finding relevant literature, finding research questions, creating items, and working with references. All topics will be illustrated with authentic research (data) from psycho- or sociolinguistics.

We use language in order to convey meaning to others. As such, meaning is one of the most essential aspects of language. Semantics is the branch of linguistics, which, (along with pragmatics), deals with meaning in language. But what does ‘meaning’ actually mean? Are meanings dictionary definitions, objects in the world or speakers’ intentions?
This course will provide an overview of the field of linguistic Semantics. It will introduce essential concepts for understanding the ways in which meaning can be analysed in linguistics, and acquaint students with major theoretical approaches and current debates in the field. We will investigate what units of language (morphemes, words, sentences) bear meaning and what conceptual tools are used in Semantics to analyse meaning.

“I never travel without my diary. One should always  have something sensational to read in the train.”  (Oscar Wilde)

Oscar Wilde never travelled without his diary. We never travel without Heart of Darkness, Harry Potter or Mrs Dalloway. What books do you take on a train ride? Which literature do you find fascinating? And what is literature anyway? What do we love about it? Its form, its language, its stories, its topics? And how can we analyse literature, critically think about it and thereby enrich and enhance our understanding of it, going even beyond our initial love of books?
This course, which is designed to introduce beginners to central approaches to the study of British and American literature, will tackle issues like these. It will start by answering the question what literature and the study of literature actually are and then provide an introduction to the three main genres of literature written in English (prose, drama and poetry). In discussing these genres, we will have a closer look at key theoretical concepts and tools for the analysis of literary texts. Besides, we will also identify important periods in the history of British and American literature.

The course will be taught in English and will partly take the form of an inverted class room (see requirements), which will allow you to make the best of the time spent in class practicing literary analysis.

This course investigates how African American literary expression examines the meaning of African American identity, the individual’s relationship with its community, and the oftentimes complex relationship of the author to the White American mainstream. In an attempt to comprehend the complex history of race in the United States and its effects on the individual, we will analyze the self-portrayal of Black identity in selected works of American literature of the past 60 years.

Marketing communication and research heavily rely on language. Advertisers use language to convince consumers to buy a certain product. Market researchers ask consumers what they think about a product or what kind of product consumers think they need. Obviously, the success of such marketing efforts depends on linguistic and psycholinguistic processes.
The application of psycholinguistic theory to marketing communication has become a topic of great prominence in consumer research. The use of certain linguistic structures triggers psychological reactions such as attention, emotion and memory. In this course, we build up psycholinguistic background knowledge and simultaneously analyze recent language-related consumer behavior research. Selected topics are:

• Interfaces between language, cognition and consumer behavior
• How principles of sound symbolism and human word recognition can inform brand name construction
• How needs, expectations and ethics determine the potentials and limits of subliminal advertising
• How linguistic framing manipulates consumer decision-making
• How exploiting semantic relations provides structure for consumer learning
• How flouting the Maximes of Conversation influences persuasive communication
• How conceptual metaphors influence marketing communication
• How bilingual language processing affects cognitive and emotional consumer reactions
• How narrative structure in commercials affects consumers’ emotions and memory

The course uses a practical approach and continuously shows how theory and research evidence are relevant to analyze and criticize authentic examples from marketing practice. Moreover, we work on three extensive case studies that allow students to integrate and productively apply the course content. The cases involve developing a brand name for a pharmaceutical product, building an awareness campaign for a non-profit organization and creating a story for a crowd-sourcing campaign of a start-up company. The cases simulate agency pitches, where students work in small teams, present and peer-vote to select the best campaign.

A central part of the course is that student teams conduct their own research project building on previous research discussed in class.

This course will address various aspects of bilingualism from the psycholinguistic perspective. It will be initiated with a discussion of what it means to be bilingual for an individual as well as society. Also, ways of studying bilingual people in experimental settings will be discussed. Next bilingual speech comprehension and production will be of major focus. Furthermore, aspects of bilingual reading, writing, as well as language acquisition will be tackled, before discussing bilingual memory, emotions cognitive effects of bilingualism and creativity.

Each week a different element will be discussed based on the core reading, i.e. a chapter from the course textbook or a selected article. Also, each week a group of students will give a presentation on a chosen research paper referring to a currently discussed topic.

This course is designed to extend students’ knowledge in the topics in current (English) linguistics. Topics to be dealt with include processing of sounds, words, and sentences, acquisition of sounds, words, and sentences by children as well as impaired access to these three areas of linguistic information in case of different language disorders.

The Caribbean's distinctive historical, cultural and geographical situation has turned its literature inte the articulation of complex experiences. Caribbean writers deal with a variety of issues, ranging from the experience of colonial violence and slavery to decolonization and Post WW II geopolitics, from African heritage and diaspora to representations of postcolonial subjectivity, from revolution and resistance to a distinctive artistic self-expression. This course will focus on novels by Claude McKay, Paule Marshall, Marlon James and Junot Díaz.

Taught in collaboration with two Canadian universities – Guelph and Waterloo –, this course will explore a wide range of core topics that define the Canadian experience, ranging from concepts of Canadian multi-culturalism and ethnicity to representations of Canadian landscapes and environments.

We will not approach these topics in a traditional teacher-centred/classroom-centred way; instead, Mannheim students will be paired off with Canadian students from Guelph and Waterloo and will then explore a chosen topic (selected in the first week of class) together. Using a number of tools at your disposal – chat rooms, skype, twitter, blogs etc – you will exchange ideas online and lay the groundwork for a presentation on your chosen topic in the second half of term. In your interactive sessions, your Canadian peers will answer questions you have devised to shed light on your chosen topic; in turn, you will answer questions about German culture and society devised by your Canadian counterparts (all of which are German studies students). In this way, you will not only gain unique insights into what it means to be Canadian but also improve your English language skills and help second-language learners of German gain a sense of what it means to grow up and live in Germany.

Please note: Since we will be discussing the key features of the course in our first session, it is vital you come to our first lesson!

This course is divided into three sections: the development of the British system of government, the British system of government today, and contemporary British poilitics.
The first section deals with British history with particular emphasis on events relating to the development of the system of government.
The second section looks into the role of Britain's political institutions as they are today. The functions of both houses of parliament are examined, as are the roles played by institutions such as the monarch, government and cabinet. Electoral procedure is also analysed.
The third section looks into the political parties of the UK and their manifestoes. The policies of various post-war governments are examined and important political issues of the day are discussed. Particular emphasis will be given to current developments after the recent referendum on the UK's future outside the EU.

This course is an introduction to Ireland and is divided into two parts. The first part looks at the history of Ireland concentrating on the background to the Troubles. The second part deals with Irish culture and society today. Participants are expected to chose subjects for this part; which they will present to the class. The history of Ireland is presented in a reader, which will be distributed at the beginning of the term.

Donald Trump won the US presidency with the slogan, “Make America Great Again” – a phrase almost identical to Ronald Reagan’s campaign slogan in 1980 of “Let’s Make America Great Again.” While Reagan was referring to the 1950’s and early 60’s, Trump’s nostalgic yearning is calling upon the 1980’s. What was going in the 1980’s that make this time period worthy of repeating?

 

By learning about the politics, pop culture and economics in this era, the course will attempt to locate the 80’s and its influence on American culture today.  Topics will include the rise of the yuppie and Reaganomics, heralding an age of new conservatism that is even evident in TV shows like Dynasty or Dallas where the idea of ‘power dressing’ is introduced and big shoulder pads, big hair and opulent lifestyles were flaunted before Americans on a weekly basis.
The 80’s also saw the rise of Madonna, New Wave, heavy metal bands like Guns’n’Roses, while trends like hardcore punk and hip hop have everyone sporting Doc Martens and spandex, or Addidas sneakers and track suits. MTV was born and with it, pop stars became household names.

The blockbuster film emerged with classic family fare like Indiana Jones, E.T., Star Wars, Back to the Future. Teen angst (Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink) was portrayed in movies and books (Bright Lights, Big City) that show what happens when money buys everything - coke, parties, fast cars and depression. In the 1980's, art goes corporate and banks invest in Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons and Julian Schnabel. AIDs takes its toll on the artistic community (Keith Haring, Cookie Mueller) causing many to creep back in their safe shells. What was going on in this boom time and what happened when the party was over?

What is the difference between sound and noise? In our daily environments, we are immersed in soundscapes of place, technology, nature and art. The concept of soundscape is intrinsically linked to histories of mediation and changing technologies that enable us to listen to particular sounds or to tune them out. Historical developments in architecture such as the amphitheater / concert halls make listening to particular types of sounds possible and amplifiers electronically enlarge sounds past natural limits. We encounter and make sense of soundscapes without always pausing to consider their meanings - we are emerged in our aural world, and sometimes actively try to control it with our  ever present earphones.

Soundscapes can be formed from musical communities keeping the beats of the flows of migration and the movements of machines. Soundscapes can emerge from urban life evoking a particular sense of place so that a city is transcribed into a 'sound' - Detroit's Motown, Atlanta Hip Hop, Chicago Blues, Seattle's Grunge, NYC Jazz. Sound events such as Woodstock or Lollapalooza can even define a generation.  

Historical events like the Vietnam War are said to have a soundtrack - the background upon which the action can be displayed and experienced. The soundtrack in films give life and meaning and motion to the story, pulling our emotions to feel with the characters. Emotional soundtracks are used in video gaming making the digital experience  an affective one. Sometimes our real and virtual worlds sound too fast and loud and we can conceive of ( and perhaps long for) empty places or emotions as having the sound of silence.

This class will attempt to hear 'America singing,' sputtering, moaning, wailing, rapping, groaning, and screeching to get at the meanings of these soundscapes. We will listen to each other's interpretations of our weekly topics and the buzzing of our discussions should form a particular soundscape that may just be conducive to considering culture not only with our eyes, but also with our ears.

Fantasy and Science Fiction are typically ridiculed as escapist dreams produced for teenagers. Indeed, they are often seen as the ”lowbrow, popular, pulp, childish and lightweight poor relation of more highbrow, grownup and serious forms based on the realist (mimetic) arts.” (Jacqueline Furby and Claire Hines) In recent years, however, with the upsurge of interest in the fantasy film, a number of academic studies that deal with a wide range of issues rooted in the fantasy and science fiction genres have documented a shift in academic perception. In keeping with this shift, this course will offer an in-depth look at both genres, supplying theoretical and contextual approaches with the help of which the complex imagery of the science fiction and fantasy film can be decoded. We will then use these insights to analyse popular science fiction and fantasy films (Star Wars, the Harry Potter films, The Lord of the Rings trilogy etc.), treating them not as entities devoid of social commentary (hence the title of the course, Other Worlds?) but as products of dominant values, beliefs and fears and thus as cultural products deeply rooted in our world.


Course requirements will be discussed in our first session.

Marketing communication and research heavily rely on language. Advertisers use language to convince consumers to buy a certain product. Market researchers ask consumers what they think about a product or what kind of product consumers think they need. Obviously, the success of such marketing efforts depends on linguistic and psycholinguistic processes.
The application of psycholinguistic theory to marketing communication has become a topic of great prominence in consumer research. The use of certain linguistic structures triggers psychological reactions such as attention, emotion and memory. In this course, we build up psycholinguistic background knowledge and simultaneously analyze recent language-related consumer behavior research. Selected topics are:

• Interfaces between language, cognition and consumer behavior
• How principles of sound symbolism and human word recognition can inform brand name construction
• How needs, expectations and ethics determine the potentials and limits of subliminal advertising
• How linguistic framing manipulates consumer decision-making
• How exploiting semantic relations provides structure for consumer learning
• How flouting the Maximes of Conversation influences persuasive communication
• How conceptual metaphors influence marketing communication
• How bilingual language processing affects cognitive and emotional consumer reactions
• How narrative structure in commercials affects consumers’ emotions and memory

The course uses a practical approach and continuously shows how theory and research evidence are relevant to analyze and criticize authentic examples from marketing practice. Moreover, we work on three extensive case studies that allow students to integrate and productively apply the course content. The cases involve developing a brand name for a pharmaceutical product, building an awareness campaign for a non-profit organization and creating a story for a crowd-sourcing campaign of a start-up company. The cases simulate agency pitches, where students work in small teams, present and peer-vote to select the best campaign.

A central part of the course is that student teams conduct their own research project building on previous research discussed in class.

Fancy English drama? Addicted to contemporary performance? Crave a peep behind the scenes? Love to immerse yourself in the magic that is live theatre? Whether theatre junkie or not, if any of the aforementioned questions apply to you -- then you are completely right here, in this seminar!
The project seminar “Uni Meets Theatre” will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you. You won't just discuss drama as a literary text. You will experience it live, taking part in a collaboration with what has become an institution of Mannheim's artistic scene: the biannual theatre festival HEREANDNOW!
In days like these, in times of looming Brexit, in which European borders have become ever more visible, and nations as well as societies internally split, it is more important than ever to surmount national divides and bridge institutional chasms. This is what the theater/haus G7 hosts of the 2020 HEREANDNOW festival do when they -- despite all political odds -- fervently stick to inviting UK artists to Germany. And this is what you, a participant of this project seminar, will do when you leave the ivory tower of the Mannheim Palace to go out there and immerse yourself in the world of contemporary performance.
If you need any questions answered prior to our first meeting, please drop by my office or write an e-mail to c.schwanecke@uni-mannheim.de. But, please, always remember one crucial theatre wisdom famously put forth in Shakespeare in Love (1998):
“HENSLOWE: The natural condition [of making theatre] is one of unsurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. Believe me, to be closed by the plague is a bagatelle in the ups and downs of owning a theatre.
FENNYMAN: So what do we do?
HENSLOWE: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
FENNYMAN: How?
HENSLOWE: I don't know. It's a mystery.”