32211 Hauptseminar

Heinz Ickstadt

American Cities in Fiction and Poetry of the Post-Fifties
(parallel mit Lublin und Frankfurt am Main)

Although the discovery of metropolis counts as one of the great achievements of modernism in literature and painting, the city does not cease to be a topic also in contemporary art. By this time the city is not only an object for/of representation but has also become part of an urban sign system that enters literature and painting in many different forms and on many different levels - as a way of perception, as a form of consciousness, or as semiotic or fictional material.

The seminar will discuss fiction and poetry of the post-fifties (wherever possible in relation to contemporary painting or other visual media). Parallel seminars will be taught at the University of Frankfurt (Prof. Christa Buschendorf) and the University of Lublin (Prof. Joanna Durczak). If financially possible, there will be a final session of all three seminars in Lublin. If not, there will be constant contact and exchange via e-mail and the Internet.

Texts:

• Don DeLillo: Players. 1977.
• Toni Morrison: Jazz. 1992.
• Paul Auster: City of Glass. 1985.
• John Wideman: Philadelphia Fire 1990.
• Poems by Frank O’Hara, Anne Waldmann, and of the Nuorican poets