This short (5 week) course, 'Explorations in British History,' complements Module 2, British History. In it, students will practice critical reading of secondary literature and primary source analysis in the context of women working in the British Empire. Each week will consider a different case study and the entire section will be framed by instersectional approaches to history.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Riley Linebaugh
M.A. British Studies Compulsory Elective Modules SoSe25
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Joanna Vickery-Barkow
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Christoph Kevin Koenig
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Gesa Stedman
Module 4: Exploring the Social Structures and the Social Inequalities of the UK (2024/25)
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Gerry Mooney
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
The age of modernism went hand in hand with the advent of a new intermedial ecology: Gertrude Stein’s literary portraits, Joyce’s influence on Eisenstein’s montage, Ford Madox Ford and Joseph Conrad’s literary impressionism, and H.G. Wells’s vision for a Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerk, just to name a few — all reflect an intensive modernist engagement with intermedial experiments starting from the fin-de-siècle to the interwar era.
Now a ubiquitous but by no means clear-cut concept, intermedia has undergone a large-scale transformation since its inception as an artistic movement in the 1960s and its subsequent formation as an academic discipline. It was Dick Higgins, a famous American co-founder of the Fluxus movement, who came to father contemporary discourse on the subject and re-purpose “intermedium” as a term, first applied in 1812 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Together with other representatives of the movement, Higgins set an artistic revolution in motion, thus reconfiguring the boundaries of the avant-garde and engaging more widely with experimental expression.
However, the intermedia we know today — at least in its much broader sense — stretches well beyond the confines of Fluxus art: its roots are to be found in Horace’s doctrines of ut pictura poesis, Ars poetica, and the sister arts. Regaining its relevance in eighteenth-century debates on aesthetics, a concern with intermedial paradigms persisted through Romanticism to eventually find its footing in modernism — a movement that has recently been defined as ‘the real age of intermediality’.
This seminar seeks to explore the most consequential historical phases of intermedial thought while connecting those to the modernist mode of expression. The discussion will prioritise the exchange between texts and the visual arts, and look into how photography, film, painting, and sculpture, each to a certain degree, inspired and “excited” modernist literature. The examples and case studies will mostly be drawn from the British tradition and feature excerpts from short stories, novels, and critical writings by Virginia Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bowen, Gertrude Stein, and Henry James, as well as Margaret Kennedy, C.A. Lejune, and Mina Loy, and others.
The objective of the course is to introduce students to the foundations of intermedial studies. It is designed to offer a brief genealogy of intermedial thought across a range of historical periods, reaching its crescendo in modernism. During the course, students will gain an understanding of theoretical methods and approaches to the field vis-à-vis illustrative case studies, become aware of the cultural and historical landscapes informing specific interart relations over the course of time, and learn how to apply intermedial methods to literary texts and other media.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Evelina Bazaeva
In this workshop, we look at different ways of contextualising literature, with the aim to ensure that everyone knows how to work with literary texts in a meaningful way.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Gesa Stedman
“Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing –turns out to be the best part.” Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird (1994)
Lectures: This class is an introduction to academic writing. Lectures will address issues general to the craft of research and writing and specific to the expectations of the GBZ. Writing is a skill, like any, that can be practiced and improved regardless of your previous experience. Academic writing is a specific genre with its own conventions, which will be clarified and practiced throughout the course. Active participation, including completing assigned readings, in-class exercises, preparing for tutorial sessions, and the final essay, are necessary for meaningful engagement with this course. The course structure simulates the writing process, aimed at helping students from start to finish with their final paper.
Tutorials: Students will be divided into writing groups. Each group will meet the lecturer once during a tutorial section of the course. In advance of your tutorial, you will be assigned someone else’s draft. You will read this draft in advance so that you can present it (topic, question, materials, provisional argument) and comment on it (what does it do well, where can it improve). In addition, all students are expected to read the drafts of each member of their reading group in order to provide and receive feedback to and from all writing group members.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Riley Linebaugh
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Miles Taylor
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Miles Taylor
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Miles Taylor
Module 3: The English Legal System - a Historical Introduction (WiSe 2024/25)
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Martin Böhme
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Sam McIntosh
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
Module 3: The British Economy (2024/25)
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Terry O'Sullivan
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
In this interdisciplinary course, students will learn to undertake independent research by studying a particular legacy of the British Empire, the impact of the Windrush generation and how it has shaped British society.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Gesa Stedman
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Joanna Vickery-Barkow
Afterlives of the German and British Empires in Academic Collections at Humboldt-Universität
In this course, students will learn to undertake archival and fieldwork, choosing their own outputs such as a podcast, a film, an ethnographic diary, an academic poster or report, to present their findings on how the German and British Empires overlap in academic collections at HU. The course is experimental and uses a flipped-classroom approach. It is open to everyone with an interest in hands-on research, creative research formats and outputs, and the willingness to work in student-led and self-directed groups.
The course is held in English and offers 5 LP.
If additional assessment is required beyond the output chosen by the students, this can be arranged (short written paper).
Room 001 Centre for British Studies, Mohrenstr. 60, 10117 Berlin, Thursdays 10-12
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Gesa Stedman
This course provides a brief introduction to the discipline of Political Science and the subfield of British Politics. During the course, you will learn:
- how political scientists approach political phenomena,
- how the most common research methods work,
- how to interpret and critique research findings, and
- how to write a literature review.
Specifically, you will gain a first insight into five key research methods (qualitative content analysis, qualitative interviewing, quantitative descriptive analysis, regression analysis, and field experiments) and eight research topics (concepts of democracy, media representations, capitalism, academic institutions, electoral systems, political attitudes, voting behaviour, and ethnic discrimination).
The course is a discussion-based seminar relying on your active engagement with the academic literature in empirical political analysis. You are expected to read, and reflect on, the required readings before each session (11 papers, 232 pages) and to actively participate in the seminar discussions in class with oral summaries, questions, critical comments, and practical exercises (10 sessions). The required readings are indicated in the timetable below and can be downloaded from Moodle. Moreover, you will have to apply the knowledge gained by writing a literature review on a topic of your choice (10,000 characters, deadline 3 March 2025).
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Dr Paolo Chiocchetti
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
General Information for M.A. British Studies Students 2023-25
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
Information on the introductory session to the library of the Centre for British Studies for new students and frequently asked questions.
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Christine Seuring
General Information for M.A. British Studies Students 2023-25
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Evelina Bazaeva
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Dr Paolo Chiocchetti
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Riley Linebaugh
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Dr. Kalika Mehta
- Kursverantwortliche/r: Corinna Radke