Studies

English Studies delve into literatures and cultures of Great Britain as complemented by the wide range of Anglophone literatures in the world. At the University of Bayreuth this approach is pursued by the professorship for English Studies and Anglophone Literatures (Prof. Dr. Susan Arndt), which considers itself as Transcultural English Studies. It is dedicated to understanding literary and cultural processes as designed by global encounters of travelling (literary) knowledge, reading them comparatively, studying them transdisciplinary and contextualising them historically. Analytical foci are, amongst others, moulded by theoretical offers of Trans*textuality, Futurity, Intersectionality Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Gender and Queer Studies as well as of Posthumanism.

A list of our different studies programmes including links to guides and exam regulations is to be found on the pages of the Fachgruppe Anglistik/Amerikanistik.

The courses offered at the professorship for English Literary Studies and Anglophone Literatures are designed to introduce to literary theories and methods and to provide adequate space for these theories and methods to be practiced while analysing literary and filmic texts. Approaches as designed by cultural studies and transdisciplinary and comparatist perspectives are as much part of the teaching philosophy as the aspiration to intersect research and teaching. Our courses are eager to teach a dedication to re*thinking, the courage to question knowledge and a variety of strategies of un*learning. The courses are designed to enable students to approach more than the directly taught primary texts and contexts analytically and creatively. Thus tuned, the courses provide the competences to understand literatures, cultures and societies in given interactions and entanglements, while becoming more sensitive to the power of knowledge and narration. Thus tuned, this teaching philosophy paves the way for careers in, for example, academia, education, politics, journalism and economics. 

All students are invited to access complementary teaching content through the Meta Course Transcultural English Studies. If modules allow to do so, you are invited to acquire credits by contributing glossary entries or video clips to be used by other students.