This class focuses on the social and political functions of writing and
reading. Writing has time and again been used in order to create
awareness and empathy for the Other, and to forward crucial change -
from the abolition of slavery to the Civil Rights Movement, from the
struggle for workers' rights to marriage equality. Focusing on texts of
various genres from the novel to the poem to the pamphlet, we will
discuss writing as a form of activism. This goes along with addressing
ethical questions of agency and responsibility, of asking who can speak
for whom and how. By the same token, we will also engage with processes
of reading and interpretation and with how the reader can become an
activist herself.
- Lehrende:r: Julia Sattler