European Literatures and Interculturality

Frisian literary tradition has been on the fringes of the Dutch cultural landscape ever since its inception. Nevertheless, the history of this minority literature is fascinating.Until the turn of the 19th century, Frisian was mainly used as an comedic narrative instrument or in a few sentences in prefaces of Dutch books. In the courses of this specialization, we follow the path Frisian took from this paratext to text through the rise of nationalism. By using comparative angle and looking at other minority literatures like Welsh and Basque, we will gain insight into the evolution of the Frisian literature to its current, relatively established position.

Studying France and the francophone world, or “littérature mondiale en français”, offers the opportunity to reflect on cultural conflict and intercultural exchange in a variety of ways. What happens when different cultures, sharing the same language, meet? How do cultural backgrounds influence the way in which individuals view each other and the world? How are pain and suffering caused by displacement be translated into writing? What is the role of the author as a cultural transmitter? We will examine such through a variety of perspectives, studying women's writing and youth literature. Global mobility and contact have influenced social contexts as well literary conventions, and the literary portrait of the child, the exiled person, or the transcultural traveller, has become increasingly complex and multilayered. This MA specialization allows you to explore intercultural connections and transnational voices in for example the graphic novel Persepolis (2001) by Marjane Satrapi or Habiba Mahany's novel Kiffer sa race (2008).

Germany's and Austria's contemporary cultural landscapes are full of tensions between the old and the new. While high-end series and serials such as Babylon Berlin, Charité or Dark shine new glittering lights on crucial episodes of modern German and Austrian history, prize-winning literary authors such as Jenny Erpenbeck, Robert Menasse or Saša Stanišić critically discuss present cultural clashes and the future of their countries in postnational contexts. New debates about both the political relevance and the societal commitment of cultural production echo the controversies about Adorno's famous 1949 dictum that “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” and address the question how future memory will be possible. In our classes, taught in small-group tutorials that enable in-depth discussions, we focus on key topics and discourses of modern German and Austrian culture and literature, reaching from Modernism (Nietzsche, Hofmannsthal, Kafka, Döblin, Benn, among many others) and Expressionism to present-day debates about German and Austrian cultures in a European context.

Studying Italy can offer you a unique perspective on some of the most topical issues within and beyond Europe – including, among others, ongoing debates on populism (from Berlusconi in the 1990s to the present) and migration (Sicily being a primary access point to Europe via the Mediterranean). Parallel to that, Italy's cultural production has been the object of increasing international attention in recent years, as exemplified by Elena Ferrante's literary bestsellers and Paolo Sorrentino's cinema, as well as by TV series like Gomorrah and musical sensations like Mahmood and Måneskin. This MA specialization will allow you to familiarize yourself with the latest trends in Italian literature and culture, while organically placing its subject matter within a European and global context.

Over the last three decades, Russian society has experienced radical transformations and has been a space of continuing social cataclysms, conflict, and contestation. This is as true as ever today, when many subterranean social contradictions have surfaced in the situation of crisis and instability. The cultural sphere–and literature in particular–has been a seismograph of such processes and an arena for shaping visions and attitudes, and it continues fulfilling this role at present, featuring new voices, genres, and methods.

In this MA specialization, we examine the ways in which cultural productions and expressions (literature, films, museums, social media, etc.) both register and (trans)form social norms, values, and visions. The first module engages with questions of coloniality and the development of post- and decolonial perspectives in Russian literature over the 20th and 21st centuries. Our discussions employ intersectional approaches, considering (de)colonization as a complex process involving questions of class, race/ethnicity, gender, language, etc. Among the recent phenomena, we focus on feminist writing and transnational Russian literature. The second module turns to the practices of representing and remembering the 1980-90s socio-political 'transition'–a period that has become an object of appropriations and contestation by a variety of memory actors. We explore diverse cultural productions through the cutting-edge approaches in interdisciplinary memory studies.

Taught in small groups, with Russian and English as languages of reading and instruction, the modules are focused on the development of research skills for the academic and cultural sectors and provide targeted guidance for individual projects.

How do moments of political crisis affect cultural production? Can literature give a voice to marginalized figures in society? Can novels and films offer us a roadmap for resolving social inequalities? Can novels and films offer us a roadmap for resolving social inequalities? These are some of the questions you will engage with in the Spanish specialization of the MA European Literatures and Interculturality. Taught in small-group tutorials, you will have the opportunity to study a range of literary texts and films from across the Spanish-speaking world. The first semester module, “Literatura y crisis”, explores such concepts as memory, post-memory, and trauma, which across generations play a key role in literature about the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, including the Basque conflict. The second semester module “Representaciones de la marginalidad en España” focuses on the idea of marginality from a gendered perspective. We will do close readings of 20th and 21st-century novels written by women, engaging with topics such as gendered violence, class, the Spanish Civil War, and immigrant experience. These tutorials are taught in Spanish and will give ample opportunity to develop your oral and written communication skills alongside the tools needed to conduct high quality research in the field of literature and culture. After this course, having studied various Spanish-language literary works as well as relevant secondary sources, students will have gained insight and knowledge of the relationship between literature and sociocultural and political crises. They will be able to deliver oral and written presentations of academic level on these matters and will be able to initiate a limited research project of their own.

In the Swedish master courses we are delving deep into the genres of crime fiction and satire. One of the leading principles of analyses is the application of a feminist/gender perspective. Sweden is world famous for its crime fiction. Furthermore, Sweden is internationally recognized as a global role model as a welfare state and for gender equality. How does this socio-political context find its expression in literature and other forms of culture? Besides the discussion of canonical texts, we will also examine more recent cultural practices as f. ex. tv-series, graphic novels and stand-up comedy. Furthermore, we will study and discuss the role of satire and humour in societal and political debate.

This Master's track includes an optional work placement for which you are awarded ECTS credit points.

It is your responsibility to find a placement yourself, but the Office for Student Affairs can offer help with this where necessary.