The Chair of English Literature and Cultural Studies at FSU Jena is home to researchers and students working on British and Irish Literature from the early modern period to the present, with special interests in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and the field of British Cultural Studies.
We pay attention to literature’s varied historical contexts of production and reception as well as its many trans-historical forms of adaptation and appropriation. Our staff are particularly interested in the way literature negotiates social and cultural questions through its aesthetic form, and how literature can shape cultural systems of norms and values. The current paradigms of literary and cultural theory help us engage with literature productively and read literary texts in critical and meaningful ways.
In our classes, students are encouraged to read widely and get a broad overview of the history of English literature from the Middle Ages to the contemporary present. Students also have the opportunity to specialise in individual periods, writers, themes and approaches and develop their personal interests. We help our students to sharpen their critical reading skills and engage actively with literature and research both in seminar discussions and their own academic writing.
The Chair’s team have special expertise in the literature and culture of the fin de siècle, the Gothic in literature and other media, literary scandals and censorship, crime and detection in literature, TV and film, visual culture studies, ecocriticism, the history of the English novel, transnational literary studies, and the relationship between literature, science, and knowledge production.
Room 620
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8
07743 Jena
Room 622
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8
07743 Jena
Room 619
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8
07743 Jena
Room 621
Ernst-Abbe-Platz 8
07743 Jena
