GENERAL INFORMATION

BLOCK SEMINAR: THE PLAYS OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS AND ARTHUR MILLER

Leader: Robert Boyd, Ph.D.

Tuesday evenings from 17:00-20:00

First Meeting: Tuesday, 19 October 2010.
Last Meeting: Tuesday, 7 December 2010.

Weblog address: http://seminarwilliamsmiller.blogspot.com/

Email address: rboyd55098@gmail.com


Material for this class will be published on the weblog (blog) noted above. I will not normally hand out paper copies of information.

The email account rboyd55098@gmail.com is dedicated to this seminar. Please feel free to contact me with questions, whether they are about the texts or about any secondary material you find posted on the course blog.

During the first week of the course, please send me an email with the subject line “contact.” This way, I will gather a list of your email addresses so that I can send necessary information to the entire class.


PLAN:

Week 1. No preparation required. We will discuss the aims of the seminar and the proposed procedures, followed by a brief lecture on the special conditions involved in the study of dramatic literature. In the last half of the evening, we will discuss the life and times of Tennessee Williams as background to our considerations of his plays.

Week 2. Before our meeting, read The Glass Menagerie and think about the list of discussion questions, which will appear on the class blog. Come to our meeting prepared to talk about the play.

Week 3. Read A Streetcar Named Desire and the appropriate discussion questions.

Week 4. Read Cat On a Hot Tin Roof and the discussion questions.

Week 5. No preparation required. We will review our work with Williams, and in the second half of the evening, we will discuss the life and times of Arthur Miller.

Week 6. Read Death of a Salesman and the appropriate discussion questions.

Week 7. Read The Crucible and the discussion questions.

Week 8. Read All My Sons and the discussion questions.


SEMINARSCHEINE:

As is usual, if you wish to obtain the Seminarschein for this course, you must complete a satisfactory paper on a topic to be agreed upon between us. I will post a list of topics which students have found workable and interesting on the course blog toward the end of the fourth week.

Normally, you have until the end of the official winter semester to submit this paper. I expect to receive your work by email, so it will not matter that I am returning to the USA in December.

I will notify you by return email when I have read and approved your paper; if I think that you need to alter or add to your work in order to make it satisfactory, I will be quite specific about what remains to be done.

You may pick up your certificate in the office of the Lehrstuhl fuer Amerikanistik. Please contact Frau Simon-Bata.

Introduction

This blog will serve as the official internet information site for the blockseminar on Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller at the Universitaet Augsburg in the Wintersemester of 2010.

Posts on this blog should be regarded as official information.