All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on the main linguistic and cultural areas of the Americas.

This seminar engages with theories on culture, narrative, and mediation. Active class participation is required.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

This methodological seminar focuses on the recent and rapidly expanding field of the history of emotion while seeking to apply emotion theory to literature. It traces the development of the ‘history of emotion’ across the multiple different fields, including psychology, neurology and history, followed by an in-depth critical work on emotion theory and its applicability to literature. It tackles questions such as what are literary emotions? Where are they located? How can they be defined and what is the relationship between historical and literary emotionality?

The seminar will expand widely across the theoretical background of emotion studies, presenting and discussing its major terminologies and theories. We will then shift to close reading of selected texts for the sake of reinforcing the methodological approach as a skill set to deepen the students’ understanding of the critical parameters and their application. Ultimately, we will seek to encourage and foster the independent critical work of the students on their own chosen texts, utilising the skill sets that they have acquired throughout the seminar to expand on texts of their own choice.

The seminar will run in the first half of term. The final set of classes will be held at the end of term where students will present their research projects (for those taking the associated 5 credit research project) or a potential research project or paper (for those interesting in attending solely the seminar). Readings will include both theoretical texts and literary works. The seminar will take place in English.

This research project is directly associated with the methodological seminar on emotions. The associated seminar will run in the first half of term, followed by a research break in the second half of term where students will work on their own projects utilising the methodological approach or the theory of emotions in history or literature to analyse a work or several works of their own choice. This gives students the opportunity to do in-depth work on a text or set of texts that they may be interested in for their thesis, for instance.
It is not a requirement to attend the seminar for participation in the research project and so students familiar with (or interested in) emotion studies may take the research project independently.
Evaluation criteria is based on a single research paper due at the end of term. The topic selection is due after mid-term. Papers can be written in either English or Icelandic.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

Conventional sociological or historical accounts tend to portray human life as if objects either are irrelevant or at best, passive and inert. This course follows the ‘material turn’ that has occurred in the social sciences and the humanities in the past 20 years and explores the importance of things for understanding human society and history. Drawing on examples from a wide range of disciplines from design history to archaeology, each week a different object is taken for study, illustrating the various disciplinary and theoretical approaches that have been taken to material culture in recent years. The course will be organized around weekly lectures, reading and discussion. The course will be taught in english.

A thorough overview of the political system, history and culture of France. Taught in French.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

Special Theme: Contemporaneity: Social Contexts in Recent Visual Texts

This course will offer an introduction to a range of films from Latin America while examining cinema as a format embedded in the visual culture of the continent. From a sociological standpoint and in light of various strands of influential theoretical models, this course will consider the centrality of movies and television programs as cultural expressions of contemporaneity. This course embraces forms other than feature films or short films, images from media other than scenes from a film, and audience response platforms other than academic articles or reviews from critics. The emphasis is placed on visual texts released in the last decade. The focal points are cross-border / global production and reception, digitization of cinema and recent approaches to cultural identity (identity branding migratory displacement, films as artefacts of contestation, new understanding of gender and ethnicity, memory, neoliberalism and markets, mediatized narcoculture, social inclusion, core-periphery relations, new video cultures and affect). The class will be mainly taught in English

This course will explore the history of Spanish cinema in twentieth century Spain, with particular emphasis on the post-Franco period. (The Cine-Club Hispano will be operated during the semester).

Individual project. A supervisor has to be found before signing up for it.

Seminar C. Lexicografía

Objetivo

En este seminario se pretende ofrecer una introducción a la lexicografía teórica (metalexicografía) como base para estudiar, valorar y usar los diccionarios del español tanto en formato impreso como electrónico. También se presenta el diccionario como herramienta pedagógica.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on main trends in literature and film in different parts of the Americas.

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

The objective of the course is to help students establish their grammar and writing in French. Students will work with complex sentence structure and texts. The course is taught in French.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

A week-long intensive seminar in medieval studies held annually in mid May (usually sometime during the period May 10–30, taught by visiting faculty and covers a different subject every year.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

An overview of the history and developments of the Spanish language.

Special project.

A survey of literature and history of the Mexico-USA boarder regions. Works by Mexican and Mexico-American (Chicano) authors read.

An introductory course in Latin American Literature. Literary works include poems, short stories and novels.

An introductory course in Latin American Literature. Literary works include poems, short stories and novels.

This course will explore literature from the colonial period, with particular emphasis on the role of the conquest gaze as a promoting factor in the image making for the new world. Geographic, literary, and ethnic issues will be examined.

MA-seminar: literature

Individual project.

NOTE: This is an intensive course taught in one block from 10-14 May 2021 (the week after the end of final exams in the spring semester), for six class hours each day (total of 30 class hours). Students must read all the course literature before the first day of classes. They do field research and present preliminary results in a seminar during this week and then write up a final paper after the course ends.

Nigella licks her finger in slow motion on her TV show after dipping it in gravy. She makes a sensual sound, as she looks into the camera and beckons us to enjoy it with her. Flip the channel, and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey shouts relentlessly at other chefs who are fighting to save their restaurants. Many of them shed tears while he scolds them.

Sensuality, anger, stress, excitement, chauvinism, femininity, cream, dieting, healthy eating, food blogs, bake-offs and the fight for better and more righteous foodways all reflect the current popularity of food as entertainment and as an instrument for making people and society better. How can we explain this current tremendous interest, obsession even, with food and nutrition?

In this course we will investigate some select ingredients that have been turned into desirable cultural forms and focus in particular on how imaginations of gender and lifestyle take shape in such phenomena as television food shows, cookbooks, cooking competitions, and food blogs.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

This methodological seminar focuses on the recent and rapidly expanding field of the history of emotion while seeking to apply emotion theory to literature. It traces the development of the ‘history of emotion’ across the multiple different fields, including psychology, neurology and history, followed by an in-depth critical work on emotion theory and its applicability to literature. It tackles questions such as what are literary emotions? Where are they located? How can they be defined and what is the relationship between historical and literary emotionality?

The seminar will expand widely across the theoretical background of emotion studies, presenting and discussing its major terminologies and theories. We will then shift to close reading of selected texts for the sake of reinforcing the methodological approach as a skill set to deepen the students’ understanding of the critical parameters and their application. Ultimately, we will seek to encourage and foster the independent critical work of the students on their own chosen texts, utilising the skill sets that they have acquired throughout the seminar to expand on texts of their own choice.

The seminar will run in the first half of term. The final set of classes will be held at the end of term where students will present their research projects (for those taking the associated 5 credit research project) or a potential research project or paper (for those interesting in attending solely the seminar). Readings will include both theoretical texts and literary works. The seminar will take place in English.

This research project is directly associated with the methodological seminar on emotions. The associated seminar will run in the first half of term, followed by a research break in the second half of term where students will work on their own projects utilising the methodological approach or the theory of emotions in history or literature to analyse a work or several works of their own choice. This gives students the opportunity to do in-depth work on a text or set of texts that they may be interested in for their thesis, for instance.
It is not a requirement to attend the seminar for participation in the research project and so students familiar with (or interested in) emotion studies may take the research project independently.
Evaluation criteria is based on a single research paper due at the end of term. The topic selection is due after mid-term. Papers can be written in either English or Icelandic.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

Conventional sociological or historical accounts tend to portray human life as if objects either are irrelevant or at best, passive and inert. This course follows the ‘material turn’ that has occurred in the social sciences and the humanities in the past 20 years and explores the importance of things for understanding human society and history. Drawing on examples from a wide range of disciplines from design history to archaeology, each week a different object is taken for study, illustrating the various disciplinary and theoretical approaches that have been taken to material culture in recent years. The course will be organized around weekly lectures, reading and discussion. The course will be taught in english.

A thorough overview of the political system, history and culture of France. Taught in French.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

Special Theme: Contemporaneity: Social Contexts in Recent Visual Texts

This course will offer an introduction to a range of films from Latin America while examining cinema as a format embedded in the visual culture of the continent. From a sociological standpoint and in light of various strands of influential theoretical models, this course will consider the centrality of movies and television programs as cultural expressions of contemporaneity. This course embraces forms other than feature films or short films, images from media other than scenes from a film, and audience response platforms other than academic articles or reviews from critics. The emphasis is placed on visual texts released in the last decade. The focal points are cross-border / global production and reception, digitization of cinema and recent approaches to cultural identity (identity branding migratory displacement, films as artefacts of contestation, new understanding of gender and ethnicity, memory, neoliberalism and markets, mediatized narcoculture, social inclusion, core-periphery relations, new video cultures and affect). The class will be mainly taught in English

This course will explore the history of Spanish cinema in twentieth century Spain, with particular emphasis on the post-Franco period. (The Cine-Club Hispano will be operated during the semester).

Individual project. A supervisor has to be found before signing up for it.

Seminar C. Lexicografía

Objetivo

En este seminario se pretende ofrecer una introducción a la lexicografía teórica (metalexicografía) como base para estudiar, valorar y usar los diccionarios del español tanto en formato impreso como electrónico. También se presenta el diccionario como herramienta pedagógica.

Final project in Inter-American Studies written in English.

Final project in Inter-American Studies. The project should be in French but the supervisor makes the decision in agreement with the student.

Final project in Inter-American Studies. The project should be in Spanish but the supervisor makes the decision in agreement with the student.

Later

The aim of the course is to provide students with a more comprehensive and deeper insight into the different theoretical approaches within the humanities. In the course, the main theories that have influenced theoretical discussion in the humanities over the last decades will be presented and discussed, and the students are taught how to apply them in their own research.

Constant technological development and emphasis on digital solutions has brought about frequent and numerous changes in the role of the webmaster. In this course, Efforts will be made to provide students with good insight into the main aspects of the webmaster's work. The writings of experts and scholars will be examined, and students will be introduced to the necessary tools and equipment. Professionals in the field will visit and share their experience with students.

The job of a web editor is often integrated with general web management. Students get a good insight into web editing and writing for digital media. The main aspects that a webmaster / web editor needs to be able to master will be discussed, such as information architecture, writing for the web, presentation of images, fundamentals in web design, accessibility, usability, security, analytics, content management systems (CMS), and basic web interface technology.

Students set up their own websites and use a CMS of their choice, e.g., WordPress or Wix, which are both available in free versions, and some of the assignments are submitted on there. In this way, students gain training in setting up a simple website. Particular attention is drawn to the fact that instruction in the use of the CMS is not part of the course. Those who have no or limited experience, in the use of CMS, are advised that YouTube has numerous videos where you can learn about the systems, from the basics to much more complex aspects that are expected in this course.

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

The objective of the course is to help students establish their grammar and writing in French. Students will work with complex sentence structure and texts. The course is taught in French.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

A week-long intensive seminar in medieval studies held annually in mid May (usually sometime during the period May 10–30, taught by visiting faculty and covers a different subject every year.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

An overview of the history and developments of the Spanish language.

Special project.

A survey of literature and history of the Mexico-USA boarder regions. Works by Mexican and Mexico-American (Chicano) authors read.

An introductory course in Latin American Literature. Literary works include poems, short stories and novels.

An introductory course in Latin American Literature. Literary works include poems, short stories and novels.

This course will explore literature from the colonial period, with particular emphasis on the role of the conquest gaze as a promoting factor in the image making for the new world. Geographic, literary, and ethnic issues will be examined.

MA-seminar: literature

Individual project.

NOTE: This is an intensive course taught in one block from 10-14 May 2021 (the week after the end of final exams in the spring semester), for six class hours each day (total of 30 class hours). Students must read all the course literature before the first day of classes. They do field research and present preliminary results in a seminar during this week and then write up a final paper after the course ends.

Nigella licks her finger in slow motion on her TV show after dipping it in gravy. She makes a sensual sound, as she looks into the camera and beckons us to enjoy it with her. Flip the channel, and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey shouts relentlessly at other chefs who are fighting to save their restaurants. Many of them shed tears while he scolds them.

Sensuality, anger, stress, excitement, chauvinism, femininity, cream, dieting, healthy eating, food blogs, bake-offs and the fight for better and more righteous foodways all reflect the current popularity of food as entertainment and as an instrument for making people and society better. How can we explain this current tremendous interest, obsession even, with food and nutrition?

In this course we will investigate some select ingredients that have been turned into desirable cultural forms and focus in particular on how imaginations of gender and lifestyle take shape in such phenomena as television food shows, cookbooks, cooking competitions, and food blogs.

Final project in Inter-American Studies written in English.

Final project in Inter-American Studies. The project should be in French but the supervisor makes the decision in agreement with the student.

Final project in Inter-American Studies. The project should be in Spanish but the supervisor makes the decision in agreement with the student.

The course focuses on stereotypes and prejudice as manifestations of Othering processes and racism, by using the lens of critical race theories and postcolonial perspectives. The course emphasizes the interlinking of past and present discourses and images about those categorized as Others and how Othering takes place. For this purpose, it analyses colonial imaginaries and of the historical connection of orientalism with key concepts such as culture, identity, and development. It thus highlights the connection between older colonial discourses, nationalism, and contemporary imageries that target marginalized groups, with a specific focus on the European context.  

The course asks how discourses shape bodies and identities of specific groups or categories of people, as well as the social and physical spaces they inhabit. The course also addresses the issue of agency and strategies of resistance against Othering processes and racism, and explores the delicate role that anthropological knowledge, and social theory more in general, plays in this scenario.  

 The course will be taught in English. 

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on the main linguistic and cultural areas of the Americas.

This seminar engages with theories on culture, narrative, and mediation. Active class participation is required.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

This methodological seminar focuses on the recent and rapidly expanding field of the history of emotion while seeking to apply emotion theory to literature. It traces the development of the ‘history of emotion’ across the multiple different fields, including psychology, neurology and history, followed by an in-depth critical work on emotion theory and its applicability to literature. It tackles questions such as what are literary emotions? Where are they located? How can they be defined and what is the relationship between historical and literary emotionality?

The seminar will expand widely across the theoretical background of emotion studies, presenting and discussing its major terminologies and theories. We will then shift to close reading of selected texts for the sake of reinforcing the methodological approach as a skill set to deepen the students’ understanding of the critical parameters and their application. Ultimately, we will seek to encourage and foster the independent critical work of the students on their own chosen texts, utilising the skill sets that they have acquired throughout the seminar to expand on texts of their own choice.

The seminar will run in the first half of term. The final set of classes will be held at the end of term where students will present their research projects (for those taking the associated 5 credit research project) or a potential research project or paper (for those interesting in attending solely the seminar). Readings will include both theoretical texts and literary works. The seminar will take place in English.

This research project is directly associated with the methodological seminar on emotions. The associated seminar will run in the first half of term, followed by a research break in the second half of term where students will work on their own projects utilising the methodological approach or the theory of emotions in history or literature to analyse a work or several works of their own choice. This gives students the opportunity to do in-depth work on a text or set of texts that they may be interested in for their thesis, for instance.
It is not a requirement to attend the seminar for participation in the research project and so students familiar with (or interested in) emotion studies may take the research project independently.
Evaluation criteria is based on a single research paper due at the end of term. The topic selection is due after mid-term. Papers can be written in either English or Icelandic.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

Conventional sociological or historical accounts tend to portray human life as if objects either are irrelevant or at best, passive and inert. This course follows the ‘material turn’ that has occurred in the social sciences and the humanities in the past 20 years and explores the importance of things for understanding human society and history. Drawing on examples from a wide range of disciplines from design history to archaeology, each week a different object is taken for study, illustrating the various disciplinary and theoretical approaches that have been taken to material culture in recent years. The course will be organized around weekly lectures, reading and discussion. The course will be taught in english.

A thorough overview of the political system, history and culture of France. Taught in French.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

Special Theme: Contemporaneity: Social Contexts in Recent Visual Texts

This course will offer an introduction to a range of films from Latin America while examining cinema as a format embedded in the visual culture of the continent. From a sociological standpoint and in light of various strands of influential theoretical models, this course will consider the centrality of movies and television programs as cultural expressions of contemporaneity. This course embraces forms other than feature films or short films, images from media other than scenes from a film, and audience response platforms other than academic articles or reviews from critics. The emphasis is placed on visual texts released in the last decade. The focal points are cross-border / global production and reception, digitization of cinema and recent approaches to cultural identity (identity branding migratory displacement, films as artefacts of contestation, new understanding of gender and ethnicity, memory, neoliberalism and markets, mediatized narcoculture, social inclusion, core-periphery relations, new video cultures and affect). The class will be mainly taught in English

This course will explore the history of Spanish cinema in twentieth century Spain, with particular emphasis on the post-Franco period. (The Cine-Club Hispano will be operated during the semester).

Individual project. A supervisor has to be found before signing up for it.

Seminar C. Lexicografía

Objetivo

En este seminario se pretende ofrecer una introducción a la lexicografía teórica (metalexicografía) como base para estudiar, valorar y usar los diccionarios del español tanto en formato impreso como electrónico. También se presenta el diccionario como herramienta pedagógica.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on main trends in literature and film in different parts of the Americas.

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

The objective of the course is to help students establish their grammar and writing in French. Students will work with complex sentence structure and texts. The course is taught in French.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

A week-long intensive seminar in medieval studies held annually in mid May (usually sometime during the period May 10–30, taught by visiting faculty and covers a different subject every year.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

An overview of the history and developments of the Spanish language.

Special project.

A survey of literature and history of the Mexico-USA boarder regions. Works by Mexican and Mexico-American (Chicano) authors read.

An introductory course in Latin American Literature. Literary works include poems, short stories and novels.

An introductory course in Latin American Literature. Literary works include poems, short stories and novels.

This course will explore literature from the colonial period, with particular emphasis on the role of the conquest gaze as a promoting factor in the image making for the new world. Geographic, literary, and ethnic issues will be examined.

MA-seminar: literature

Individual project.

NOTE: This is an intensive course taught in one block from 10-14 May 2021 (the week after the end of final exams in the spring semester), for six class hours each day (total of 30 class hours). Students must read all the course literature before the first day of classes. They do field research and present preliminary results in a seminar during this week and then write up a final paper after the course ends.

Nigella licks her finger in slow motion on her TV show after dipping it in gravy. She makes a sensual sound, as she looks into the camera and beckons us to enjoy it with her. Flip the channel, and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey shouts relentlessly at other chefs who are fighting to save their restaurants. Many of them shed tears while he scolds them.

Sensuality, anger, stress, excitement, chauvinism, femininity, cream, dieting, healthy eating, food blogs, bake-offs and the fight for better and more righteous foodways all reflect the current popularity of food as entertainment and as an instrument for making people and society better. How can we explain this current tremendous interest, obsession even, with food and nutrition?

In this course we will investigate some select ingredients that have been turned into desirable cultural forms and focus in particular on how imaginations of gender and lifestyle take shape in such phenomena as television food shows, cookbooks, cooking competitions, and food blogs.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

This methodological seminar focuses on the recent and rapidly expanding field of the history of emotion while seeking to apply emotion theory to literature. It traces the development of the ‘history of emotion’ across the multiple different fields, including psychology, neurology and history, followed by an in-depth critical work on emotion theory and its applicability to literature. It tackles questions such as what are literary emotions? Where are they located? How can they be defined and what is the relationship between historical and literary emotionality?

The seminar will expand widely across the theoretical background of emotion studies, presenting and discussing its major terminologies and theories. We will then shift to close reading of selected texts for the sake of reinforcing the methodological approach as a skill set to deepen the students’ understanding of the critical parameters and their application. Ultimately, we will seek to encourage and foster the independent critical work of the students on their own chosen texts, utilising the skill sets that they have acquired throughout the seminar to expand on texts of their own choice.

The seminar will run in the first half of term. The final set of classes will be held at the end of term where students will present their research projects (for those taking the associated 5 credit research project) or a potential research project or paper (for those interesting in attending solely the seminar). Readings will include both theoretical texts and literary works. The seminar will take place in English.

This research project is directly associated with the methodological seminar on emotions. The associated seminar will run in the first half of term, followed by a research break in the second half of term where students will work on their own projects utilising the methodological approach or the theory of emotions in history or literature to analyse a work or several works of their own choice. This gives students the opportunity to do in-depth work on a text or set of texts that they may be interested in for their thesis, for instance.
It is not a requirement to attend the seminar for participation in the research project and so students familiar with (or interested in) emotion studies may take the research project independently.
Evaluation criteria is based on a single research paper due at the end of term. The topic selection is due after mid-term. Papers can be written in either English or Icelandic.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

Conventional sociological or historical accounts tend to portray human life as if objects either are irrelevant or at best, passive and inert. This course follows the ‘material turn’ that has occurred in the social sciences and the humanities in the past 20 years and explores the importance of things for understanding human society and history. Drawing on examples from a wide range of disciplines from design history to archaeology, each week a different object is taken for study, illustrating the various disciplinary and theoretical approaches that have been taken to material culture in recent years. The course will be organized around weekly lectures, reading and discussion. The course will be taught in english.

A thorough overview of the political system, history and culture of France. Taught in French.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

Special Theme: Contemporaneity: Social Contexts in Recent Visual Texts

This course will offer an introduction to a range of films from Latin America while examining cinema as a format embedded in the visual culture of the continent. From a sociological standpoint and in light of various strands of influential theoretical models, this course will consider the centrality of movies and television programs as cultural expressions of contemporaneity. This course embraces forms other than feature films or short films, images from media other than scenes from a film, and audience response platforms other than academic articles or reviews from critics. The emphasis is placed on visual texts released in the last decade. The focal points are cross-border / global production and reception, digitization of cinema and recent approaches to cultural identity (identity branding migratory displacement, films as artefacts of contestation, new understanding of gender and ethnicity, memory, neoliberalism and markets, mediatized narcoculture, social inclusion, core-periphery relations, new video cultures and affect). The class will be mainly taught in English

This course will explore the history of Spanish cinema in twentieth century Spain, with particular emphasis on the post-Franco period. (The Cine-Club Hispano will be operated during the semester).

Individual project. A supervisor has to be found before signing up for it.

Seminar C. Lexicografía

Objetivo

En este seminario se pretende ofrecer una introducción a la lexicografía teórica (metalexicografía) como base para estudiar, valorar y usar los diccionarios del español tanto en formato impreso como electrónico. También se presenta el diccionario como herramienta pedagógica.

Final project in Inter-American Studies written in English.

Final project in Inter-American Studies. The project should be in French but the supervisor makes the decision in agreement with the student.

Final project in Inter-American Studies. The project should be in Spanish but the supervisor makes the decision in agreement with the student.

Later

The aim of the course is to provide students with a more comprehensive and deeper insight into the different theoretical approaches within the humanities. In the course, the main theories that have influenced theoretical discussion in the humanities over the last decades will be presented and discussed, and the students are taught how to apply them in their own research.

Constant technological development and emphasis on digital solutions has brought about frequent and numerous changes in the role of the webmaster. In this course, Efforts will be made to provide students with good insight into the main aspects of the webmaster's work. The writings of experts and scholars will be examined, and students will be introduced to the necessary tools and equipment. Professionals in the field will visit and share their experience with students.

The job of a web editor is often integrated with general web management. Students get a good insight into web editing and writing for digital media. The main aspects that a webmaster / web editor needs to be able to master will be discussed, such as information architecture, writing for the web, presentation of images, fundamentals in web design, accessibility, usability, security, analytics, content management systems (CMS), and basic web interface technology.

Students set up their own websites and use a CMS of their choice, e.g., WordPress or Wix, which are both available in free versions, and some of the assignments are submitted on there. In this way, students gain training in setting up a simple website. Particular attention is drawn to the fact that instruction in the use of the CMS is not part of the course. Those who have no or limited experience, in the use of CMS, are advised that YouTube has numerous videos where you can learn about the systems, from the basics to much more complex aspects that are expected in this course.

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

The objective of the course is to help students establish their grammar and writing in French. Students will work with complex sentence structure and texts. The course is taught in French.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

The course deals with interconnections between political radicalism, culture, tradition and power. We will focus on contemporary representations of dissent in particular, look at the discourse of democracy and cultural difference, reactions to and criticism of protest in the Western political tradition and dissent in more repressive political systems. The role of intellectuals and writers will be explored as well as the function of artistic expression and design in transforming cultural and social environments. We will also discuss media and social media discourse in connection with an attempt to understand the various and sometimes contradictory objectives of public institutions. A few points of conflict will be discussed that to some extent expose fundamental conflicts in liberal democratic societies such as questions about the wisdom and ignorance of publics, reactions to climate change, inequality and extreme poverty. Finally corruption and power will be discussed as well as social and cultural expression, the possibilities and limitations of freedom of speech, the use and abuse of information, disinformation, secrecy, fake and “fake news”.

A week-long intensive seminar in medieval studies held annually in mid May (usually sometime during the period May 10–30, taught by visiting faculty and covers a different subject every year.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

An overview of the history and developments of the Spanish language.

Special project.

A survey of literature and history of the Mexico-USA boarder regions. Works by Mexican and Mexico-American (Chicano) authors read.

An introductory course in Latin American Literature. Literary works include poems, short stories and novels.

An introductory course in Latin American Literature. Literary works include poems, short stories and novels.

This course will explore literature from the colonial period, with particular emphasis on the role of the conquest gaze as a promoting factor in the image making for the new world. Geographic, literary, and ethnic issues will be examined.

MA-seminar: literature

Individual project.

NOTE: This is an intensive course taught in one block from 10-14 May 2021 (the week after the end of final exams in the spring semester), for six class hours each day (total of 30 class hours). Students must read all the course literature before the first day of classes. They do field research and present preliminary results in a seminar during this week and then write up a final paper after the course ends.

Nigella licks her finger in slow motion on her TV show after dipping it in gravy. She makes a sensual sound, as she looks into the camera and beckons us to enjoy it with her. Flip the channel, and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey shouts relentlessly at other chefs who are fighting to save their restaurants. Many of them shed tears while he scolds them.

Sensuality, anger, stress, excitement, chauvinism, femininity, cream, dieting, healthy eating, food blogs, bake-offs and the fight for better and more righteous foodways all reflect the current popularity of food as entertainment and as an instrument for making people and society better. How can we explain this current tremendous interest, obsession even, with food and nutrition?

In this course we will investigate some select ingredients that have been turned into desirable cultural forms and focus in particular on how imaginations of gender and lifestyle take shape in such phenomena as television food shows, cookbooks, cooking competitions, and food blogs.

Final project in Inter-American Studies written in English.

Final project in Inter-American Studies. The project should be in French but the supervisor makes the decision in agreement with the student.

Final project in Inter-American Studies. The project should be in Spanish but the supervisor makes the decision in agreement with the student.

The course focuses on stereotypes and prejudice as manifestations of Othering processes and racism, by using the lens of critical race theories and postcolonial perspectives. The course emphasizes the interlinking of past and present discourses and images about those categorized as Others and how Othering takes place. For this purpose, it analyses colonial imaginaries and of the historical connection of orientalism with key concepts such as culture, identity, and development. It thus highlights the connection between older colonial discourses, nationalism, and contemporary imageries that target marginalized groups, with a specific focus on the European context.  

The course asks how discourses shape bodies and identities of specific groups or categories of people, as well as the social and physical spaces they inhabit. The course also addresses the issue of agency and strategies of resistance against Othering processes and racism, and explores the delicate role that anthropological knowledge, and social theory more in general, plays in this scenario.  

 The course will be taught in English.