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This seminar takes students on a literary and historical journey along the River Thames, following the route of Jerome K. Jerome’s comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (1889). Each week we explore a stretch of the river from Kingston to Oxford, reading short excerpts from the novel and pairing them with key episodes in the Thames’ long history – from Roman bridges and medieval market towns to royal river pageants, Victorian regattas, industrial trade, and modern flood defences.
The course blends literary analysis with historical context, using a wide range of primary sources: maps, paintings, photographs, travel posters, satirical cartoons, and archival documents. Students will compare Jerome’s humorous depictions with factual accounts, examine changes in the river’s role over time, and reflect on how literature and artefacts shape our understanding of places.
Teaching methods include close reading, guided discussion, visual analysis, and virtual ”field trips”. Designed for Lehramt and Anglistik students, the seminar models interdisciplinary approaches to teaching literature and history, and encourages participants to develop their own research question for a term paper.
Students should have successfully passed the module "Introduction to the UK". |
