Specialists – BA graduates in English and American Studies
Duration of study: 2 semesters
Form of study: Full-time / Part-time / Distance
State-funded / Fee-paying
Non-specialists – BA graduates in other fields
Duration of study: 3 semesters (First preparatory semester for non-English Studies BA graduates)
Form of study: full-time / part-time / distance
State-funded / Fee-paying
All courses are taught in English.
Completion with an MA thesis in English
Program Directors:
• Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
Tel: 02/9308 382
E-mail: m.danova@uni-sofia.bg
• Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
Tel: 02/9308 314
e-mail: glavanak@uni-sofia.bg
Webpage: https://eas.uni-sofia.bg/communication-language-literature-media/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MACommunicationSU
Administrative assistant: Kamelia Syarova, room 17, tel.: (02) 9308 357
Department of English and American Studies, room 167
Tel.: (02) 9308 381; 9308 392
Communication: Language, Literature, Media
Description
The Master’s degree program Communication: language, literature, media looks at communication from the perspective of the interaction between literature and the media in the globalizing world of computers and the Internet. It aims to introduce the students to the different facets of the study and practice of communication – as a theoretical issue, as a pedagogical and practical tool, and as an artistic phenomenon in the highly technologized world of today. It provides a deepening of the knowledge of participants who want to teach British and American literature, culture and language, while expanding their media literacy and digital literacy and preparing them to work in and with the media.
All students are offered the opportunity of deepening their knowledge and skills in intercultural and interpersonal communication, as well as further building their research and critical skills, especially for those who would go on to the third level of university education – the PhD. The instructors in the program are leading academics from Sofia University and from other universities, predominantly from the USA, as well as specialists in various fields, including alumni, who are experts in media analysis and creative writing. Courses offered focus particularly on learning a variety of online writing and teaching tools, as well as developing skills for creative work in a digital environment. Practical internships in mass media, educational and cultural institutions are included in the program. Opportunity for Erasmus+ mobilities in related MA programs with a special focus on thematic cores of the curriculum are also provided. There is also a specialized module on building skills for philological work in a business environment, with an emphasis on business communication, and on the collection and analysis of large data sets, which is studied optionally.
For specialists – students who have obtained a BA degree in English and American Studies either in Bulgaria or abroad, as well as to the graduates of programs from the field 1.3. …, which give a professional qualification “English Language Teacher”, this is a two-semester program.
The students who are non-specialists – not English and American Studies BA graduates but come from other study fields and have a good command of English, will have an introductory semester, which will help them get fully immersed into the field of the English and American Studies. There is an intensive English language course these students will be required to take as well. The program is offered for three semesters for non-specialists.
All courses are taught in English. An obligatory requirement for graduation is the preparation and defense of a Master’s thesis in English.
Career development
Graduates of the program can pursue professional careers as highly qualified teachers of British and American literature and culture, in addition to all other professional fields that presuppose a sound knowledge of intercultural communication and media literacy and digital literacy. They can work as well-trained professionals in European cultural institutions, NGOs and human resource development, as well as in all forms of mass media.
Application process
Applicants are admitted based on their BA diploma and an interview with a panel, which is conducted in English. For the admission of applicants who do not have a Bachelor’s degree in English and American Studies, an internationally recognized certificate of proficiency (B2 or more according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is also required. The ranking of students is in descending order of the total score, which formed as the sum of the arithmetic mean of the average grade of all subjects and the grade of the state exam examinations, and the grade from the interview. The interview will include questions concerning the applicants’ research interests and motivation for applying to the program.
Admission to the graduate programs of the Faculty Classical and Modern Philology is ONLY ONLINE through the applications portal at https://fcml.kmk.uni-sofia.bg Check for important dates: https://www.uni-sofia.bg/index.php/bul/universitet_t/fakulteti/fakultet_po_klasicheski_i_novi_filologii/specialnosti/magist_rski_programi
Important for international students: Your original Diploma for higher education obtained at a non-Bulgarian institution must be legalized and recognized by Bulgarian institutions prior to applying for a Master’s degree. Further information can be found here: https://www.uni-sofia.bg/index.php/eng/students/schedules_and_procedures/recognition_of_higher_education_acquired_at_a_foreign_higher_education_institution
Enrollment
Students can enroll full-time, part-time, or distance. In all three forms there are state-funded (depending on your citizenship and total score) and fee-paying places.
COURSES
FOR ENGLISH AND AMERICAN STUDIES BA GRADUATES
COMPULSORY COURSES: Semester I
Academic Writing – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course aims at familiarizing students with the basic theoretical and practical requirements for coherent and logically connected texts in academic English and means to raise the awareness that academic writing goes through a structured process of creativity. It discusses the different genres of academic discourse, such as paper, book review, and dissertation, and examines the main types of paragraph development: listing, example, comparison, contrast, classification, cause and effect, and generalization. It particularly focuses on the textlinguistic parameters of linearity, coherence, repetition, and parallelism, pays attention to academic distancing and tentativeness, and considers the practice of summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting. In view of these micro-and macro-organizational aspects, the course also places emphasis on the use of different styles of documentation.
Dr. Vesselin Budakov
The Modernist Experiment – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
Dr. Jonathan McCreedy
Literature and Adaptation – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
The course aims to introduce students to the main issues of adaptation as an approach to literary work and as a manifestation of intertextuality. It examines the particularities of intra-literary adaptation, film adaptation, and adaptation in the performing and visual arts. The rootedness of adaptation in its historical, cultural and ideological context are outlined, especially when it treats historical and mythological subjects, including those that are alien to the culture in which the adaptation takes place. In light of presented theory, film adaptations of literary works from the English-speaking canon and contemporary English-language literature are analyzed. Particular attention is paid to certain aspects of the literary work, such as metafiction, which pose particular challenges to its adaptation in other media.
Dr. Angel Igov
Migration and Literature – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course familiarizes students with the question of migrancy and migrant writing. The problematics of crossing borders and dislocation, liminality and hybridity, the decentering of identity and contrapuntal thinking, identification and language and the relativization of center/periphery are addressed in the fictions of writers and critics from diverse backgrounds.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
Foreign Language: German/French/Spanish, Part 1 – lectures: 30, seminars: 150; ECTS: 12
COMPULSORY COURSES: Semester II
Communication and Literature – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
Prof. Madeleine Danova & Kiril Hadzhikosev
Intercultural Communication – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
Digital Culture – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
This generation’s students are more likely to be found gathering information, communicating, or seeking entertainment in front of a computer screen than anywhere else. Unlike television, movies, magazines, and books, which comprise old media, new media encompass different forms of electronic communication made possible through the use of computer technology. Examples include the Internet, websites, computer games, blogs, podcasts, to name a few. Just as the pencil is a tool to compose on paper, digital tools are needed to compose in new media: free Web tools and open source programs. Students examine how new computer technologies, telecommunication networks, and digital arts are transforming everyday life, contemporary culture, institutions, groups and identity, dealing with issues about the production, consumption, regulation, representation of IT. They also reflect on the transformation of literacy, the role of the printed book, reading, and intellectual discourse itself. Topics include: theories of the subject and reconstruction of human identity and the body in networked culture; posthumanism and transhumanism; community, group and subculture formation online; political organization and cultural resistance through digital media; digital technology and the law (intellectual property and privacy, hacker culture, file-sharing); ethics of surveillance and data security; simulation and virtuality; the representation of technology in popular media; the growth of digital entertainment industry; play and leisure in digital media. The course is designed to be both theoretical and experiential, involving technology, media, social networking practices, thus stimulating creativity and out of the box thinking. It focuses on the reception, interpretation, analysis and production of multimodal texts. By producing works using the latest digital tools, students will not only learn to create meaning, tell a story, provoke a reaction with sound, images, animation, and other media, but they also learn how theoretical perspectives lead to the rethinking of conventional rhetorical concepts such as authorship, audience, process, revision, and design when applied to digital contexts.
The principal educational aims are to develop and enhance participants’ awareness and understanding of a range of subjects relevant to digital culture and technology, including:
– the key information and communication technologies that shape contemporary society.
– key developments in contemporary cultural expression, specifically as these are driven, mediated or influenced by digital technologies.
– how digital technologies are shaping society more generally, e.g. social intercourse, social structures, government, international politics, education and law.
– current critical and theoretical debates around digital culture and the role of technology in the shaping of literacy, the reform in education, the nature of textuality and literature.
– the ethical, moral and philosophical issues that arise from the role and impact of technology in cultural and social life.
Following the establishment of the English and American Studies Alumni Network, its members who are professionals and experts working in/with different media will be invited on a regular basis to organize workshops with students.
Assessment: Continuous Assessment, Term Paper (Digital Essay / Creative Project)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
Mass Media in Contemporary Society – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
ELECTIVE COURSES: Semester I
Race and Ethnicity in American Culture – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course seeks to examine how fictional and non-fictional writings and the visual arts in the USA help to communicate the sense of ethnic belonging, the making of new ethnic identities and the maintenance of the old ones.
The analysis of the works discussed will rely on some of the contemporary theories of race and ethnicity and will discuss a variety of 20th-century American novels, autobiographies, films and other works of art and popular culture coming from different narrative and cultural traditions. A particular focus will be placed on the relationship ‘self’- other’, on the cultural stereotypes and the role of language as part of the identity formation processes in the USA.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
U.S. Popular Culture and Politics – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Popular culture is a highly politicized domain of social life. This course draws upon an eclectic selection of television, films, advertising and cyberculture to examine the social construction of political meaning, how political ideas and ideologies are conveyed, and the limits and possibilities of an industry often controlled by political and economic elites. The focus will be on diverse types of popular culture that deal directly with political issues and others that can be read as alternative forms of political text. The course introduces a variety of critical approaches to studying popular culture: production analysis, textual analysis, audience analysis. The following themes will be explored: representations of the political process; media, culture and politics; the politics of memory and the past; asylum, migration and refugees; war and conflict; terrorism; frontier politics; alternatives to democracy; utopia and dystopia; the individual and the state. The issue of the globalization of American popular culture will also be examined, with a particular focus of its presence in the Bulgarian context. The course will also include an examination of how such social categories as ethnicity, race, gender, class, region and sexuality are shaped and reshaped in popular culture.
The principal goals of this course are:
– To develop skills in the political analysis of popular culture texts;
– To understand the political, economic and organizational processes shaping popular culture;
– To promote an awareness of debates surrounding the effects of media and popular culture;
– To develop skills of interpretation, appraisal and analysis of political sources;
– To promote skills of group discussion, team work, oral presentation, research and analytical writing.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
American Novels into Film – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The aim of the course is to give better understanding of the way into which some of the classical texts of American literature have found their way into the most popular of the arts of the twentieth century, the cinema. Comparing the old and the new film versions of some of these literary works and analyzing the recent revival of the film industry’s interest towards them, the students will gain better insight in the mechanisms and the discourses governing the contemporary popular culture in the USA. The course will pay due attention to the variety of critical literature that has spawned in the wake of the latest Hollywood productions of The Scarlet Letter, The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, Washington Square, as well as of the adaptations of the postmodern bestsellers Beloved, Cold Mountain, Smoke Signals.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
Epistolary Writing in Literature and Cinema – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Vesselin Budakov
Creative Writing, Part 1 – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Creative writing can develop attitudes and skills crucial to the work of a translator or an interpreter. Among these are: awareness of different genres and registers, recognition of the figurative dimension of language, ability to “translate” the culture-specific aspects of a text, awareness of the fine borderline between the translatable and the untranslatable.
This course includes the following activities: (re)writing fictional/non-fictional texts in different genres, manipulating the register(s) of a text, rewriting an English text in Bulgarian and vice versa, parodying texts, (re)writing texts from different perspectives. Both teachers and students will write reviews of the work produced in the course. The assessment is based on: a portfolio of texts, participation in classroom discussions, and peer reviewing.
Dr. Tom Phillips
Genre Literature: The Gothic Novel – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Rayna Rossenova
Myth, Literature and Media – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Rayna Rossenova
Analytical Reading and English-Bulgarian Translation of Media Texts – seminars: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Angel Igov
Origin and Evolution of Human Language – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bagasheva
Theatre in the Age of the Internet – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
This course examines the impact of the Internet on live theatre and performance. It looks at the way digital technologies have changed the production values in theatrical performance and the way digital theatre itself has blended the distinctions between media. Using the Digital Performance Archive, it focuses both on resources used in performance and resources on performance in the last decades of the 20th century.
Digital resources in performance include theatrical productions and live–art installations that incorporate electronic media, to live–broadcast World Wide Web performances and Internet based collaborations, to interactive drama and the new performative ‘virtual environments’ of MUDS, MOOs, etc. Digital resources on performance include those being used to document, analyze and critique performance: from performing arts databases and websites to academic CD-ROMS and DVDs.
Dr. Kornelia Tancheva, Cornell University, U.S.A.
Foreign Language: German/French/Spanish, Part 2 – seminars: 60; ECTS: 4
ELECTIVE COURSES: Semester II
Genre Literature: Science Fiction – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Alexander Popov
The course traces the development of science fiction (SF) as a genre and aims to correlate it with the development of the modern mind and how the latter organizes and manipulates the world through cognitive-cultural categories. The introductory lectures provide a theoretical and historical overview of the genre, while the bulk of the course takes up topics and images central to SF, such as those of Empire, Utopia, Artificial Intelligence, Alien Minds, Cyberspace, Climate Change and others. The overarching goal is to simultaneously historicize the genre and to use it as a laboratory space for thinking about contemporary problems, be they political, technological, environmental, etc. The lectures refer to multiple SF works which are not required reading for the course, but the students are expected to read a small number of texts and to be preprated to discuss them during classes.
Literature in the Age of the Internet – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
This course aims at examining the interrelation between literature and the new digital technologies. The focus is on the revolutionary transition of fiction from page to screen in this “late age of print.” Among the themes to be discussed are the problems of authorship; the various modes of electronic literature (hypertext, multi-media, computer-generated text); multimedia print texts; the pedagogical application of computer games and software products; the writing and reception of electronic literature; the various methodological approaches to analyzing electronic literature, digital writing and computer-generated texts; issues of interactivity and immersion in reader-reception. The critical analysis will be performed on samples of on-line databases of web-based literature.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
Creative Writing, Part 2 – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Canadian Culture and Literature – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The aim of the course is to outline the development of Canadian literature from the perspectives of multiculturalism and transculturalism. The topics to be discussed will include indigenous writing, regional writing, women writing, multiethnic writing in a variety of genres – autobiography, drama, short fiction and the novel. In addition the developments specific to Canadian culture in comparison to the U.S. and British culture will be emphasized. Thus, the students will be able to strengthen their knowledge of Canadian culture and acquire a broader perspective for understanding the processes of creation in Canadian literature, as well as of identity-formation and nation-building in an era of globalization and multiethnicity.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova, Dr. Galina Avramova
The Irish Cultural Revival – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Тhe course is an introduction to the Gaelic Revival: one of Ireland’s major cultural and literary triumphs. The focus will be on W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, Lady Gregory and other revivalists such as George Sigerson, George Moore and A.E. Some of the topics for discussion include: myth, collective memory and literary echoes; folkloristics and the poetics of modernism; the construction of the colonial subject; anthropology as a critique of modernity; cultural nationalism. These topics will be discussed in the context of close reading of a carefully selected list of literary works. Current debates in Irish studies, particularly post-colonial and subaltern approaches, will serve as a theoretical departure and as a model for academic argumentation. Students will be assessed on class participation in addition to individual written work based on independent research.
Dr. Jonathan McCreedy
Postmodern Biofiction in Literatures in English – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The aim of the course is to introduce students to the development of the genre of biography and its criss-crossing today with the postmodern fiction devoted to the lives of such writers as Byron, Keats, the Shellys, Edgar A. Poe and Henry James. The problems discussed are connected to the canonization of the lives of these writers throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century and the consequent debunking and de-mythologizing of their lives by postmodern writers. Biography is discussed as the last “battle field” of the never ending war between fact and fiction, as the last “fortress” to be conquered by the “pastiche” imagination and the interplay of codes of interpretation that have become the staples of postmodern culture. The works discussed include novels by Peter Ackroyd, Anthony Burgess, David Lodge, Colm Toibin, Emma Tennant, Mathew Pearl, Louis Bayard, John Crowley and others.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
This course introduces the students to the newest tendencies in the study of literature and culture coming from the field of cognitive studies. In the last decade or so the way fictional texts are analyzed and interpreted has been transformed by such scientific discoveries as the mirror neuron system and its role in the processes of empathy. They have led to the re-directing of the interest of literary critics from post-structuralism and relativism towards cognitive neuroscience, which examines the ways in which the human brain works, as well as cognition, memory, and the different ways in which we ‘know’ the world together with the role of language in problem-solving and creativity. Although the study of literature and its connection to the human brain and the social context do have a long history, the renewed interest in cognition and its biological underpinnings has spurred the development of a new branch of literary studies, the cognitive one as a result of the creative dialogue with such disciplines as evolutionary psychology, developmental psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, cognitive linguistics, anthropology and philosophy. Some of the aspects of these scholarly encounters are what the course aims at discussing in depth.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova & Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bagasheva
Analytical Reading and Bulgarian-English Translation of Media Texts – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Lika Pishtalova
Project Writing and Project Management – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course aims at imparting new knowledge and skills on “How to write projects doomed to succeed” (attract donors) as well as at bringing them to the desired end. Along with that it would help students acquire positive attitudes in regard to the importance of project implementation and acquire competence in dealing with the complexities of project writing and management.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova & Prof. DHab. Danail Danov
FOR NON-ENGLISH-AND-AMERICAN-STUDIES BA GRADUATES
COMPULSORY COURSES: Semester I
Movements and Trends in British Literature – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Vesselin Budakov
Movements and Trends in North American Literature – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course will give the students a broad overview of the developments in North American literary history and the construction and deconstruction of literary canons in both US and Canadian literatures. Special attention will be paid to the influence of multiculturalism, gender studies and ethnicity in the shaping of the literary field in both countries and the permeability of trends, movements and ideas on the North American Continent.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
English Language Integrated Skills, Part 1 – lectures: 30, seminars: 150, ECTS: 12
The course will give the students the opportunity to become fluent in English through the use of an integrated approach based on contemporary literary and media texts from contemporary British, American, Canadian and other English-speaking cultures.
Academic Writing – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course aims at familiarizing students with the basic theoretical and practical requirements for coherent and logically connected texts in academic English and means to raise the awareness that academic writing goes through a structured process of creativity. It discusses the different genres of academic discourse, such as paper, book review, and dissertation, and examines the main types of paragraph development: listing, example, comparison, contrast, classification, cause and effect, and generalization. It particularly focuses on the textlinguistic parameters of linearity, coherence, repetition, and parallelism, pays attention to academic distancing and tentativeness, and considers the practice of summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting. In view of these micro-and macro-organizational aspects, the course also places emphasis on the use of different styles of documentation.
Dr. Vesselin Budakov
The Modernist Experiment – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
Dr. Jonathan McCreedy
Literature and Adaptation – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
Migration and Literature – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course familiarizes students with the question of migrancy and migrant writing. The problematics of crossing borders and dislocation, liminality and hybridity, the decentering of identity and contrapuntal thinking, identification and language and the relativization of center/periphery are addressed in the fictions of writers and critics from diverse backgrounds.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
COMPULSORY COURSES: Semester II
Communication and Literature – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
Prof. Madeleine Danova & Kiril Hadzhikosev
Intercultural Communication – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
Digital Culture – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
This generation’s students are more likely to be found gathering information, communicating, or seeking entertainment in front of a computer screen than anywhere else. Unlike television, movies, magazines, and books, which comprise old media, new media encompass different forms of electronic communication made possible through the use of computer technology. Examples include the Internet, websites, computer games, blogs, podcasts, to name a few. Just as the pencil is a tool to compose on paper, digital tools are needed to compose in new media: free Web tools and open source programs. Students examine how new computer technologies, telecommunication networks, and digital arts are transforming everyday life, contemporary culture, institutions, groups and identity, dealing with issues about the production, consumption, regulation, representation of IT. They also reflect on the transformation of literacy, the role of the printed book, reading, and intellectual discourse itself. Topics include: theories of the subject and reconstruction of human identity and the body in networked culture; posthumanism and transhumanism; community, group and subculture formation online; political organization and cultural resistance through digital media; digital technology and the law (intellectual property and privacy, hacker culture, file-sharing); ethics of surveillance and data security; simulation and virtuality; the representation of technology in popular media; the growth of digital entertainment industry; play and leisure in digital media. The course is designed to be both theoretical and experiential, involving technology, media, social networking practices, thus stimulating creativity and out of the box thinking. It focuses on the reception, interpretation, analysis and production of multimodal texts. By producing works using the latest digital tools, students will not only learn to create meaning, tell a story, provoke a reaction with sound, images, animation, and other media, but they also learn how theoretical perspectives lead to the rethinking of conventional rhetorical concepts such as authorship, audience, process, revision, and design when applied to digital contexts.
The principal educational aims are to develop and enhance participants’ awareness and understanding of a range of subjects relevant to digital culture and technology, including:
– the key information and communication technologies that shape contemporary society.
– key developments in contemporary cultural expression, specifically as these are driven, mediated or influenced by digital technologies.
– how digital technologies are shaping society more generally, e.g. social intercourse, social structures, government, international politics, education and law.
– current critical and theoretical debates around digital culture and the role of technology in the shaping of literacy, the reform in education, the nature of textuality and literature.
– the ethical, moral and philosophical issues that arise from the role and impact of technology in cultural and social life.
Following the establishment of the English and American Studies Alumni Network, its members who are professionals and experts working in/with different media will be invited on a regular basis to organize workshops with students.
Assessment: Continuous Assessment, Term Paper (Digital Essay / Creative Project)
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
Mass Media in Contemporary Society – lectures: 45, ECTS: 3
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
English Language Integrated Skills, Part 1 – lectures: 30, seminars: 150, ECTS: 12
COMPULSORY COURSES: Semester III
New Technologies, Culture and Communication – lectures: 30, ECTS: 3
Part-time lecturer Dr. Iona Sarieva (University of Florida, USA)
Analytical Reading of Literature – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Writing an MA Thesis – seminars: 30, ECTS: 8
Students work with their academic advisors on all steps in the preparation, writing and defense of an MA thesis.
ELECTIVE COURSES: Semester I
Race and Ethnicity in American Culture – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course seeks to examine how fictional and non-fictional writings and the visual arts in the USA help to communicate the sense of ethnic belonging, the making of new ethnic identities and the maintenance of the old ones.
The analysis of the works discussed will rely on some of the contemporary theories of race and ethnicity and will discuss a variety of 20th-century American novels, autobiographies, films and other works of art and popular culture coming from different narrative and cultural traditions. A particular focus will be placed on the relationship ‘self’- other’, on the cultural stereotypes and the role of language as part of the identity formation processes in the USA.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
Creative Writing, Part 1 – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Creative writing can develop attitudes and skills crucial to the work of a translator or an interpreter. Among these are: awareness of different genres and registers, recognition of the figurative dimension of language, ability to “translate” the culture-specific aspects of a text, awareness of the fine borderline between the translatable and the untranslatable.
This course includes the following activities: (re)writing fictional/non-fictional texts in different genres, manipulating the register(s) of a text, rewriting an English text in Bulgarian and vice versa, parodying texts, (re)writing texts from different perspectives. Both teachers and students will write reviews of the work produced in the course. The assessment is based on: a portfolio of texts, participation in classroom discussions, and peer reviewing.
Dr. Tom Phillips
Genre Literature: The Gothic Novel – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Rayna Rossenova
Analytical Reading and English-Bulgarian Translation of Media Texts – seminars: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Angel Igov
Origin and Evolution of Human Language – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bagasheva
ELECTIVE COURSES: Semester II
Project Writing and Project Management – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The course aims at imparting new knowledge and skills on “How to write projects doomed to succeed” (attract donors) as well as at bringing them to the desired end. Along with that it would help students acquire positive attitudes in regard to the importance of project implementation and acquire competence in dealing with the complexities of project writing and management.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova & Prof. DHab. Danail Danov
Genre Literature: Science Fiction – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Alexander Popov
The course traces the development of science fiction (SF) as a genre and aims to correlate it with the development of the modern mind and how the latter organizes and manipulates the world through cognitive-cultural categories. The introductory lectures provide a theoretical and historical overview of the genre, while the bulk of the course takes up topics and images central to SF, such as those of Empire, Utopia, Artificial Intelligence, Alien Minds, Cyberspace, Climate Change and others. The overarching goal is to simultaneously historicize the genre and to use it as a laboratory space for thinking about contemporary problems, be they political, technological, environmental, etc. The lectures refer to multiple SF works which are not required reading for the course, but the students are expected to read a small number of texts and to be preprated to discuss them during classes.
Literature in the Age of the Internet – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
This course aims at examining the interrelation between literature and the new digital technologies. The focus is on the revolutionary transition of fiction from page to screen in this “late age of print.” Among the themes to be discussed are the problems of authorship; the various modes of electronic literature (hypertext, multi-media, computer-generated text); multimedia print texts; the pedagogical application of computer games and software products; the writing and reception of electronic literature; the various methodological approaches to analyzing electronic literature, digital writing and computer-generated texts; issues of interactivity and immersion in reader-reception. The critical analysis will be performed on samples of on-line databases of web-based literature.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
Creative Writing, Part 2 – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Canadian Culture and Literature – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The aim of the course is to outline the development of Canadian literature from the perspectives of multiculturalism and transculturalism. The topics to be discussed will include indigenous writing, regional writing, women writing, multiethnic writing in a variety of genres – autobiography, drama, short fiction and the novel. In addition the developments specific to Canadian culture in comparison to the U.S. and British culture will be emphasized. Thus, the students will be able to strengthen their knowledge of Canadian culture and acquire a broader perspective for understanding the processes of creation in Canadian literature, as well as of identity-formation and nation-building in an era of globalization and multiethnicity.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova, Dr. Galina Avramova
The Irish Cultural Revival – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Тhe course is an introduction to the Gaelic Revival: one of Ireland’s major cultural and literary triumphs. The focus will be on W. B. Yeats, J. M. Synge, Lady Gregory and other revivalists such as George Sigerson, George Moore and A.E. Some of the topics for discussion include: myth, collective memory and literary echoes; folkloristics and the poetics of modernism; the construction of the colonial subject; anthropology as a critique of modernity; cultural nationalism. These topics will be discussed in the context of close reading of a carefully selected list of literary works. Current debates in Irish studies, particularly post-colonial and subaltern approaches, will serve as a theoretical departure and as a model for academic argumentation. Students will be assessed on class participation in addition to individual written work based on independent research.
Dr. Jonathan McCreedy
Postmodern Biofiction in Literatures in English – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The aim of the course is to introduce students to the development of the genre of biography and its criss-crossing today with the postmodern fiction devoted to the lives of such writers as Byron, Keats, the Shellys, Edgar A. Poe and Henry James. The problems discussed are connected to the canonization of the lives of these writers throughout the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century and the consequent debunking and de-mythologizing of their lives by postmodern writers. Biography is discussed as the last “battle field” of the never ending war between fact and fiction, as the last “fortress” to be conquered by the “pastiche” imagination and the interplay of codes of interpretation that have become the staples of postmodern culture. The works discussed include novels by Peter Ackroyd, Anthony Burgess, David Lodge, Colm Toibin, Emma Tennant, Mathew Pearl, Louis Bayard, John Crowley and others.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
Cognitive Approaches to Literature and Culture – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
This course introduces the students to the newest tendencies in the study of literature and culture coming from the field of cognitive studies. In the last decade or so the way fictional texts are analyzed and interpreted has been transformed by such scientific discoveries as the mirror neuron system and its role in the processes of empathy. They have led to the re-directing of the interest of literary critics from post-structuralism and relativism towards cognitive neuroscience, which examines the ways in which the human brain works, as well as cognition, memory, and the different ways in which we ‘know’ the world together with the role of language in problem-solving and creativity. Although the study of literature and its connection to the human brain and the social context do have a long history, the renewed interest in cognition and its biological underpinnings has spurred the development of a new branch of literary studies, the cognitive one as a result of the creative dialogue with such disciplines as evolutionary psychology, developmental psychology, neuroscience, psychiatry, cognitive linguistics, anthropology and philosophy. Some of the aspects of these scholarly encounters are what the course aims at discussing in depth.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova & Prof. Dr. Alexandra Bagasheva
Analytical Reading and Bulgarian-English Translation of Media Texts – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Lika Pishtalova
ELECTIVE COURSES: Semester III
Myth, Literature and Media – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Rayna Rossenova
U.S. Popular Culture and Politics – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Popular culture is a highly politicized domain of social life. This course draws upon an eclectic selection of television, films, advertising and cyberculture to examine the social construction of political meaning, how political ideas and ideologies are conveyed, and the limits and possibilities of an industry often controlled by political and economic elites. The focus will be on diverse types of popular culture that deal directly with political issues and others that can be read as alternative forms of political text. The course introduces a variety of critical approaches to studying popular culture: production analysis, textual analysis, audience analysis. The following themes will be explored: representations of the political process; media, culture and politics; the politics of memory and the past; asylum, migration and refugees; war and conflict; terrorism; frontier politics; alternatives to democracy; utopia and dystopia; the individual and the state. The issue of the globalization of American popular culture will also be examined, with a particular focus of its presence in the Bulgarian context. The course will also include an examination of how such social categories as ethnicity, race, gender, class, region and sexuality are shaped and reshaped in popular culture.
The principal goals of this course are:
– To develop skills in the political analysis of popular culture texts;
– To understand the political, economic and organizational processes shaping popular culture;
– To promote an awareness of debates surrounding the effects of media and popular culture;
– To develop skills of interpretation, appraisal and analysis of political sources;
– To promote skills of group discussion, team work, oral presentation, research and analytical writing.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Glavanakova
American Novels into Film – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
The aim of the course is to give better understanding of the way into which some of the classical texts of American literature have found their way into the most popular of the arts of the twentieth century, the cinema. Comparing the old and the new film versions of some of these literary works and analyzing the recent revival of the film industry’s interest towards them, the students will gain better insight in the mechanisms and the discourses governing the contemporary popular culture in the USA. The course will pay due attention to the variety of critical literature that has spawned in the wake of the latest Hollywood productions of The Scarlet Letter, The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, The Portrait of a Lady, The Wings of the Dove, Washington Square, as well as of the adaptations of the postmodern bestsellers Beloved, Cold Mountain, Smoke Signals.
Prof. Dr. Madeleine Danova
Theatre in the Age of the Internet – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
This course examines the impact of the Internet on live theatre and performance. It looks at the way digital technologies have changed the production values in theatrical performance and the way digital theatre itself has blended the distinctions between media. Using the Digital Performance Archive, it focuses both on resources used in performance and resources on performance in the last decades of the 20th century.
Digital resources in performance include theatrical productions and live–art installations that incorporate electronic media, to live–broadcast World Wide Web performances and Internet based collaborations, to interactive drama and the new performative ‘virtual environments’ of MUDS, MOOs, etc. Digital resources on performance include those being used to document, analyze and critique performance: from performing arts databases and websites to academic CD-ROMS and DVDs.
Dr. Kornelia Tancheva, Cornell University, U.S.A.
Epistolary Writing in Literature and Cinema – lectures: 30, ECTS: 2
Dr. Vesselin Budakov