In this course, we will study the genre- and media-crossing work of one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary writers and photographers, the Nigerian-American Teju Cole. Cole is the author of Open City (2011), a meandering novel that is set in the US and Europe and frequently mediates on the power of music; Every Day Is for the Thief (2007/2017), a work of fiction and photography that started as a blog and tells the story of an American’s return to his home city of Lagos; and the essay collection Strange and Known Things (2016). He also writes the column “On Photography” for New York Times Magazine and will publish the multi-media diary Blind Spot in June 2017. Over the course of the semester, we will investigate Cole’s writings and photography from a variety of angles, including literary theory, photography theory, and intermedia theory. We will follow his monthly columns and will engage with his online presence on Facebook and other social media in order to study his performance as one of the most eloquent thinkers and public intellectuals of our current time.
Texts: We will read Open City and Every Day Is for the Thief in their entirety. The books are easily available online and in bookstores; paperback editions cost between 7 and 13 Euros. Selections from Strange and Known Things and Blind Spot as well as all secondary materials will be provided in class and/or via moodle.
- Dozent/in: Daniel Stein