"Staatsexamen" Preparation
The best preparation for the Staatsexam is an organized and committed course of study. While all the lectures and seminars offered in the English and American Studies Department help prepare you for success in the Staatsexam, we have added the keyword “Foundations” to American Studies course offerings with a particular focus on literary history, literary movement, understandings of genre, and the close textual analysis central to the Staatsexam.
We regularly offer the following Foundations course types and strongly recommend them for Lehramt students:
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American Literature: Texts & Contexts | Foundations in the “Vorlesungsmodul” / “Lecture Module”: This multi-semester lecture offers a broad and systemic overview of US-American literary history, key genres, literary movements, and touchstone texts. Lehramt students should attend this lecture regularly during their studies.
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American Cultural History I (1492-1865) & American Cultural History II (1865-present): This course series follows the "red thread" of North American history from the beginnings of European colonialization to the current moment with an emphasis on benchmark events, developments, and textual contexts necessary for the "Staatsexamen" and later classroom careers. Ideally, at least one of these courses should be attended in the first four semesters of your studies.
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Foundations Seminars: Seminars that further build on the introductory lectures (in Literary and Cultural Studies) and connect with the broader view provide by the “American Literature: Texts & Contexts” lecture. Foundations Seminars hone in on key building blocks of literary analysis and historical-contextual understanding of literature as a cultural practice, i. e. literary genres such as the novel or short story, literary movements such as the realism, and literary practice in historical contexts such as modernism within the framework of early 20th-century media technologies.
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Foundations + Practice Seminars: Writing-intensive seminars that combine the analysis of literary periods and key texts with Staatsexam-style writing assignments and exam practice.
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Staatsexamensvorbereitung (in German)
