(S) John Fowles, or: The Forgotten Novelist

John Fowles is one of the biggest names in British writing of the 1960s and 70s. His novels, novellas and short stories are characterized by a playfulness not often found in British fiction of his time, they are fun to read and philosophically as well as aesthetically extremely interesting. Moreover, many of Fowles's books – such as The Ebony Tower, The French Lieutenant's Woman or The Magus – have since been made into popular films, further indicating that even today these texts have lost nothing of their fascination and relevance.
This seminar will give a general introduction to the work of John Fowles, its literary, philosophical and cultural contexts, and then focus on the following points: How do the playfulness and metafiction in Fowles's novels work? How are men and women, how is sexuality represented in these texts? What is the philosophical dimension of Fowles's work? How does it combine humanism with existentialism, and how are we to understand these philosophies, ranging from Heraklitus to Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre? 

A syllabus and a bibliography will be available at the first meeting.

Please buy:
John Fowles: The French Lieutenant's Woman. London: Vintage, 2004 (or any other edition).
----. The Ebony Tower. London: Vintage, 2006 (or any other edition).

Prerequisites: You are expected to read The French Lieutenant's Woman before the start of the seminar.