Abstract:

In most modern universities it has become customary to use e-learning platforms such as Web-CT, Vista, or Blackboard. The University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada) has been utilizing all three. As a professor in our Program in Germanic Studies (comprising BA, MA and PhD studies), and in my capacity of Head of Department, I am very keen on finding ways of utilizing modern technology in a meaningful way.
The main challenge I see is teaching the editorial history of textbooks and scholarly resources, at the same time being aware that our student readership is far more accustomed to e-reading texts and resources, most of them not deemed appropriate in terms of scholarly dealing.

At the conference in Barcelona, I would like to take as a starting point a German novella, Friedrich Schiller's "Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre" ("The Criminal of Lost Honour"). This text already exists in two versions published during Schiller's lifetime (1786, 1792), yet looking at the editorial history, neither one can count as authentic. While scholars are working to reveal the editorial history and provide a version true to the author's manuscripts (A. Kosenina), students are more and more oblivious to the fact that the book they are reading has been 'modified to fit their screen'.

At UBC, I've been using this text in two courses on "Violence and Gender", one taught in German, one in English translation. In my talk, I would like to address:
• Teaching material and curriculum development: The difference between teaching German literature in German or English translation with regard to utilizing new technologies and providing e-resources.
• The generational aspect of teacher-learner interaction: The Germanist scholar from the 'Old country' (myself) meeting a young, multi-cultural Pacific Rim 'generation Facebook'.
• Intercultural learning: Generally, the interdependency of teaching German language, literature, and cultural history at a North American "Modern European Languages and Literatures" department, remote from traditional European frameworks of literacy and literature education.

Keywords:

Teaching Literature, Editorial History of the Book, New Modes and Media of Reading, Intercultural Learning.