English Literature. Module Descriptions 2017/18

Transcription

1 English Literature Module Descriptions 2017/18 Level I (i.e. 2 nd Yr.) Modules Please be aware that all modules are subject to availability. If you have any questions about the modules, please contact calincomingexchangemodules@contacts.bham.ac.uk. For many of these modules, some experience of studying English Literature may be required, and you should remember this when choosing your modules. Please note that at the time this document has been prepared (April 2017) the following information is provisional, and there may be minor changes between now and the beginning of 2017/18 academic year.

2 New World Orders? Literature after 1945 MODULE CODE ,500 word essay (33%) 2 hour examination (67%) Lectures Mondays 3-4pm Seminars TBC The decades that followed the second world war saw radical realignments of the political and social ordering of the preceding years: memories of the war s horror including the particular atrocities of the Holocaust and the atom bomb gave way to the paranoia of Cold War politics; the flowering of decolonisation further refigured the relations between nations, while the rise of liberationist idea social ordering such as the Civil Rights and feminist movements restructured the distribution of rights and opportunities within national societies; and the changing conditions of economic production and supply facilitated the emergence of a consumer culture such as had never been seen before. In this module we look to trace the impact of such global shifts on Anglophone literature. We ll examine abroad range of fiction, poetry, and drama from the 1950s to the 1990s (which includes material some students may find offensive and/or distressing) to question how writers looked to represent these new political, social and cultural landscapes and what forms they developed to do so. In we will study writers and thinkers such as (though not limited to) Ralph Ellison, Shelagh Delaney, Samuel Selvon, B.S. Johnson, Brian Friel, Angela Carter, Graham Swift, and John Akomfrah.

3 Out There: Writing North American Regions MODULE CODE TBC 2,000 word essay (40%) 3,000 word essay (60%) Lecture: Thursday 12pm to 1pm Seminar: TBC SEMESTER 1 and 2 The study of North American literature and culture like North American cultural production tends to centre on well-known cities: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Toronto. This module explores other Americas, places that are in one way or another pushed to the margins of the cultural map. These include major cities like New Orleans and Detroit that, when represented, assert their difference and unfamiliarity, as well as obscure, ignored and remote locations from Yankeedom to Greater Appalachia, New France to the Far West, El Norte to First Nations territories. The module will consider the politics of centre and periphery suggested in the bi-coastal dismissal of flyover country and the implications of regionalism as a discourse that at once acknowledges and marginalises. It will take the opportunity to survey the diversity of North American landscapes, cultures, voices and experiences, and to introduce a range of twentieth- and twenty-first century texts and other cultural forms that in various ways foreground place.

4 Transatlantic Literary Relations: Atlantic Spaces MODULE CODE CREDIT VALUE 10 2,000 word essay Lectures Thursdays 12-1pm Seminars TBC This module explores the ways in which the transatlantic is convened and operates as a cultural space. Key themes and ideas covered will include expatriate writing and communities; the experience of diaspora and Paul Gilroy s theorisation of the Black Atlantic ; and ways in which culture and technology challenge and collapse the spatial divide of the Atlantic Ocean. The module will draw on a range of literary forms including novels, short stories, non-fiction and critical theory. Students will explore ways of thinking beyond Anglo-American models of Atlantic culture; engage theorisations of cultural and critical space; and study the work of a range of writers that may include W. E. B. du Bois, Ernest Hemingway, Djuna Barnes, Graham Greene, Fred D Aguiar and William Gibson.

5 20 th Century American Literature and Culture: Modernity to Postmodernity MODULE CODE TBC Lectures Tuesday 4-5pm Seminars TBC This module will explore American texts primarily literature but also film, photography and other media spanning the twentieth century. It will introduce the work of modernists such as John Dos Passos and Zora Neale Hurston and postmodern writers such as Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut alongside a broad range of literary, visual and filmic texts that reveal aspects of American modernity and postmodernity. Intended as a survey, the module uses those period terms as loose organising categories through which to interrogate shifts in American culture and society across the century, including the shift from visions of coherence and consensus to what historian Daniel T. Rodgers terms an age of fracture ; the impact of new technologies; the breakdown of boundaries between high and low culture and the rise of popular and playful cultural forms.

6 Foundations of 20 th Century American Literature and Culture: Modernity and Postmodernity MODULE CODE CREDIT VALUE 10 TBC Lectures Tuesday 4-5pm Seminars Tuesday 5-6pm This module will explore American texts primarily literature but also film, photography and other media spanning the twentieth century. It will introduce the work of modernists such as John Dos Passos and Zora Neale Hurston and postmodern writers such as Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut alongside a broad range of literary, visual and filmic texts that reveal aspects of American modernity and postmodernity. Intended as a survey, the module uses those period terms as loose organising categories through which to interrogate shifts in American culture and society across the century, including the shift from visions of coherence and consensus to what historian Daniel T. Rodgers terms an age of fracture ; the impact of new technologies; the breakdown of boundaries between high and low culture and the rise of popular and playful cultural forms.

7 Shakespeare: Selected Plays MODULE CODE word essay Seminars Friday 10am-12pm This course runs three times during the year. Students should choose one only. This module explores four or five plays, drawn from different periods in Shakespeare s career and representing a variety of genres. This year's plays are: Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, King Lear. [Please note you will be expected to read all four of these plays in full.] The course focuses on Shakespeare as theatrical craftsman: it explores his use of language and spectacle, his persistent re-examination of key themes, and his deployment of dramatic structure and conventions. Throughout, we consider the effect of Early Modern theatre performance conditions on the shaping of the plays. DVD extracts are used to demonstrate the range of interpretative possibilities and the performance aspects of the texts. Where possible, the course includes a trip to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform in Stratford. Topics include: Language (usage of verse, prose and song, the sonnet form, chains of imagery); Spectacle (action, costume, props); Structure (shaping of the story, use of symmetry, parallel plots, dual worlds, movement between intimate and large scale scenes); Dramatic Conventions (disguise, cross-dressing, feigned madness, the clown/fool); Themes (love, madness, family, sibling rivalry, betrayal, gender expectations); Early Modern Theatrical Practice (thrust stage, all-male troupes, open-air playing, textual revision).