Unit name | Critical Issues in Contemporary Literature |
---|---|
Unit code | ENGLM0071 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | M/7 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Mimi Thebo |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
N/A |
Co-requisites |
N/A |
School/department | Department of English |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
In this unit, students will read, discuss and analyse key texts (both literary and critical) related to major issues in contemporary letters in two week ‘topics’. This unit will help students contextualise their own writing in the wider world of contemporary literature, understand the critical and theoretical concepts on which those concerns and issues are based and be able to articulate their own responses to those issues and concerns.
By the successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
Teaching will be in large 2 hour seminar/workshop style, with the tutor providing an introduction to the various topics in the first week of the topic and going on to lead discussion, which may include students reading their own creative or critical reactions to the material.
A portfolio of writing to include:
1 x 2500 words summative original creative writing assessment (or equivalent, in the case of poetry/script) [ILOs 1, 2, 3 and 5] (50%)
1 x 2500 word summative essay, relating a key critical issue to the student’s own writing and/or similar texts. [ILOs 4, 5, 6] (50%)
Unit tutor/s will select topics and relevant reading. Below is an Indicative reading list:
Writing and the Climate Catastrophe:
Powers, R. (2018) The Overstory. London: William Heinemann.
Berry, W (2019) World-Ending Fire : The Essential Wendell Berry. Counterpoint
Garrard, G. (ed.) (2014) The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press (Oxford handbooks). (Introduction)
Writing, Gender and Queerness
Evaristo, B. (2019) Girl, Woman, Other. London: Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books.
Wilson-Yang, J. Q. (2018) Small Beauty. Melbourne, Victoria: Brow Books, from the TLB Society.
Carroll, R. (2012) Rereading Heterosexuality : Feminism, Queer Theory and Contemporary Fiction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Writing and Colonisation
Obioma, C. (2019) An Orchestra of Minorities : a novel. London: Little, Brown.
Nayar, P. K. (ed.) (2016) Postcolonial Studies : an anthology. Malden, MA, USA: Wiley Blackwell.
Abu-Manneh, B. (ed.) (2019) After Said : Postcolonial Literary Studies in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Writing and Class
Lock, Fran. Dogtooth. Out-Spoken Press, 2017.
De Waal, Kit, editor. Common People : An Anthology of Working-Class Writers. Unbound, 2019.
Each topic will be explored in 2x two hour-long sessions over two weeks.