LITERATURE IN A WORLD CONTEXT

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Notes

When forming part of a graduating curriculum in Literature in a World Context, it is recommended that this course is taken together with LW 1502 Creative Practices: Literature in a World Context II.

Overview

This introductory course explores literature as a global phenomenon, placing national literatures in international context. It shows how literature makes sense of historical and cultural events in a period of globalization and examines the way literature relates to other ways of making sense of the world (including the arts, philosophy, politics, and the new media). Among other examples, it will use responses to September 11, 2001 to illustrate how literature takes a vital place in efforts to come to grips with events and social developments of world-wide importance. All literary texts will be read in translation.

Structure

1 two-hour lecture / seminar and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); continuous assessment (50%) - one 1250 word essay (40%) and tutorial assessment mark (10%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Formative Assessment

One 350 word review; micro and macro student presentations.

Feedback

Feedback on reviews and essays will be in the form of written comments on work. Feedback on examination will be provided in line with university / College guidance. Additionally students will be invited to make appointments to discuss their work with their tutor. Feedback on presentations will be given in oral form during tutorial hours.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J A Biggane

Pre-requisites

None

Co-requisites

None

Notes

When forming part of a graduating curriculum in Literature in a World Context, it is recommended that this course is taken together with LW 1003 Encountering Global Change: Literature in a World Context I.

Overview

This course explores how creativity and creative practices are differently perceived, theorised and valued in varying cultural, social, and global economic and political situations. Study of individual works will be important; study of the networks of power, knowledge, creative practice and theory in which they are produced equally so. The course will explore how cultural production may question, challenge or propose alternatives to powerful theories and assumptions about what creativity or aesthetic practices should entail, what these theories might include or exclude, and what forms they deem legitimate (or illegitimate). The course will also involve study of relevant manifestos and/or reflections on creative practice written by cultural practitioners themselves. The course will also help students to appreciate the various ways in which the creative act is not confined to the production of texts and other works/practices, but is also a function of their reception (including critical study).

Structure

1 two-hour lecture/seminar and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Continuous assessment (100%): One 2,500 word end-of-course written assignment (50%); project (20%); brief regular written in-course assignments (30%).

Resit: 2 written assignments (100%).

Formative Assessment

Student presentations in tutorials.

Feedback

Feedback on reviews and essays will be in the form of written comments on work. Feedback on examination will be provided in line with university / College guidance. Additionally students will be invited to make appointments to discuss their work with their tutor. Feedback on presentations will be given in oral form during tutorial hours.

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr D Duff

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above, or by permission of the Head of School.

Notes

This course can either be taken separately or in combination with LN 2501 Modes of Reading.

Overview

How does modern literature respond to world-historical events and shape our understanding of them? What role does literature play in modern intellectual and political history? This innovative introduction to modern literary thought explores these questions by focussing on the constellation of events, ideas and writings on six key dates: 1848, 1917, 1936, 1945, 1968 and 9/11/2001. Besides works of literature and film, the course studies various kinds of theoretical and polemical writing.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); continuous assessment: 1 course essay of 1,200-1,500 words (40%), tutorial assessment (10%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr S Ward

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above, or by permission of the Head of School.

Notes

This course can be taken separately or in combination with LN 2001 Literature, History and Thoughts: 1848 to 9/11.

Overview

Poets are banned from Plato's Republic, Dante damns lovers of literature to hell. Like modern counterparts, from Sigmund Freud to Hélène Cixous, they acknowledge the dangerous pleasures elicited by reading and affirm literature's ability to form self and world. Examining how literary works engage readers --to train moral imagination, cultivate sympathy, uncover subconscious fears, or solicit transgressive desires -- this course studies texts by fundamental literary thinkers alongside works of world-renown. The course considers the nature of literary representations, introducing concepts such as mimesis, poesis and catharsis, realism, performance and fictionally, thereby preparing students for more advanced courses in literary thought.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); continuous assessment: 1 course essay of 1,200-1,500 words (40%), tutorial assessment (10%).

Resit: 1 two-hour examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor C Fynsk

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Level 3 or Level 4 Literature in a World Context or at the discretion of the Head of School.

Notes

This course will be available in 2010-2011, and in alternate sessions thereafter.

Overview

This course approaches literary study in the context of intellectual history, including the history of science. It reads literary texts together with works from philosophy and other fields of intellectual endeavour (for example: psychology, anthropology, theory of art, and political theory) to explore how literature complements and sometimes challenges efforts to grasp human experience and the meaning of socio-historical movements. The course will therefore offer a broad intellectual perspective on forms of artistic representation and an advanced introduction to a vital dimension of literary study. While the focus will tend to fall on the modern period, topics will be drawn from a wide range of historical periods and forms of literature. All texts will be read in translation.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); 1 4000 word written assignment (50%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Level 3 or Level 4 Literature in a World Context or at the discretion of the Head of School.

Notes

This course will be available in 2011-2012, and in alternate sessions thereafter.

Overview

This course focuses on the relations between literature and the political, both nationally and internationally. It will explore, through a number of specific case studies, how literature has engaged in the past, and continues to engage today, with political circumstances, and political questions. Content will vary depending on research interests of staff teaching at any one time, but might include, for example: Rousseau’s Social Contract; Harlem Renaissance writers; Pablo Neruda’s poetry; Aimé Césaire’s ‘Discourse on Colonialism’; W.B. Yeats and Irish nationalism; Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); 1 4000 word written assignment (50%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Level 3 or Level 4 Literature in a World Context or at the discretion of the Head of School.

Notes

This course will be available in 2011-12, and in alternate sessions thereafter.

Overview

If literature was accorded a privileged position in the Gutenberg galaxy, what constitutes its status when confronted with new developments in media and information technologies? Drawing on the work of Haraway, Kittler, McCluhan, Ronnel, Sloterdijk and others, this course examines how literature has engaged in the past, and continues to engage today, with technological change, from the telephone and the gramophone to the modem and mp3. Its focus will be on topics such as digital literature, art and music, technological embodiments, and creative collaboration.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); 1 4000 word written assignment (50%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours (Single and Joint) students in Literature in a World Context.

Notes

This course will be available from 2010-2011.

Overview

This course will provide students with guidance on writing a dissertation on a topic approved by the Head of School.

Structure

3 one-hour tutorials.

Assessment

1st attempt: Dissertation (100%).