CODE | ENG5074 | ||||||||||||
TITLE | Voice and Diversity | ||||||||||||
UM LEVEL | 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course | ||||||||||||
MQF LEVEL | 7 | ||||||||||||
ECTS CREDITS | 5 | ||||||||||||
DEPARTMENT | English | ||||||||||||
DESCRIPTION | This study-unit focuses on voice and diversity in writing, combining a historical overview with a detailed focus on contemporary texts. It explores questions such as ‘How are diverse voices represented or otherwise in literature?’ ‘How have marginalised and minority communities used literature and writing to demand social change?’ ‘How is gender identity constructed, affirmed or dissolved through voice and other devices in literature?’ 'How is the status quo disrupted through writing to make way for protest?' ‘How does protest articulate itself through fiction and literary nonfiction?’ and 'How does diversity relate to the politics of canon formation?' The first three lectures will provide a historical overview of revolutionary or dissenting voices in Britain and some of the key texts and authors associated with such movements. These lectures will show how literature has been a contested space for dissent, diversity and the representation of different voices. Reference will be made to movements such as Whiggism, anti-royalism, Chartism, the Suffragettes, pacifism, and the angry young men. Works by authors such as Edmund Burke, William Hazlitt, Ernest Jones, Thomas Cooper, Thomas Carlyle, Allan Sillitoe, Raymond Williams, Vernon Lee, Evelyn Sharp, Elizabeth Robins, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf and several others linked to such movements will be mentioned. Apart from providing a historical timeline, these lectures will introduce several key concepts that will serve as a framework for the unit, including: voice; representation; justice and civic agency; protest; diversity and otherness; marginality and canonisation; social wisdom; social change; and the aesthetics of justice. The study-unit will then proceed by discussing a number of selected texts chosen from different points in literary history that show how literature is often a vehicle for the representation of diversity and marginalised voices. The texts chosen will include novels, poems, plays,memoir, essays, and other forms of fictional and nonfictional works across various media platforms. These texts will be studied in terms of the historical and literary contexts from which they arise and how they manifest, explore, and question social expectations, social injustice, and social change. For example, the American Protest essays of James Baldwin will be discussed in terms of the genealogy of abolitionist literature as well as their context in discourses about race, civil rights, gender and American identity in the 1950s and 1960s. Themes explored in this part of the unit will mainly revolve around gender, class and race, but they will also touch on other relevant social aspects such as work, war and technology. The texts discussed in detail might include some of the following: Acevedo, Elizabeth, Poet X Baldwin, James, Notes of a Native Son Doty, Mark, Firebird Ellison, Ralph, Shadow and Act Ensler, Eve, The Vagina Monologues Evaristo, Bernardine, Girl, Woman, Other Gay, Roxane, Bad Feminist Gordimer, Nadine, My Son's Story Gordimer, Nadine, The Pick Up Jones, Cherie, How the One Armed Sister Sweeps her House Kaur, Rupi, Milk and Honey Lorde, Audre, Sister Outsider Reynolds, Jason, Take the Mic Tempest, Kae, Let them Eat Chaos Thomas, Angie, The Hate You Give Study-Unit Aims: - The study-unit aims at introducing a wide range of concepts and examples relating to voice, difference and diversity in writing through a general overview as well as an in-depth discussion of selected texts. Students will be made aware of how fictional and nonfictional writing in various modes in literary history have been and can still be a vehicle for the representation of diverse voices. - Students will have the opportunity to understand the politics of canon formation and the way literature serves as a contested social space. They will study examples of texts that promote justice and civic agency; that function as a form of protest; and that promote social change. They will also explore the 'aesthetics' or 'poetics' of justice, thus learning about how different forms of writing can combine aesthetics with social and political aims. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Analyse the representation of voice and diversity in writing; - Critically evaluate contemporary and historical case studies from the perspective of concepts like voice; representation; justice and civic agency; protest; diversity and otherness; marginality; social wisdom; social change; and the aesthetics of justice; - Describe, contextualise and evaluate the literary, poetic and aesthetic dimensions of writing that is committed to bring about change; - Describe and evaluate writing about or in the name of diversity in different genres and modes. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Critically evaluate voice and diversity in writing; - Research fictional and nonfictional writing from the perspective of voice; representation; justice and civic agency; protest; diversity and otherness; marginality; social wisdom; social change; and the aesthetics of justice; - Discuss and write about a range of topics relating to voice and diversity. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Due to the largely contemporary focus of this unit, the reading list will change slightly from the year. Students will be given a list of compulsory and recommended readings at the beginning of each iteration of the unit. Texts used in the unit will include: Acevedo, Elizabeth, Poet X (London: Electric Monkey, 2018) Baldwin, James, Notes of a Native Son (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012) [Available in the Main Library] Doty, Mark, Firebird: A Memoir (New York: L Perennial, 2000) Ellison, Ralph, Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage International, 1995) Ensler, Eve, The Vagina Monologues (London: Virago, 2018 [1998]) Evaristo, Bernardine, Girl, Woman, Other (London: Penguin, 2020) Gay, Roxane, Bad Feminist (London: Corsair, 2014) Gordimer, Nadine, My Son's Story (London: Penguin, 1991) [Available in the Main Library] Gordimer, Nadine, The Pickup (London: Bloomsbury, 2002) [Available in the Main Library] Jones, Cherie, How the One Armed Sister Sweeps her House (London: Tinder Press, 2021) Kaur, Rupi, Milk and Honey (Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2015) [Available in the Main Library] Lorde, Audre, Sister Outsider (London: Penguin, 2019) [Available in the Main Library] Morrow, Bethany, ed., Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resistance (New Jersey: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2019) Tempest, Kae, Let them Eat Chaos (London: Picador, 2016) Thomas, Angie, The Hate You Give (London: Walker Books, 2017) In terms of secondary texts, the following can cover several key concepts: Glover, David and Cora Kaplan, Genders (London: Routledge, 2009) Holland, Samantha and Karl Spracklen, Subcultures, Bodies and Spaces: Essays on Alternativity and Marginalization (Bingley: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2018) [Available in the Main Library] Orkin, Martin and Alexa Alice Joubin, Race (London: Routledge, 2019) Seigworth, Gregory and Carolyn Pedwell, The Affect Theory Reader 2: Worldings, Tensions, Futures (North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2023) A selection of chapters and articles on specific topics in the course will be made available to students before the first lecture of each iteration of the study-unit. |
||||||||||||
STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||||||
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
|
||||||||||||
LECTURER/S | Aaron Aquilina Stella Borg Barthet Norbert Bugeja Giuliana Fenech |
||||||||||||
The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |