| CODE | ENG5100 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | Critical Debates in Literary Studies | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 7 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 10 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | English | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | This study-unit aims to introduce students to key critical debates in contemporary Literary Studies. Due to the evolving nature of these debates, the topics may change from year to year, but will include discussions about key topics such as the following: The nature of literature and the literary Literature and the question of value Criticism and the role of the critic Literary theory and its role today Literature and the poetic Literature, character studies and subjectivity Literature and gender Literature and historicism Literature and realism Literature and/as social critique Thinking through literature Literature, emotion, affect Literature and technology Literature and the posthuman Decolonising the literary canon Literature and the environment Apart from lectures and seminars on a selection of the above issues, this study-unit also allows for discussion of critical debates in and around canonical areas of literature. These would be selected from the following: Shakespeare Studies Literary cultures of the eighteenth century Nineteenth-century fiction Poetry and lyrical tradition For each of the selected issues in the two above lists, students would read at least one influential critical text alongside at least one literary case-study. Study-Unit Aims: - To introduce students to some of the shaping critical debates in contemporary literary studies; - To provide opportunity for close discussion and reflection on selected areas of critical debate and reinterpretation; - To guide students in how to themselves recognise key areas of contemporary critical debate in literary studies, and how to frame and approach their thinking around them; - To guide students in researching and writing about key critical debates in literary studies; - To reinforce key theoretical concepts that students will be expected to draw on in other study-units on the MA programme. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Identify some of the key critical debates in literary studies, as well as some of the major exponents of different critical approaches; - Recognise those approaches and areas of critical debate with which they themselves might have the greatest affinity; - Use the research tools and methodologies, across different modalities and spaces, available to contemporary literary studies. 2. Skills: By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Identify approaches and critical debates that would be most directly relevant to their specific literary interests; - Conduct well-sourced and appropriately focused research on given areas of literary studies; - Write about literature in a manner consistent with contemporary critical approaches; - Discuss literature and critical methodologies and approaches in a better informed manner. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main Texts: Callus, Ivan and James Corby (eds.), CounterText, EUP. [Available] Corcoran, Neil, Poetry and Responsibility (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2021) [Not available] Gourgouris, Stathis, Does Literature Think? Literature as Theory for an Antimythical Era (London: Routledge, 2018). [Not available] Leitch, Vincent B. et al (eds), The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, 3rd edn (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2018). [Available] Levinson, Marjorie, Thinking through Poetry: Field Reports on Romantic Lyric (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). [Not available] Robson, Mark, ed., What is Literature? A Critical Anthology (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2020). [Not available] Waugh, Patricia, ed., Literary Theory and Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). [Available] Supplementary Readings: Baldick, Chris, Criticism and Literary Theory: 1890 to the Present (London: Longman, 1996). [Available] Bennett, Andrew and Nicholas Royle, An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, 6th edn (London: Routledge, 2023). [Available] Laga, Barry, Using Key Passages to Understand Literature, Theory and Criticism (London: Barry Laga, 2018). [Not available] Thomas, Calvin, Ten Lessons in Theory: An Introduction to Theoretical Writing (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023). [Available] |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Aaron Aquilina Mario Aquilina Norbert Bugeja Ivan Callus James David Corby Giuliana Fenech Marija Grech |
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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 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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