| CODE | ENG5102 | ||||||||
| TITLE | Writing the Mediterranean 2 | ||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course | ||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 7 | ||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 5 | ||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | English | ||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Writing the Mediterranean 2 explores the significance of the Mediterranean in English literature and culture from a contemporary perspective. It examines a diverse range of representations of the Mediterranean from 1945 to the present, adopting a critical lens to assess the way that postcolonial, feminist and eco-critical perspectives are shaping the region’s literary and cultural identity today. The lectures for this study-unit will be integrated into the teaching programme of the Spring School (Re-)Visiting the Mediterranean. The Spring School will be held at the Valletta Campus (dates to be provided on VLE). Hybrid attendance will be possible under special circumstances. Study-Unit Aims: • To give students an in-depth knowledge of a range of texts from the Mediterranean region, and/or texts that represent the Mediterranean from other perspectives; • To give students a good grasp of the intertwined histories of the Mediterranean region as represented in different areas of literature; • To advance the students’ skills of critical and comparative analysis, encouraging them to think in an interdisciplinary manner and draw connections between texts from different linguistic and cultural traditions; • To promote the close study of texts and elicit reflections on the encounters and exchanges in the literatures of the region, as well as the ideologies that drive these representations; • To teach students to write textual / critical commentary at postgraduate level. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: • Master a range of texts related to the Mediterranean region, and/or representing the Mediterranean from other perspectives; • Have knowledge of the differences between periods and/or areas of this literature, and/or of the continuity or discontinuities in the representations of the region; • Have an advanced sense of how the texts studied represent and reflect cultural encounters, clashes or exchanges in the literature of the region or of the region’s representations, and what ideologies drive these representations • Have knowledge of the ways in which contemporary critical perspectives can be used to reassess and reevaluate this literary tradition. All the outcomes are inherently transferable to other academic fields. 2. Skills By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: • Select works related to a particular geographical area in order to study the way that it is represented; • Identify, describe and evaluate the influences between the texts studied, and how they converge or diverge in their literary construction of (an area of) Mediterranean culture, history, ethnicities, or geography; • Engage in forms of comparative analyses that cut across traditional disciplinary, linguistic and generic boundaries; • Produce advanced textual / critical commentary upon selected texts from the literature studied. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main Texts: - Ben Jelloun, Tahar, Leaving Tangier (London: Penguin, 2009) - Cassano, Franco, Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, ed. and trans. by Norma Bouchard and Valerio Ferme (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012) - de Bernières, Louis, Captain Corelli's Mandolin (New York: Vintage, 1995) - Iovino, Serenella, ‘Mediterranean Ecocriticism’, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 24 (2017), 325–340 - Lalami, Laila, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (New York: Harvest, 2006) - Levy, Deborah, Swimming Home (London: Faber & Faber, 2012) - Levy, Deborah, Hot Milk (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2016) - Makdisi, Wadad, A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman (New York: Bold Type Books, 2009) - Matar, Hisham, A Month in Siena (New York: Random House, 2019) - Matar, Hisham, The Return (New York: Knopf, 2016) - Nadjarian, Nora, Selfie and Other Stories (London: Roman Books, 2017) - Pamuk, Orhan, Istanbul: Memories and the City, trans. by Maureen Freely (New York: Vintage, 2006) - Pamuk, Orhan, The Museum of Innocence, trans. by Maureen Freely (New York: Vintage, 2010) - Parks, Tim, Italian Life (London: Harvill Secker, 2020) - Parks, Tim, Hotel Milano (London: Penguin, 2023) - Past, Elena, ‘Mediterranean Ecocriticism: The Sea in the Middle’, in Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology, ed. by Hubert Zapf (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016) - Serres, Michel. Biogea, trans. by Randolph Burks (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012) - Smith, Ali, How to Be Both (London: Penguin, 2015) - Valery, Paul, ‘The European’ and ‘Freedom of the Mind’, in The Collected Works of Paul Valery, ed. by Jackson Mathews, vol 10 (New Yokr: Bollingen, 1962). Supplementary Readings: - Braudel, Fernand, ‘The Mediterranean: Land, Sea, History’, The UNESCO Courier: Mediterranean Worlds (1985), XXXVIII, 12, 4-12 - Chambers, Iain, Mediterranean Crossings: The Politics of an Interrupted Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008) - Holland, Robert, The Warm South: How the Mediterranean Shaped the British Imagination (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018) - Matvejevic, Predrag, Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape, trans. by Michael Henry Heim (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999) - Reading and Writing the Mediterranean: Essays by Vincenzo Consolo, ed. by Norma Bouchard and Massimo Lollini (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006). |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Aaron Aquilina Stella Borg Barthet Norbert Bugeja Ivan Callus 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 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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