Year: Second
Part of the year: Half Year 1
Module Leader: Anna Ball
Assessments :
Keywords:
Fin de siècle; Avant-Garde; twentieth-century literature; modernity ; dystopia ; nationhood ; colonisation ; class ; race ; gender ; postmodernism.
Description:
This module, the core English module at level 2, helps you to make the transition between foundational study at level 1 and research-based study at level 3. It is concerned with the twentieth century as a period repeatedly characterised by the (often creative) conflicts between ‘culture’ (tradition, inheritance, progress, known literary and artistic forms) and ‘anarchy’ (forces that threaten stability, disorder, violence, disruption). It focuses on three key moments. The first is one of transition, the end of the nineteeth-century, and the beginning of the twentieth-century and including the modernist period: this considers the clashes between ideals of progress in social and cultural terms, and, on the other hand, the evidence of mass destruction and the interior fragmentation of the human psyche. The second, Nation and Identity, pauses just after the Second World War, when the loss of empire and the beginnings of the Cold War generated shifts in personal identity, class, authority and control. Finally, Endings and Beginnings considers the literary effects of postmodernity among questions of gender, trauma and cultural anxieties about ways of knowing.
Prerequisites:
At least 60 credits of ENGL modules at level 1
Useful Information:
This is the level 2 Core module for English.
You will need to buy and read the following:
Teaching methods/structure:
The module is taught by weekly 2-hour lecture/workshops followed by seminars. The lectures have interactive elements in which you will need to participate. The formative assessment - the research exercise – will help to prepare you for the essay and, more broadly, for the dissertation, the core module at level 3. We try to teach all the main texts before Christmas, leaving the period afterwards for working on your essay. There is a final session on employability (to get you thinking about your career planning) and the dissertation (to set you up for making your decisions towards the end of the academic year).
Should you require to look at the full module specification please contact the School Admin Team at AAHSchool.admin@ntu.ac.uk
Contact details for further queries (module leader):
Anna Ball
Email: anna.ball@ntu.ac.uk