ENGLISH LITERATURE

Single discipline educational activity

Course Sheet

Academic Year of enrolment:

2017/2018

Type of Course:

Characterising

Optional/Mandatory:

Optional

Degree:

Master's Degree Programme in ITALIAN LITERATURE, MODERN PHILOLOGY AND CULTURAL PRODUCTIONS

Disciplinary Sector:

ENGLISH LITERATURE

Credits:

Programme Year:

Hours of classroom activity:

Prerequisites:

B1+/B2 level of English

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ENGLISH LITERATURE

FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES FOR CULTURAL MEDIATION AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT

AF code:

40X01334

Assessment Methods

Verification of learning:

Assessment of:

- knowledge of the authors and their contexts;
- ability to read critically the literary text in the reading list;
- ability to analyse texts and to do so appropriately, with good critical language competence.

Students are assessed on the basis of their knowledge of the themes and the texts analysed during the course as well as the literary, critical and communicative skills they have acquired.

Teaching period

First semester

Objectives

Students will develop three main areas of competence: (i) knowledge of different cultural paradigms as well as narrative genres, functions and modes; (ii) awareness of the various problems of reading and interpretation; and (iii) critical reading of texts informed by the knowledge of/interaction of text and context. Students will learn to understand some of the basic principles of critical theory as well as applying specific reading strategies to selected texts and to raise questions about the reading process and its contexts. The emphasis throughout is on the development of students’ critical awareness of positions, strategies and possibilities of interpretation and the ability to propose their personal reading of literary texts.

Contents

Othering selves: this year’s course furthers students’ knowledge of Anglophone literatures and cultural contexts through critical readings of literary texts which narrate and represent diversity. Students will reflect upon the use and efficacy of discursive practices in strategies of exclusion (social, racial, religious) as well as the place of literature and of literacy in processes of dissemination of the vocabularies of race but also of renegotiation of alterity, cultural encounters, self-narrative, and inclusion.

Recommended Bibliography

Primary sources:

Mary Shelley [1818], Frankenstein. Or the Modern Prometheus.[English edn, pp. 199];

Elizabeth Gaskell [1855], “An Accursed Race”, in Round the Sofa and other Stories, pp. 216-236 (photocopied material);

Robert Louis Stevenson [1886], Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994: pp. 88.

Roddy Doyle, “Guess Who’s Coming for the Dinner”; “New Boy”, in The Deportees and other Stories. London: Jonathan Cape, 2007: pp. 1-26; pp. 78-99 or 154-179.

One of the following (approx.. 90-13 pages each):

C. Marlowe, The Jew of Malta
E. Gaskell, Lois the Witch
M. Morrissy, Diaspora, in Prosperity Drive
W. Shakespeare, Othello
W. Shakespeare. The Merchant of Venice

Secondary sources:

Methodology:
Selected brief texts on the representation of alterity and the vocabulary of race in English Literature [Chaucer, “Tre Prioress’ Tale” in Canterbury Tales; C. Marlowe, The Jew of Malta; W. Shakespeare (Othello, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest); Maria Edgeworth, Harrington; drawings from Punch; Charles Dickens’s representations of Jews; the Irish as seen by Edmund Spencer and Matthew Arnold, selected texts from the Post-Colonial Studies Reader).

Daniela Montini, The Language of Fiction. Pratiche di lettura del testo narrativo. Roma: Carocci, 2009, pp.: 15-20 (“Narrare”); 25-26 (“Plot/story”); 37-46 (“Tempo”); 69-73 (“Il narratore”); 89-92 (“Il punto di vista”); 99-104 (“Il discorso”); 113-115 (“Il lettore”); 123-124 (“Il personaggio”).

Context:

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 2, ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2006: “The Romantic Period: 1785-1830” (pp. 1-25); “The Victorian Age”, pp. 979-1000; “The Twentieth century and after: pp. 1827-1850.

Ania Loomba, “The vocabularies of race”, in Shakespeare, Race, Colonialism. Oxford: OUP, 2002, pp. 22-44;

Robbie McVeigh, “Nick, Nack,Paddywhack: Anti-Irish racism and the racialisation of Irishness', in McVeigh, Lentin eds., Racism and anti-racism in Ireland. Belfast: Beyond the Pale, 2002, pp. 136-152.

Teaching Methods

Frontal and interactive teaching. Classes will be taught in the English language.

Cooperative learning teaching methodology may occasionally be adopted (group work).

Experts may be involved in the course.

Contacts/More Information

Further reading (optional for attending students but strongly recommended for non-attending students):

Jurij Lotman, “Caccia alle streghe. Semiotica della paura”, in EC, pdf (photocopied material) (14 pp.);

Ania Loomba, Martin Orkin, Post-colonial Shakespeares. London: Routledge:1998, [cap. I: pp. 1-19];

Daniela Montini, The Language of Fiction. Pratiche di lettura del testo narrativo. Roma: Carocci, 2009 (140 pp.)

ENGLISH LITERATURE

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ENGLISH LITERATURE