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Overview

This module is an introduction to some of the defining concerns, historical contexts and characteristic formal features of modern world literatures from 1789 to the present. The syllabus is divided into sections on literatures of the Enlightenment and Romanticism, nineteenth-century modernity and empire, modernism and world war, and the Cold War/decolonization period, with a focus on post-1989 writing in the third term. Teaching is by a weekly lecture and small-group seminar. Lectures introduce literary, historical and/or theoretical contexts as well as discussion of specific authors and works, while seminars involve closer discussion of the texts themselves.

The set texts we will be reading this year include the following:

Goethe, Faust Part I; Shelley, Frankenstein; Baudelaire, 鈥淭he Painter of Modern Life鈥�; Soseki, Kokoro; Conrad, Heart of Darkness; Lu Xun, 鈥淎 Madman鈥檚 Diary鈥�; Kafka, The Metamorphosis; Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children; C茅saire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land; Lispector, Hour of the Star; Cliff, No Telephone to Heaven.

A full list of this year鈥檚 set texts, as well as a week-by-week breakdown of the lectures, can be found by following the tabs above (see 鈥�Lecture List鈥� and 鈥�Set Texts鈥�)

For students whose home department is English, the following texts are provided to you for free: Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative and Other Stories and Natsume Soseki, Kokoro. You will be able to pick them up in Welcome Week.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module you should be able to

• Discuss a particular work of literature in relation to questions of modernity, the dynamics of innovation and tradition, and the role of social, cultural and (inter)national formations in shaping the context of literary production.
• Engage more confidently in critical analysis, bibliographic research and presentations on topics relating to works of modern literature.
• Participate in discussions and exercises regarding the role of literature in relation to other media, questions of institutional authority and contemporary cultural debates.
• Make an informed choice of honours-level options in modern literary topics.

Methods of assessment

• First-year students: 2 x 2,500-word essays.
• Honours level (i.e., where the course is taken as an option by students not in their first year): 2 x 3,500-word essays (Level 5); 2 x 4,000-word essays (Level 6).
• Visiting students: see guidance under Assessments.

See Assessments 24/25 for further information.

Essay deadlines

See published through the English Office.