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Curricular information is subject to change
On completion of this module students should be able to - demonstrate an understanding of a variety of theoretical approaches and their evolution - demonstrate an understanding of the methodologies these theories entail - discuss theoretical texts with reference to their historical and cultural contexts - discuss a theoretical text with reference to a literary work - produce an extended essay informed by theory.
Indicative Module Content:Topics may vary but in last cycle included:
Russian Formalism
Structuralism
Marxism
Psychoanalysis
Feminism
Reader-Response Theory
Poststructuralism
Performance Theory
Postcolonialism
Ecocriticism
Indicative Reading:
Some General Works on Literary Theory:
Barry, Peter, Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002).
Culler, Jonathan: Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Eagleton, Terry, Literary Theory: An Introduction, new edn (1983; Oxford: Blackwell, 2008).
Iser, Wolfgang, How to do Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).
Jefferson. Ann and Tobey, David (eds), Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction, 2nd edn (1982; London: Batsford, 1986).
Sources for Specific Readings:
Austin, J. L., ‘Performative Utterances’, in Philosophical Papers, ed. J, Urmson and G. J. Warnock, 3rd edn (1961; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 229–52.
Bakhtin, Mikhail, ‘Discourse in the Novel’, in The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist, ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 259–422.
Barthes, Roland, ‘The Death of the Author’, in Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), pp.142–48.
_____________, ‘From Work to Text’, in Image-Music-Text, trans. Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977), pp.155–64.
Bate, Jonathan, The Song of the Earth (London: Picador, 2000).
Belsey, Catherine and Moore, Jane (eds), The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and The Politics of Literary Criticism, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997).
Butler, Judith, ‘Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions’, in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 128–41.
Cixous, Hélène, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, in Elaine Marks and Isabelle Courtivron (eds), New French Feminisms (Brighton: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1981), pp. 245–64.
Coupe, Laurence (ed.), The Green Studies Reader: From Romanticism to Ecocriticism (London: Routledge, 2000).
Derrida, Jacques, ‘Signature, Event , Context’, in Glyph, 1 (1977), 172–97.
_____________, ‘Limited Inc a b c …’, in Glyph, 2 (1977), 162–254.
_____________, Limited Inc., ed. Gerald Graff, trans. Samuel Weber and Jeffrey Mehlman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977).
Felman, Shoshana, ‘Turning the Screw of Interpretation’, in Yale French Studies, 55–56 (1977), 94–207.
Fish, Stanley, ‘Is There a Text in this Class?’, in Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1980), pp. 303–21.
Freud, Sigmund, ‘On Dreams’, in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. James Strachey et al. (London: Hogarth Press, 1953), vol. 5, pp. 629–81.
Iser, Wolfgang, ‘Interaction between Text and Reader’, in Susan R. Suleiman and Inge Crosman (eds), The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 106–19.
Jakobson, Roman ‘Linguistics and Poetics’, in Language in Literature, ed. Krystyna Pomorska and Stephen Rudy (Cambridge, MA,: Belknap Press, 1987), pp. 62–94.
Lemon, Lee T. and Reis, Marion J. (eds), Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965).
Lodge, David, ‘Analysis and Interpretation of the Realist Text: Hemingway’s “Cat in the Rain”’, in Working with Structuralism: Essays and Reviews on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Literature (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), pp. 17–36.
Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Robert C. Tucker, 2nd edn (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978).
Miller, J. Hillis, ‘Interpretation in Dickens’ Bleak House’, in Victorian Subjects (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990), pp. 179–99.
Muraro, Luisa ‘The Passion of Feminine Difference beyond Equality’, in Graziella Parati and Rebecca West (eds), Italian Feminist Theory and Practice (London: Associated University Press, 2002), pp. 77–87.
Prendergast, Christopher (ed.), Debating World Literature (London: Verso, 2004).
Said, Edward W., Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage, 1994 [1993]).
Searle, John, ‘Reiterating the Differences: A Reply to Derrida’, in Glyph, 1 (1977), 198–208.
Shklovsky, Viktor, ‘The Resurrection of the Word’, in Stephen Bann and John Bowlt (eds), Russian Formalism: A Collection of Articles and Texts in Translation (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1973), 41–47.
_______________,‘Art as Technique’, in Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis (eds), Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965), pp. 3–24.
______________ ,‘Sterne’s Tristram Shandy: Stylistic Commentary’, in Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis (eds), Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965), pp. 25–57.
Suleiman, Susan R., ‘Varieties of Audience-Oriented Criticism’, in Susan R. Suleiman and Inge Crosman (eds), The Reader in the Text: Essays on Audience and Interpretation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 3–45.
Williams, Raymond, ‘People of the City’, in The Country and the City (1973; London: Hogarth Press, 1983), pp. 153–64.
Young, Robert, Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Student Effort Type | Hours |
---|---|
Seminar (or Webinar) | 24 |
Specified Learning Activities | 88 |
Autonomous Student Learning | 108 |
Total | 220 |
Please note that this is a level-four/Masters/MA/postgraduate module designed for students who have already successfully completed an undergraduate programme of study (typically BA).
Resit In | Terminal Exam |
---|---|
Summer | No |
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
Individual oral advice offered on first essay topic in advance of submission in Week 7, individual written feedback following submission. Individual oral advice offered on second essay topic in advance of end of semester, individual written feedback available after conclusion of Exam Session.