Module Identifier | EN20120 | ||
Module Title | READING THEORY/READING TEXT 1 | ||
Academic Year | 2000/2001 | ||
Co-ordinator | Dr Sean Matthews | ||
Semester | Semester 2 | ||
Pre-Requisite | EN10320 , EN10420 | ||
Course delivery | Lecture | 20 Hours 20 x 1 hour lectures | |
Seminars / Tutorials | 10 Hours 10 x 1 hour workshop seminars | ||
Assessment | Exam | 2 Hours Students will be required to answer two questions in a two-hour pre-released examination paper. | 75% |
Exam | 2 Hours Answer 2 questions in a 2 hour paper released in advance | 75% | |
Essay | 1 x 2,500 word essay | 25% | |
Resit assessment | Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. |
Outline syllabus
This module aims to build on work introduced in EN10320 The Study of English: to introduce students to some of the major theoretical formations in literary theory of the twentieth century; to acquaint students with the work of a range of important literary theorists; and to investigate how different theories interrelate and confront one another. It also aims to prepare students for the applied theory module EN30920 Reading Theory/Reading Text 2. It may be taken as a free standing module by Joint Honours students.
Outline Lecture and Seminar Schedule:
1. Why Theory; Saussure and Semiotics (L); Structuralism (S)
2. Why do we need a theory of language; Barthes and Narratology (L); Poststructuralist theory (S)
3. Derrida and Deconstruction; De Man and Poststructuralism (L); Poststructuralism in practice (S)
4. Why History?; Marxism and Ideology (L); Marxism (S)
5. Althusser and Structural Marxism; Ideology and Discourse (L); Marxism (S)
6. New Historicism; Why Gender? (L); Feminism (S)
7. Anglo-French Gynocriticism; French Feminism (L); Feminism (S)
8. Subjectivity and Identity; Freud and Psychoanalysis (L); Psychoanalysis (S)
9. Lacan and Psychoanalysis; Nation and Ethnicity (L); Psychoanalysis (S)
10. Postcolonialism: Said; Postcolonialism: Spivak/Bhabha (L); Postclonialism (S)
Lectures (L) include those which offer explanations of theoretical ideas, interlaced with lectures which seek to discuss theories in a cross-perspectival fashion. Seminars (S) will follow the pattern outlined above.
Set Texts
The core text for this module will be P.Rice and P.Waugh, Literary Theory: A Reader, 3rd edition (Edward Arnold). Lectures and seminars will make explicit reference to this book, although more leeway for individual tutor's choice of text book might be expected in some seminars.