Module Information

Module Identifier
EN33420
Module Title
Demons, Degenerates and New Women: Fin De Siecle Fictions
Academic Year
2017/2018
Co-ordinator
Semester
Semester 2
Other Staff

Course Delivery

Delivery Type Delivery length / details
Seminar 10 x 2 Hour Seminars
 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Exam 8 Hours   ORAL EXAMINATION  Oral presentation  Rehearsal and exam held 1 week apart. Room with DP and ability to blackout needed. Small seminar room.  40%
Semester Assessment One essay of 2,500 words  60%
Supplementary Assessment Resubmit any failed elements and/or make good any missing elements. Where this involves failure in the essay assignment, a new topic must be selected. In the event of failure in the oral presentation element, a 15 minute written script on a new topic, written as if for delivery, with accompanying visual aids to be submitted.  100%

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the module students will be able to:

1. demonstrate a knowledge and critical understanding of the set texts;

2. locate the set texts in some of the contexts of their production;

3. explain and engage with relevant aspects of recent critical debates about the material
studied;

4. produce well organized, coherently argued and critically informed written work;

5. engage in coherent oral discussion of the material studied.

Brief description

This module explores some of the anxieties and preoccupations of late-nineteenth century culture through an examination of some of the best-selling romances and fantasies (She, Dracula, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) and 'high art' fiction (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Jude the Obscure, the New Woman Writing) which fascinated and scandalised late Victorian readers.

Content

_Seminar Programme

_1. Introduction to the fin de siecle
Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (eds), The Fin de Siecle (Oxford University Press, 2000)

_2. The Dark places of the earth
Rider Haggard's She

_3. Monstrous men and New Women
Bram Stoker's Dracula

_4. Masculine Others (i)
R.L.Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

_5. Masculine Others (ii)
Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray

_6. and 7. The New Woman Writing (i)
Carolyn Christensen Nelson (ed.) A New Woman Reader (Broadview Press, 2001)

_8. The new sex science and the birth of psychoanalysis
Sally Ledger and Roger Luckhurst (eds) The Fin de Siecle (Oxford University Press, 2000)

_9. Gender Trouble
Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure

_10. The fin de siecle: some conclusions

Detailed bibliographies will be given out in class. You will find it useful to look at one or more of the books listed below before the course starts. Unless otherwise stated all the novels are published by both Penguin and Oxford World's Classics.

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 6