Module Information

Module Identifier
EN22920
Module Title
Literature since 1945
Academic Year
2019/2020
Co-ordinator
Semester
Semester 2
Other Staff

Course Delivery

Delivery Type Delivery length / details
Lecture 20 x 1 Hour Lectures
Seminar 10 x 1 Hour Seminars
 

Assessment

Assessment Type Assessment length / details Proportion
Semester Exam 2 Hours   Semester Exam  50%
Semester Assessment 1 x 2500 word essay  50%
Supplementary Assessment Resubmit missing of failed 2500 word essay  Students who fail the module will be required to make good any missing assessment elements and / or resubmit any failed coursework assignments (writing on a fresh topic), and/or sit the supplementary examinatiion paper.  50%
Supplementary Exam 2 Hours   Resit missed of failed exam papeer  50%

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

1. Demostrate an understanding of the distinctive thematic concerns and formal innovations that characterise late-twentieth-century texts.

2. Locate and discuss late-twentieth-century texts in terms of their historical, social, and cultural contexts.

3. Display awareness of some of the key features of postmodernism as manifested in literary texts.

4. Examine the ways in which late-twentieth century literature engages with issues of class, gender, race, and/or nationality.

5. Write about literary texts from a range of genres in a critically-focused and well-structured manner.

Aims

  • To introduce students to a range of literary texts from the post-war period, and in a variety of genres.
  • To enable students to locate and discuss post-war literary texts in their historical, social, and political contexts.
  • To encourage students to explore the distinctive formal or generic features of post-war literature.
  • To enhance students' understanding of issues of class, gender, race, and sexuality as they inform late twentieth-century literature.

Brief description

This module introduces students to the distinctive features of post-war literature through detailed engagements with texts in a range of genres: drama, poetry, and the novel. The focus is upon writers and texts from Britain and Ireland, though the concerns of several of these texts with cultural hybridity and post-colonial identities will form the basis of discuss. Thematic lectures on ‘Theatre of the Absurd’, ‘Post-war poetry’, and ‘Postmodern fictions’ will offer historical, literary-historical, social, and political contextualisation, as well as explaining key critical terms and concepts. At the core of the module, however, are detailed engagements with a small number of carefully-chosen texts, which will be interpreted from a variety of critical and theoretical perspectives. Students will be encouraged to relate post-war literary texts to a wider ‘postmodern condition’ from which they arise; to think critically about the ways in which issues of class, gender, or racial difference inform late-twentieth-century texts; and to explore the formal or generic features that are distinctive of literature in this period.

Content

Syllabus outline
Week 1
Lecture 1: Introduction
Lecture 2: Theatre of the Absurd
Seminar: Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Week 2
Lecture 3: Beckett 1
Lecture 4: Beckett 2
Seminar: Beckett, Waiting for Godot

Week 3
Lecture 5: Post-war poetry
Lecture 6: Heaney 1
Seminar: Heaney, New Selected Poems

Week 4
Lecture 7: Heaney 2
Lecture 8: Heaney 3
Seminar: Heaney, New Selected Poems

Week 5
Lecture 9: Clarke 1
Lecture 10: Clarke 2
Seminar: Clarke, Collected Poems

Week 6
Lecture 11: Postmodern fictions
Lecture 12: Swift 1
Seminar: Swift, Waterland

Week 7
Lecture 13: Swift 2
Lecture 14: Swift 3
Seminar: Swift, Waterland

Week 8
Lecture 15: Winterson 1
Lecture 16: Winterson 2
Seminar: Winterson, Sexing the Cherry

Week 9
Lecture 17: Kay 1
Lecture 18: Kay 2
Seminar: Kay, Trumpet

Week 10
Lecture 19: Kay 3
Lecture 20: Assessment advice
Seminar: Kay, Trumpet


Module Skills

Skills Type Skills details
Application of Number N/A
Communication Written: By developing a sustained critical argument. Oral: Through class discussion, small group exercises, and seminar presentations. [Not assessed)
Improving own Learning and Performance Through independent research and reading.
Information Technology By using word-processing packages; using AberLearn Blackboard and other e-resources to research and access course documents and other materials; by submitting assignments via Turnitin.
Personal Development and Career planning Through increased critical self-reflection and the development of transferable, ICT, communication and research skills
Problem solving By evaluative analysis and the use of critical skills.
Research skills By directed and independent research; by synthesizing information in an evaluative critical argument.
Subject Specific Skills Through the reading, writing and researching skills involved in the interrogation of literary texts, and the conceptual/theoretical analysis of works of imaginative literature in relation to a range of other non-literary texts
Team work Through group work in seminars; and through preparation for paired presentations in seminars.

Notes

This module is at CQFW Level 5