Critical Methodologies

This module will explore a variety of illness narratives: fictional and non-fictional, by patients and carers, written singly or collectively. We will consider how far illness narrative can claim to be a genre in its own right as well its relation to other forms of life-writing (especially trauma narrative and testimony). We will also read and critique the body of criticism to which illness narrative has given rise, both academic and extra-mural. There are specific questions in life writing that illness seems to throw into especially sharp relief. Chief among these is the question of authenticity.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/english/modules/2011-12/level7/7aaem631.aspx

In its later developments, French structuralist and post-structuralist theory took as its object of focus a series of questions clustered around the notion of life and the practice of living. For example: how is subjective, sexual or bodily life conditioned by the structures of language and power? Is it possible to ‘extract’ oneself from the modes of life determined by the structures of language, subjectivity and power? If subjectivity is constructed through the reflexive internalisation of modes of discipline, are other lines of ‘subjectivation’ possible? Put crudely: Is a different life possible? In the work of Roland Barthes from the 1970s these questions are explored through a fraught negotiation with the dynamics of meaning in language, seen – paradoxically enough - both as a fascistic imposition of social demand, and a utopian path of potential liberation. This approach is clearly articulated in Barthes’ inaugural lecture at the Collège de France, published as Leçon. Utopia is no less prominent a tendency in Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975), in which the ‘life’ of the ‘autobiographical’ subject is considered in a fragmentary form itself resistant to homogenous enclosure or capture as a ‘representation’. }

The module will explore in depth key works by these three writers, and through this prism offer students a grasp of the dominant concerns of French thought of this period. The module will be taught in English, and reading may be done in French or in English translation.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/french/modules/level7/7aafm007.aspx

What is queer theory? What models does it offer for exploring gender and sexuality historically? How might queer theories of the past connect with present and future configurations of identity, subjectivity and desire? Refusing the contemporary bias in much queer scholarship, this interdisciplinary module often uses examples from premodernity as a means of examining the key methods and assumptions of a queer approach to time and history. The module also provides opportunities to think about the interface between queerness and history in contemporary public culture, say in the context of museums and galleries. Familiarity with premodern literature and history isn't essential (where necessary texts can be circulated in translation). The module is aimed at students who wish to develop, discuss and critique a range of theoretical perspectives on gender, sexuality, history and temporality, whether or not they have a prior background in medieval or renaissance studies.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/english/modules/2011-12/level7/7aaem626.aspx

This course explores the changing representations of sexuality in (primarily) British literature from the 1880s to the 1930s. If reflects the recent growth of theoretical and critical work related to gender and sexuality, which has become one of the most vibrant areas in literary studies. Major works on imaginative literature are studied alongside the writing of contemporary sexologists such as Edward Carpenter, within a theoretical framework drawing on the work of Freud and, more recently, Foucault.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/english/modules/2011-12/level7/7aaem350.aspx