Module description
This module introduces students to critical perspectives and theoretical languages that have informed literary study for the past three decades. It does not aim to provide a comprehensive overview of theoretical movements or schools of criticism but rather serves as a starting point for students in acquiring the skills needed to engage with contemporary, theoretically informed writing in literary and culture studies. To this end, the module focuses on a selection of foundational theoretical texts and emphasises close reading. Each week, readings are grouped under two key concepts, indicating an area of debate into which the readings enter. The introductory class will place the primary terms of the module under scrutiny. We will begin, then, with the questions: What is theory? What is literature? And, what is the relationship between the two? Thereafter, the course will explore some of the most pressing questions to have animated literary theory in recent decades, including: What is the role of the author in creating meaning? What is the relationship between spoken and written language? How is literature connected to politics? In what ways are gender, race, and class constructed in and through language?
By the end of the semester, students will be familiar with a number of key concepts and debates in the field and will have read essays by some of the most influential thinkers and writers of the 20th and 21st centuries, from Ferdinand de Saussure, to Jacques Derrida, to Judith Butler, to Gayatri Spivak and others; they will be aware of major theoretical movements including structuralism and poststructuralism, marxism, psychoanalysis, and queer theory among others; and they will have an understanding of the relationship between literature and literary study and broader cultural critique.
Assessment details
Assessment: Reader response forum: 5 entries of 200-400 words (15%) and 1 x 3 hour prior disclosure examination (85%)
Semester 1 only students will be set an alternative assessment in lieu of any in-person exams
Teaching pattern
Teaching pattern: One hour lecture and one hour seminar weekly
Suggested reading list
Core reading:
Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Chapter 1, ‘What is Theory?’ and Chapter 2, ‘What is Literature and Does it Matter?’