Module description
This module inquires into the relationship between literature and politics, in texts, mostly British, from the fourteenth century to our own. The first half will address questions of genre, mode and style; the second literature in the context of movements for social change.
Assessment details
Coursework
1 x 4000 word essay
Educational aims & objectives
This module asks what it means to read for the politics of a text and to read a text politically. We will reflect on the different kinds of desire at play in the class: desire for social justice, for solidarity, for purpose in what we, as readers, activists and critics, do. In so doing, we will learn to situate texts in terms of their contemporary commitments and in relation to our own. In the second half of the class, we will discover literature in the context of, and in service to, a series of social movements and hone our skills in the archive to recreate these past moments of insurgency.
Learning outcomes
Learning Outcomes:
Over the course of the semester, students will:
- Hone the critical, analytic and sympathetic skills to assess political investments in works of literature, broadly conceived and across a range of forms, from the fourteenth century to the present
- Attend to the politics of form and style, in the assigned readings and in our own critical writing
- Work with archival material to understand the audience and intention of political literature; reflect on the challenges and possibilities of historical contextualisation
- Evaluate and put to use a range of critical and theoretical approaches to literature and politics
- Draw connections with their other courses and come to a critical understanding of what motivates their own interest in literature; appreciate the complex histories of literature and literary study, their ideological construction and contestation over time
Suggested reading list
- Bertolt Brecht, ‘The Measures Taken’ (1929)
- Tillie Lerner, ‘The Iron Throat’ (1934)
- C.L.R. James, Toussaint L’Ouverture (1934)
- Ederisu Sawyer, Colour Bar (1940)
- Rodolfo Gonzalez, ‘I am Joaquín/Yo soy Joaquín’ (1972)
- Selected poetry from British Second-Wave feminism, incl. the anthologies Licking the Bed Clean: Five Feminist Poets (1978), One Foot on the Mountain (1980) and Bread and Roses (1982)
- Isaac Julien (dir.), Looking for Langston (1989)
- John Akomfrah (dir.), The Last Angel of History (1995)
- Luther Blissett, Q (1999)