LITERATURE IN A WORLD CONTEXT

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

None.

Notes

When forming part of a graduating curriculum in Literature in a World Context, it is recommended that this course is taken together with LW1501 Creative Practices: Literature in a World Context II.

Overview

This introductory course explores literature as a global phenomenon, placing national literatures in international context. It shows how literature makes sense of historical and cultural events in a period of globalization—in other words, when all major events have global visibility— and examines the way literature relates to other ways of making sense of the world (including the arts, philosophy, politics, and the new media). Among other examples, it will use the responses to September 11, 2001 to illustrate how literature takes a vital place in efforts to come to grips with events and social developments of world-wide importance. All literary texts will be read in translation.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); 1 2,000 word written assignment (30%); brief regular in-course written assignments (20%)
Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%)

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr J A Biggane

Pre-requisites

None

Notes

When forming part of a graduating curriculum in Literature in a World Context, it is recommended that this course is taken together with LW1001 Basic Topics I: Literature in a world context.

Overview

How do creative practices relate to political and social thought and action? How do contemporary creative practices relate to developments in new media, information technology, visual culture and music? What is the effect of increased globalization and migration flows on these practices and developments? These and other questions will be considered in this introduction to creative practices, which will examine creativity in both the production and reception of literature, visual culture and music in a world context. Students will also be given the opportunity to collaborate in creative practice, producing an internet publication in group-project work.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 100% continuous assessment: 1 2,500 word end-of-course written assignment (50%); project (20%); brief regular written in-course assignments (30%).

Resit: 2 written assignments (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor C Fynsk

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Level 3 or Level 4 Literature in a World Context or at the discretion of the Head of School.

Notes

This course will be available in 2010-2011, and in alternate sessions thereafter.

Overview

This course approaches literary study in the context of intellectual history, including the history of science. It reads literary texts together with works from philosophy and other fields of intellectual endeavour (for example: psychology, anthropology, theory of art, and political theory) to explore how literature complements and sometimes challenges efforts to grasp human experience and the meaning of socio-historical movements. The course will therefore offer a broad intellectual perspective on forms of artistic representation and an advanced introduction to a vital dimension of literary study. While the focus will tend to fall on the modern period, topics will be drawn from a wide range of historical periods and forms of literature. All texts will be read in translation.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); 1 4000 word written assignment (50%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Professor A Moreiras

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Level 3 or Level 4 Literature in a World Context or at the discretion of the Head of School.

Notes

This course will be available in 2009-2010, and in alternate sessions thereafter.

Overview

This course focuses on the relations between literature and the political, both nationally and internationally. It will explore, through a number of specific case studies, how literature has engaged in the past, and continues to engage today, with political circumstances, and political questions. Content will vary depending on research interests of staff teaching at any one time, but might include, for example: Rousseau’s Social Contract; Harlem Renaissance writers; Pablo Neruda’s poetry; Aimé Césaire’s ‘Discourse on Colonialism’; W.B. Yeats and Irish nationalism; Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); 1 4000 word written assignment (50%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Level 3 or Level 4 Literature in a World Context or at the discretion of the Head of School.

Notes

This course will be available in 2010-2011, and in alternate sessions thereafter.

Overview

If literature was accorded a privileged position in the Gutenberg galaxy, what constitutes its status when confronted with new developments in media and information technologies? Drawing on the work of Haraway, Kittler, McCluhan, Ronnel, Sloterdijk and others, this course examines how literature has engaged in the past, and continues to engage today, with technological change, from the telephone and the gramophone to the modem and mp3. Its focus will be on topics such as digital literature, art and music, technological embodiments, and creative collaboration.

Structure

2 two-hour seminars per week.

Assessment

1st attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); 1 4000 word written assignment (50%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination.

Credit Points

30

Course Coordinator

Dr J Stewart

Pre-requisites

Available only to Senior Honours (Single and Joint) students in Literature in a World Context.

Notes

This course will be available from 2010-2011.

Overview

This course will provide students with guidance on writing a dissertation on a topic approved by the Head of School.

Structure

3 one-hour tutorials.

Assessment

1st attempt: Dissertation (100%).