Specialization in English Literature: From Pre-Critical Reader Responses to Critical Traditions with Literary Texts (ENG271)

Content

Through the study of various novels, poetry, drama or prose and critical/theoretical texts, the students will practice developing critical questions that lead to focused, coherent, well-argued, and properly documented, written and oral work that engages with scholarship in the field surrounding a particular text. Students will be provided with insight into a particular set of questions at issue arising from selected texts and/or genres. The course examines how themes develop in relation to contemporary society as well as with past literary modes and socio-historical contexts. The course explores the ways themes are expressed and what theoretical lenses and critical traditions illuminate the student’s own formal analysis, interpretation, and explication.

Learning outcome

Knowledge

Upon completion of the course, the students will have gained knowledge of:

• major literary themes and textual relationship to society and culture
• intertextuality within periods of literature and characteristics/evolution of literary genres
• engagement with alternate scholarly positions around a particular research question
• theoretical approaches to literary texts and cultural expression characteristic of the texts and/or culture that the course focuses on

Skills

By the end of the course, the student will be able to:

• reflect upon central theories, concepts and perspectives within the fields of literature
• describe and explain central aspects of society and literature in the literary periods treated
• analyze and evaluate central concepts and themes in terms of the cultural and/or literary context
• do close reading and interpretation of literary texts as evidence for arguments
• find and express hypothesis beliefs on interpretative and critical questions at issue
• work with a set of literary texts in terms of their significance within an always evolving literary tradition, seeing through critical lenses and doing formal analysis.
• engage with and incorporate secondary source material at an advanced level
• use MLA/or other approved style documentation/in-text citation
• present informed arguments orally

General competencies

Upon completion of the course, the students:

• will be able to express themselves correctly and academically both in writing and orally
• will have learned to read texts closely and interpret them
• can understand and articulate literary theories covered in the course.
• can articulate and take a position within particular scholarly debates covered.

Required prerequisite knowledge

Students must have a minimum of 50 ECTS in introductory English courses or equivalent in order to begin the specialization.

BA students must have a minimum of 45 ECTS in introductory English courses or equivalent in order to begin the specialization.

Exam

Coursework requirements

Group research project, 75% seminar attendance

75% seminar attendance is required to sit the final exam.

Course teacher(s)

Course coordinator:

Janne Stigen Drangsholt

Study Adviser:

Margrethe Melin

Course teacher:

Allen Clarence Jones

Course teacher:

Sonya Louise Veck

Method of work

Lectures, seminars and group work

Open for

Open to students accepted into the Bachelor programme (or Specialization) in English Language and Literature at the Department of Cultural Studies and Languages, provided that they have the prerequisite knowledge. Open to exchange students. Other students must apply within the given deadlines.

Literature