AJ3DC_SBAL Advanced Literary Seminar

Faculty of Education
Spring 2016
Extent and Intensity
0/0/12. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Jiří Šalamoun, Ph.D. (seminar tutor)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D.
Department of English Language and Literature – Faculty of Education
Contact Person: Jana Popelková
Supplier department: Department of English Language and Literature – Faculty of Education
Timetable of Seminar Groups
AJ3DC_SBAL/OS01: Fri 4. 3. 13:55–15:35 učebna 12, Fri 18. 3. 13:55–15:35 učebna 12, Fri 8. 4. 13:55–15:35 učebna 12, Fri 22. 4. 13:55–15:35 učebna 12, Fri 6. 5. 13:55–15:35 učebna 12, Fri 20. 5. 13:55–15:35 učebna 12, J. Šalamoun
Prerequisites
Reading proficiency adequate to university level.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
This is an advanced literary/cultural course exploring and examining selected topics of Contemporary British and American Literature. Literature and other cultural production tend to foretell and reflect on entanglements with globalization, emerging markets, people, and cultures from the heart of Anglophone cultural hegemony. The course attempts to re-think selected literary topics investigating global, national or regional frames to re-evaluate the growing claims on inevitable internationalization of Anglophone Canon. Special focus is to be paid to topics, shapes, subjects of so called transnational cultural production. This course is designed to explore the shapes of American and British literary and cultural imagination within Western Canon. We will also consider how transnational approaches to American and British literature contribute to reception, translation and institutalization (literary prizes, commercialization). The popularity of ethnic cultural production is to be examined as well in order to understand literary terrain in changing globalized world. Transnational and comparative approach allows for learning social, political, and cultural networks that enable students to attain complex understanding of role of literature and empowerment by literature. Last but not least, the course contributes and complements to an emerging field in international literary studies conventionally known as Transnationalism.
Syllabus
  • COURSE OUTLINE
  • 1. Literature and its prophesies. Regionalism and globalization. Culture and emerging markets. Lasting Anglophone cultural hegemony? Ways to rethink literature. Western Canon: global, national or regional? Internationalization of Anglophone Canon. Transnationalism, Crossculturalism, Multiculturalism. Cultural studies and Popular Culture. Re-imagination and Nostalgia. Social, political, and cultural networks and role of literature.
  • 2. EAST MEETS WEST, cultural flows in between East and West in both directions. Asians and 9/11. Asian tigers and emerging markets. Focus on South Asian literature and west in the backstage. (Jhumpa Lahiri, Arvind Adiga, Mohsin Hamid, Kiran Desai, Anita Desai, Hanif Kureishi, Monica Ali, Arundhati Roy)
  • 3.Regional British literature: Scottish Voices. British Diaspora and Scotland. Scottish English, horror, double personality and class issues. Outwardness, wider appeal and relevance. Scottish and Gealic heritage. Revision of Scottish women's past and present. (Janice Galloway, Muriel Spark, Iain Banks, Irvine Welsh, Duncan McLean, Ian Rankin, Ali Smith, Alasdair Gray)
  • 4. AFTER 9/11: New Ethnic literatures or transnational literature. History versus memory, cultural history re-discovered. Dignity re-discoverd, stereotypes challenged. Recent transnational literature (transnational literature/cultural production, or a new world literature, written by authors who develop strong transnational ties with more than one country). Historiography in contemporary culture, objective truth, global cultural narrative and meta-narratives. (Khaled Hosseini, Zadie Smith, Mohsin Hamid, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Sandra Cisneros, Chris Abani, Shauna Singh Baldwin, Kiran Desai, Anita Desai, Hanif Kureishi)
  • 5. Gender, Body and Queer Literature. Boundaries between masculine and feminine. Self-discovery, and the reinvention of bodies and selves; self-conscious and self-reflexive narratives. Theories of sex, gender; the queer. (J. Winterson, Angela Carter, Alice Munro, Fay Weldon, A. S. Byatt, Iris Murdoch, Sarah Waters, Ali Smith)
  • 6. Neo-Victorian Cultural Production; victorian sexuality revised. Texts of redemptive past, or neo-romantic romances using Victorian aesthetics, morality and settings. These texts often portray disputable social attitudes and conventions. Sometimes, those are seen as “revenge of oppressed imagination”. Texts recycle Dickensian and Austenian topics, point at its contradictions, and use timely slang, explore the timely stereotypes, focusing on unspoken physical, emotional and sexual realities.
Literature
  • Literature is provided on moodlinka.
Teaching methods
It is assumed the students are advanced learners, who have gained previous basic knowledge of current most visible literary trends, and shall actively evaluate and form their critical stances on selected texts and cultural phenomena, while exploring narrative fiction, non-fiction, or other contemporary cultural production. Cultural, historical, and theoretical context will be examined and discussed, while primary or secondary readings are to be utilized and scrutinized. Method of close reading would allow us to observe relevant themes and form critical judgments. The seminar is based on active reading and analysis of selected extracts; other activities and discussions are required and encouraged. The goal of the course is that students become confident in working with literature, and able to form judgments on current shape of the transforming international English Canon. Upon finishing the course students are capable of critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of new and complex ideas.
Assessment methods
Grades and Evaluation In-class debates participation, set reading, Response Papers. Oral Presentation. Attendance is not required but strongly recommended because the content of the class heavily relies on in-class discussion of the assigned readings. Satisfactory result on assignments plus regular attendance will determine the grade. The course is hands-on, based on activities rather than lecturing. You are expected to work both for and in the sessions.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course can also be completed outside the examination period.
The course is taught annually.
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2008, Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2016, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/ped/spring2016/AJ3DC_SBAL