Contemporary English Literature
Code: 100238 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2500245 English Studies | OT | 3 | 0 |
| 2500245 English Studies | OT | 4 | 0 |
Contact
- Name:
- David Owen
- Email:
- David.Owen@uab.cat
Use of Languages
- Principal working language:
- english (eng)
- Some groups entirely in English:
- Yes
- Some groups entirely in Catalan:
- No
- Some groups entirely in Spanish:
- No
Teachers
- Maria Cristina Pividori Gurgo
Prerequisites
Contemporary British Literature is a demanding course that reads a number of very recently published British novels in a close and intensive manner.
An essential requirement is a C2 level of English in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment.
A level of English at C2 allows students to understand with ease virtually everything heard or read; to summarise information from distinct spoken and written sources; to reconstruct arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation; and to express themselves spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations.
Knowledge acquired in the first year subject, History and Culture of the British Isles and other compulsory literature subjects throughout the degree will be rlevant in this subject.
Objectives and Contextualisation
This subject provides an approximation to highly contemporary British literary culture, through the multiple postmodern perspective of identity (Identity & the Family; Identity: Lost, Stolen and Forgotten; Identity: Place or Ethnicity).
The basic objective of the course is to come to a fuller understanding of particular aspects of postmodern Britain through the study of six recent novels, attempting to comprehend the concerns and leitmotifs that may be generally applicable in these novels to the culture as a whole, with the aim of attaining a closer conception of the cultural parameters currently at work in contemporary British society.
Competences
- English Studies
- Critically assessing the scientific, literary and cultural production in the English language.
- Demonstrate a comprehension of the relationship between factors, processes and phenomena of linguistics, literature, history and culture, and explaining it.
- Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
- Distinguish and contrast the various theoretical and methodological models applied to the study of the English language, its literature and its culture.
- Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in the English language.
- Produce clear and well structured and detailed texts in English about complex topics, displaying a correct use of the organisation, connection and cohesion of the text.
- Rewrite and organize information and arguments coming from several sources in English and presenting them in a coherent and summarised way.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
Learning Outcomes
- Analysing and interpreting in an advanced level secondary texts about the contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Applying appropriate secondary academic sources to text comments and argumentative essays about contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Carrying out oral presentations using secondary academic sources in relation to the contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Communicating in the studied language in oral and written form, properly using vocabulary and grammar.
- Comparing and relating in an advanced level various topics and texts of the contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Comparing in an advanced level the methodologies of literary criticism applied to contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Demonstrate a master of the specific methods of individual academic work that prepare the student for a postgraduate specialised education in the same or a different field of study.
- Describing in detail and in an academic way the nature and main traits of the contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Distinguishing the main ideas from the secondary ones and summarising the contents of primary and secondary texts about contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Drawing up academic essays of medium length, using secondary academic sources in relation to the contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
- Explaining in detail and in an academic way the diachronic and synchronic evolution of the topics and texts of the contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Localising secondary academic sources in the library or on the Internet related to the contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Mastering the advanced knowledge and scientific methodologies related to linguistics, literature, history and culture that prepare the student for a postgraduate specialised education in the same or a different field of study.
- Students must be capable of comprehending advanced academic or professional texts in their own language or the another acquired in the degree.
- Students must be capable of precisely arguing ideas and opinions in their own language or another acquired in the degree.
- Students must reflect on and give their opinion about primary texts of the contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
- Summarising the content of academic primary and secondary sources about contemporary English literature (United Kingdom, United States, and other territories).
Content
Unit 1. Identity & the Family
- Sally Rooney: Normal People (2018)
- Poppy Adams: The Behaviour of Moths (2008)
Unit 2. Identity: Lost, Stolen, Forgotten
- Maggie O’Farrell: The Hand that First Held Mine (2010)
- Emma Healey: Elizabeth is Missing (2014)
Unit 3. Identity: Place or Ethnicity
- Zadie Smith: NW (2012)
- Marina Lewycka: Two Caravans (2007)
Methodology
1 ECTS credit = 25 teaching/learning hours> 6 credits = 150 hours
Classes are seminar-oriented; students' active participation in class discussions is expected. Consequently, students must read all the set novels before the unit in which they are studied.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Class Discussions | 15 | 0.6 | |
| Lectures | 30 | 1.2 | |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Bibliographical Search | 8 | 0.32 | |
| Essay writing | 14.3 | 0.57 | |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Personal work | 24.7 | 0.99 | 15 |
| Reading | 55 | 2.2 |
Assessment
Assessment is based on the following items:
- Two exams (2 x 40%) = 80%
- Participitation in the class forum = 20%
- Definitive dates for each of the above exercises will be published at the start of the course.
- On carrying out each assessment activity, lecturers will inform students (on Moodle) of the procedures to be followed for reviewing all grades awarded, and the date on which such a review will take place.
- All exercises are COMPULSORY
Students will obtain a Not assessed/Not submitted course grade unless they have submitted more than two thirds of the assessment items.`
Reassessment conditions
- Students whose final average mark of the two exams is between 3,5 and 4,9 are eligible for re-assessment.
- The specific re-assessment activity wil be confirmed by the lecturer in question.
- The maximum possible final mark is a 5.
- In case students cannot take the exam on the date set up by the teacher for justified medical reasons, a different date can be agreed on with the lecturer.
- Reassessment is available ONLY to students who have failed initial assessment; it is NOT available to students who have passed but wish to improve their final grade.
Plagiarism
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
Disruption of attendance-based assessment
In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exam 1 | 40% | 1 | 0.04 | 1, 2, 16, 6, 5, 15, 14, 7, 8, 9, 12, 11, 4, 13, 10, 17, 18 |
| Exam 2 | 40% | 1 | 0.04 | 1, 2, 16, 6, 5, 15, 14, 7, 8, 9, 12, 11, 4, 13, 10, 17, 18 |
| Forum Participation | 20% | 1 | 0.04 | 1, 16, 5, 9, 3, 4, 17 |
Bibliography
Critical Studies
- Ashley, Bob (ed), Reading Popular Narrative. A Source Book, Leicester University Press, 1997.
-
Boxall, Peter, ed. Twenty-First-Century Fiction: A Critical Introduction. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
-
Caserio, Robert L., ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Twentieth-Century English Novel. Cambridge Companions to Topics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
- Eagleton, Mary. Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader. Oxford: Whiley-Blackwell, 2011.
- English, James F., ed. A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction. Blackwell Concise Companions to Literature and Culture. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006.
- Ferguson, Mary Anne. Images of Women in Literature. Boston: Wadsworth, 1991.
- Gąsiorek, Andrzej. Post-war British Fiction: Realism and After. London: Edward Arnold, 1995.
- Head, Dominic. The State of the Novel: Britain and Beyond. Blackwell Manifestos. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
- Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought. Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. London & New York: Routledge, 2000.
- Lane, Richard J., Rod Mengham, and Philip Tew, eds. Contemporary British Fiction. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003.
- Leader, Zachary, ed. On Modern British Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. Oxford: Routledge, 1985.
- Morrison, Jago. Contemporary Fiction. London: Routledge, 2003.
- Plain, Guill and Susana Sellers. A History of Feminist Literary Criticism. Cambridge: CUP, 2007.
- Robinson, Sally. Engendering the Subject: Gender and Self-Refpresentationin Contemporary Women's Fiction. Albany: SUNY, 1991.
- Showalter, Elaine. A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
- Stevenson, Randall. The Oxford English Literary History. Vol. 12, 1960–2000: The Last of England? Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
- Warhol-Down, Robyn and Diane Price Herndl (Eds.) Feminisms Redux: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism. New Jersey: Rudgers UP, 2009.
Downloadable Studies
- The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Fiction 1500-2000 (Dominic Head)
- Consciousness and the Novel, pp. 61-72 (David Lodge)
- The Cambridge Companion to British Fiction since 1945 (Kevin R. McNamara, Ed.)