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Anglophone Literature and War

Code: 106325 ECTS Credits: 6
2024/2025
Degree Type Year
2504212 English Studies OT 3
2504212 English Studies OT 4

Contact

Name:
Maria Cristina Pividori Gurgo
Email:
mariacristina.pividori@uab.cat

Teaching groups languages

You can view this information at the end of this document.


Prerequisites

  • A keen interest and enthusiasm for reading and debating literary works in English related to the representation of the major war and conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries, focusing exclusively on literature written by women.
  • Students are advised to have passed all first- and second-year subjects in the English Studies degree before taking this subject.
  • The required level of English is C2, which requires students to understand what they read or hear without effort. They should be able to summarize information from other sources, both oral and written, develop arguments, and present them coherently. They should also be able to express themselves spontaneously, fluently, and precisely, and distinguish subtleties in all kinds of situations.

Objectives and Contextualisation

The 2024-2025 edition of "Anglophone Literature and War" will focus on the study of war literature written by women. Special attention will be paid to literary representation of women’s experiences in conflicts. This course will examine the multifaceted roles women have played during the major wars and conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries, both on the battlefront and the homefront. Additionally, we will explore the impact of war on women’s lives, their contributions to literature, and their unique perspectives on conflict. We will also study the gender-specific impacts of war, particularly how conflicts have historically shifted traditional gender roles.

Specifically, the following topics will be addressed:

  • Memory, Post-Memory and Commemoration
  • Trauma
  • Displacement and Exile:
  • Gender Roles and Women's Empowerment
  • War in the Domestic Space
  • Silence and the unspeakable
  • Ethical Challenges of Representing War
  • Survival and Resilience
  • Identity and Nationalism

 Upon completing the course, students will be able to:

  • Recognise the distinctive characteristics that define the war literature written by women.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the historical evolution of women's war literature throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.
  • Make basic critical contributions to literary theory from an informed perspective, particularly in relation to women's contributions to war literature.
  • Demonstrate understanding of the interaction between critical discourse and women's war literature, particularly highlighting the interconnection between the two.

Competences

    English Studies
  • Apply scientific ethical principles to information processing.
  • Apply the methodology of analysis and critical concepts to analysing the literature, culture and history of English-speaking countries.
  • Critically evaluate linguistic, literary and cultural production in English.
  • Demonstrate skills to develop professionally in the fields of linguistic applications, teaching and literary and cultural management in English.
  • Demonstrate skills to work autonomously and in teams to fulfil the planned objectives.
  • Develop arguments applicable to the fields of literature, culture and linguistics and evaluate their academic relevance.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
  • Understand and produce written and spoken academic texts in English at advanced higher-proficient-user level (C2).
  • Use current philological methodologies to interpret literary texts in English and their cultural and historical context.
  • Use digital tools and specific documentary sources for the collection and organisation of information.
  • Use written and spoken English for academic and professional purposes, related to the study of linguistics, the philosophy of language, history, English culture and literature.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analyse the contexts of application of literary and interpretative criticism in the different areas of literary and cultural production in English.
  2. Demonstrate comprehension of specialist and non-specialist texts in English of high difficulty and interpret these critically.
  3. Describe critically and in detail the set of stylistic and cultural elements that affect a literary text in English.
  4. Express oneself in English orally and in writing in an academic register, using terminology appropriate to the study of the texts and contexts of English literature.
  5. Identify the stylistic and cultural elements that make up the interpretation of different literary genres in English.
  6. In an effective manner, organise the autonomous component to learning.
  7. Incorporate ideas and concepts from published sources into work, citing and referencing appropriately.
  8. Locate specialised and academic information and select this according to its relevance.
  9. Plan work effectively, individually or in groups, in order to fulfil the planned objectives.
  10. Produce written and spoken academic texts at a higher-proficient-user level (C2) on the concepts and skills relevant to the study of English literary texts and contexts.
  11. Understand and differentiate adequately between the concepts of literature and culture in English, as well as their mutual relations and interactions.
  12. Understand and reflect on literature and culture in English, situating these in their contexts and historical circumstances.
  13. Understand and reflect on the different critical and interpretative contexts of the teaching of literature in English.
  14. Understand specialised academic texts on research into the texts and contexts of English literature.
  15. Understanding and reflecting on relatively specialised authentic texts in English in various academic and professional fields.

Content

 

  • UNIT 1: A Barrier of Indescribable Experience (The First World War): "The Mark on the Wall" (Virginia Woolf, 1921); “The Fly” (Katherine Mansfield, 1922); The Return of the Soldier (Rebecca West, 1918); “May, 1915” (Charlotte Mew); “Pluck” (Eva Dobell).
  • UNIT 2: Battlegrounds of their Own (The Second World War): The Dark Room, Rachel Seiffert, 2001), “Miss Anstruther’s Letters” (Rose Macaulay, 1942); “The Lottery” (Shirley Jackson, 1948).  
  • UNIT 3: Womanhood and Violence (The Troubles): Milkman (Anna Burns, 2018), “The War Horse” (Eavan Boland, 1996) and Domestic Violence (Eavan Boland, 2007).
  • UNIT 4: Voices of Silence and Displacement (Iraq War)You know when the Men are Gone(Siobhan Fallon, 2011);The Ungrateful Refugee (Dina Nayeri,2019).

Activities and Methodology

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Class Debate 20 0.8 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 6, 9, 10
Lectures 25 1 11, 14, 2, 13, 12, 15
Type: Supervised      
Writing tasks and activities assessed in class 15 0.6 1, 11, 14, 2, 3, 13, 12, 15, 4, 5, 7, 8, 6, 9, 10
Type: Autonomous      
Reading and study 65 2.6 1, 11, 14, 13, 12, 15, 5, 8, 6, 9

1 ECTS credit=25 hores

  • 6 credits = 150 hores
  • Guided activities (30%, 1.8 cr)
  • Supevised activities (15%, 0.9 cr)
  • Autonomous activities (50%, 3 cr)
  • Assessment activities (5%, 0.3 cr)

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.


Assessment

Continous Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Class participation 15% 16 0.64 1, 11, 14, 2, 3, 13, 12, 15, 4, 5, 7, 8, 6, 9, 10
Online Library Course 5% 5 0.2 1, 11, 14, 2, 15, 4, 7, 8, 6, 9, 10
Writing Tasks 80% 4 0.16 1, 11, 14, 2, 3, 13, 12, 15, 4, 5, 7, 8, 6, 9, 10

  • Academic essay 1 = 40%
  • Academic essay 2 = 40%
  • Class Participation = 15%
  • Library Course= 5%

Please, note:

The submission of any of the two papers invalidates the student to get a final mark of "No Avaluable".
The minimum pass mark for the whole subject is 5.
The student's command of English will be taken into account when marking the papers and for the final mark. It will count as 25% of this mark for all the exercises.

EXACT DATES FOR THE EVALUATION ACTIVITIES WILL BE CONFIRMED AT THE START OF THE COURSE THROUGH A COURSE CALENDAR PUBLISHED ON THE CLASS MOODLE.

1) Reviewing procedure: 

  • Students whose final average mark of the two academic essays is 3,5 to 4,9 (without counting the class participation mark and the library course) and who have completed Continuous Assessment may take re-assessment.
  • If the final average mark of the two exercises is inferior to 3,5 or if the student has failed both exercises, they will miss the opportunity of reassessment and will be granted a Fail.
  • The reassessment consists of a two-hour written exam on matters related to the subject. The exam is awarded a Pass/Fail mark and the maximum possible final mark is a 5.

Evaluation Activities Excluded from Reassessment: Class participation and Online Library Course.


2) THE PROCEDURE FOR SINGLE ASSESSMENT IS BASED IN:
2 academic essays to be done in a single in-class exam.

THE SAME REASSESSMENT METHOD AS CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT WILL BE USED FOR THOSE WHO OPT FOR THE SINGLE-ASSESSMENT OPTION.

VERY IMPORTANT!
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.
Irregularities refer, for instance, to copying in an exam, copying from sources without indicating authorship, or a misuse of AI such as presenting work as original that has been generated by an AI tool
or programme. These evaluation activities will not be re-assessed.


Bibliography

Acton, Carol. "Diverting the Gaze: The Unseen Text in Women's War Writing." College Literature, vol. 31, no. 2, Spring 2004, pp. 53-79. The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Carter, Susanne. “Reshaping the War Experience: Women's War Fiction.” Feminist Teacher, vol. 7, no. 1, Fall 1992, pp. 14-19. University of Illinois Press.

Caruth, Cathy. Trauma: explorations in memory. Johns Hopkins, 1995.

Eagleton, Mary. Figuring the Woman Author in Contemporary Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005

Elshtain, Jean Bethke. "On Beautiful Souls, Just Warriors and Feminist Consciousness." Women's Studies International Forum, vol. 5, no. 3/4, 1982, pp. 341-348. Pergamon Press.

Favret, Mary A. War at a Distance: Romanticism and the Making of Modern Wartime. Princeton University Press, 2010.

Felman, Shoshana and Dori Laub. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. Routledge, 1992.

Fresco, Nadine. “Remembering the Unknown.” The International Review of Psychoanalysis. 11.4, 1984: 417-427.

Fussell, Paul. The Great War and Modern Memory. Oxford UP, 1981.

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. “Soldier’s Heart: Literary Men, Literary Women, and the Great War.” Signs, vol. 8, no. 3, 1983, pp. 422-450. University of Chicago Press.

Hirsch, Marianne. “Family Pictures: Maus, Mourning, and Postmemory.” Discourse. 15.2, 1992: 3–29.

—. “The Generation of Postmemory.” Poetics Today. 29.1, 2008: 103-28.

—. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. Columbia University Press, 2012.

Higonnet, Margaret R. Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars. Yale University Press, 1987.

—. "Cassandra’s Question: Do Women Write WarNovels?" Borderwork: Feminist Engagements with Comparative Literature, edited by Margaret R. Higonnet, Cornell University Press, 2008, pp. 197-226.

Huston, Nancy. "Tales of War and Tears of Women." Women's Studies International Forum, vol. 5, no. 3/4, 1982, pp. 271-282. Pergamon Press.

Kitchen, James E., Alisa Miller, and Laura Rowe, editors. Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.

McLoughlin, Kate. Authoring War: The Literary Representation of War from the Iliad to Iraq. Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Michaels, Paula A., and Christina Twomey, editors. Gender and Trauma since 1900. Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. Oxford University Press, 2002.

—.“‘Good’ Refugees, ‘Bad’ Refugees: A Conversation in Paris with Viet Thanh Nguyen.” Interview by Christine Buckley. Los Angeles Review of Books, September 24, 2018.

Ouditt, Sharon. Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War. Routledge, 1994.

Owen, David and Cristina Pividori. Writings of Persuasion and Dissonance in the Great War: That Better Whiles May Follow Worse. Brill Rodopi, 2016.

Parnell, Catherine et al. “Women and War Literature.” The Brooklyn Rail, Oct. 2018.

Pividori, Cristina. "Eros and Thanatos Revisited: the Poetics of Trauma in Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier." Atlantis, vol. 32, no. 2, 2010, pp. 89-104. 

—. "Out of the Dark Room: Photography and Memory in Rachel Seiffert's Holocaust Tales." Atlantis, vol. 30, no. 2, 2008, pp. 79-94. 

Pividori, Cristina, and David Owen,editors. (Re)Writing War in ContemporaryLiterature and Culture: Beyond Post-Memory. Routledge, 2024.

Plate, Liedeke. Transforming Memories in Contemporary Women's Rewriting. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Sharoni,Simona, et al., editors. Handbook on Gender and War. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016.

Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980. Virago, 1997.

Tylee, Claire M. The Great War and Women's Consciousness: Images of Militarism and Womanhood in Women's Writings, 1914-64. University of Iowa Press, 1990.

Vickroy, L. Trauma and Survival in Contemporary Fiction. University of Virginia, 2002.

Watson, Janet S. K. Fighting Different Wars: Experience, Memory, and the First World War in Britain. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Winter, Jay. “Thinking about Silence” in Ben-Ze’ev, Efrat, Ginio, Ruth and Winter, Jay, editors. Shadows of War: A Social History of Silencein the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press, 2010.

—. War Beyond Words: Languages of Remembrance from the Great War to the Present. Cambridge University Press, 2018.

—. “Between Sound and Silence: The Inaudible and the Unsayable in the History of the First World War.” Qualitative Studies of Silence: The Unsaid as Social Action. Cambridge Core, 2019.


Software

No specific software will be used.


Language list

Name Group Language Semester Turn
(PAUL) Classroom practices 1 English second semester morning-mixed
(TE) Theory 1 English second semester morning-mixed