English

This course on the British 19th century focuses on London and beyond. London is the neuralgic center of 19th-century England, and a key subject of study for Anglicists - making it an ideal location for a multidisciplinary, civilizational, artistic, historical, and literary approach. Complementary insights highlight the specificity of the capital in the 19th century. But London is also an invitation to travel, both spatially (the foreigners who visit London, but also, conversely, the Empire/Commonwealth elsewhere, and the orientalism they generate) and temporally: today, London is a figure, it lends itself to all the "neo" crazes, and Victorian London seems resolutely modern.

This course explores the 19th- and 20th-century development of crime fiction, with a double focus on the subgenres of detective fiction and of the psychological thriller, which flourished in relation to the relevance psychoanalysis acquired as an interpretative paradigm of the human. Its aim is to illustrate the complexity of a genre that was reductively considered in the past as structurally formulaic and critically uninteresting, but which has recently obtained increasing attention and recognition as a significant literary phenomenon.

This cross-media genre is explored as a ‘field of tension’ in order to study the changing status of both detection/detectives (due to the development of forensic science) and of crime/criminals (due to the continuous reshaping of laws and social norms). The course investigates the interplay between aspects of the detective such as mind and body (thinking machines versus vulnerable detectives), intellect and emotions (how do these apparently opposed dimensions concur to the personality of fallible and infallible detectives?). Students also utilize the critical category of gender to investigate authorial issues and characterization.

Upon completing this course, students acquire an in-depth knowledge of the history of English literature. They obtain critical insight into a selection of literary works and can evaluate their literary qualities, analyzing them with the help of precise critical metholodogies. They acquire the theoretical tools needed to recognize the formal, thematic and stylistic components of the works included in the syllabus, relating them to their historical and cultural contexts. Students discuss, translate, and relate the contents of these works from a linguistic, historical, and philological viewpoint.

In this project students engage in a deep reading of a text linked to seminal themes and issues in the humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences. Deep reading is a process of thoughtful and deliberate reading through which a reader actively works to critically contemplate, understand and ultimately enjoy a particular text to the fullest extent possible. Rather than selectively skimming for facts or speed-reading for summaries, the process of deep reading means slowing down, re-reading and even stopping periodically to more fully contemplate specific pages or passages. Having considered and recognized what a text says, deep reading goes a step further and strives to reflect upon the broader implications or consequences of the text, i.e. what does the text ‘do’? Although deep reading is a profoundly personal experience, within the context of problem-based learning the process of deep reading also rests on the premise that profound understanding and appreciation of a text emerges through group-based discussion and deliberation. A single seminal text (classic or contemporary) or cohesive set of readings will be assigned by tutors. Tutorial group meetings and individual and collaborative work. Final paper in the format of an extended book review, presentation, and reflective essay.

This course introduces scholarship, debates, methods, and professional trends in the field of literary studies, considering questions of theory, application, interdisciplinary, and textuality. It trains students in the methods used to conduct literary research in their papers and theses, giving careful attention to library resources and academic style. Thie seminar explores questions of who Indigenous peoples are, what Indigeneity is, and where Indigenous nations exist. It addresses these questions by reading a wide range of theory in the field of Indigenous Studies from around the world and also taking a look at some creative work. The course develops a comprehensive understanding of colonization and decolonization and incorporates that understanding into individual areas of study. 

This course provides students with an overview of innovative and experimental writing by women in the twentieth century – and beyond. The texts studied allow for a consideration of various kinds of formal, linguistic, generic, thematic and material experiment, and for discussions of diverse literary categories, practices and movements, such as modernism, postmodernism, multimodality, cut-up, lipogrammatic writing and the nouveau roman. Accompanying critical material facilitates a discussion of the various avant-gardes of the 20th century (such as Dada, Surrealism, and the Oulipo group), and their contextual and cultural significance.  

This course introduces students to the main narrative features of the novel tradition by concentrating on generic and formal approaches to reading novels. This course looks at novels from the late 18th century onwards and focuses on their generic form. The main objective of the course is to demonstrate the importance of narrative form in critical engagements with novels. Theoretical and historical study of the two dominant narrative forms in the novel tradition - romance and realism - is thus emphasized and students are encouraged to look at their approach to the novel with these theoretical perspectives in mind.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale degree program and is intended for advanced level students. EnrolLment is by permission of the instructor. This course presents to students the stylistic analysis of literature in English. In particular, students are guided through the quantitative and qualitative analysis of literature. This course proposes a mixture of theory and practice with the final aim to teach how to provide close readings of literary texts based on a stylistics approach. The aim of this course is to teach students the importance of style in relation to the meaning of a literature.

This course outlines the context for the emergence of Irish literature in English and to enable students to explore this literature through the introduction of key concepts and major authors. It focuses on the emergence of Irish literature in English, a literature that had its roots in conquest and colonization, but which proved to be highly dynamic, giving voice to diverse views and developing distinctive forms. The texts included give students an opportunity to explore literary expressions of Anglo-Irish identity, as well as critiques of the colonial process and early examples of hybrid texts that combine Anglo-Irish and Gaelic elements. Authors may include Swift, Edgeworth, Burke, Owenson and Somerville and Ross.

With attention focused on the question of independence, recent debates concerning Scottish culture and identity gain a heightened political charge. Literature has not only reflected but actively shaped such debate. In the year the new Scottish Parliament was established (1998), Christopher Whyte argued that "in the absence of elected political authority, the task of representing the nation has been repeatedly devolved to its writers." But what influence have writers played in recent political change, and to what extent has Scottish culture escaped its own stereotypes? This course examines the literary and political currents shaping contemporary Scottish identity, introducing students to key 20th- and 21st century texts. Students encounter and explain a range of cultural debates concerning language, class, democracy, and nationhood, attending to the urgency as well as the complexity of recent Scottish writing.