English

This course examine the ways in which people tell stories, the kinds of stories they tell, and the meanings those stories generate. It focuses, in particular, upon the telling, and gives special attention to questions concerned with this process. The course studies a novel, a film, a play, short stories, and poems. Novel: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison; Film: Raise the Red Lantern (dir. Zhang Yimou); Short Stories: Eileen Chang: Love in a Fallen City and other stories; Play: Athol Fugard: The Island; Poems: Selected Poetry of Derek Walcott.

The course examines the relationship between modernity and narrative as explored in the works of ten Modernist writers in the period 1896 -1940. Students explore the principal political, philosophical, and psychological dynamics affecting the development of Anglophone narrative fiction in the period; the literary strategies developed by these novelists in the context of modernity; the extent to which modernist narratives extend and/or contest earlier ideas of realism in literature; the strengths and weaknesses of various theoretical claims to a distinctively modernist novel and of modernism more generally as a distinctive literary phenomenon. The course is multidisciplinary and is suitable for students of all disciplines who have a strong interest in the novel, narrative methods, and the history of modernity.

A research project that assigns students to expert professors in their proposed research topic. The course takes the students' research capabilities to a more professional level. This can be most closely compared to what is called a supervised research project in the USA.

This course invites students to ways of reading London. Students read London literary texts from the early modern period to the present day and encounter the city through walking, travelling along its transport connections, listening to guides, looking around them and engaging self-reflexively with the meanings and imperatives found in the city. The course includes walking lectures, seminars, and workshops and develops skills of close reading, observation, critical thinking, and effective communication.