English

This course examines the world through works of short fiction. Each work provides a distinct and exhilarating experience, but all the works share their concern with forms of alienation, protest, and redemption. The course begins with Franz Kafka's classic tale of grotesque individual alienation, The Metamorphosis, but quickly turns to Nobel Laureate Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, which tells the tragic story of cultural crisis in the context of colonial conquest. Isak Dinesen's beautiful short story of redemption, "Babette's Feast," provides an interlude before moving onto chilling gothic short stories by two recent masters of the genre, Mariana Enriquez and Yoko Ogawa. Finally, the course concludes with the Korean novelist Han Kang's lyrical meditation on conflict, defiance and suffering, The Vegetarian.

This course examines the critical frameworks, essential terms, and research skills that are key both to the practice of literary studies and to any detailed and persuasive interrogation of the written word. It covers canonical texts from the late sixteenth century to the twentieth century to gain a foundational understanding of literary history and theory, and the characteristics of three major genres: drama, poetry, and prose fiction.

https://www.tcd.ie/English/undergraduate/sophister/js-module-descriptions-2022-23.php

Course can be found in List C. 

This course explores the representation of Irish history in Irish literature over the one hundred years since the foundation of the independent state. By examining prose and drama works covering the whole period, students survey the changing modes of retelling recent and ancient history, and assess their role in critiquing established historical narratives. In seminar discussions students pay critical attention to the impact of the stage on Irish cultural discourse; writing the Protestant tradition in the early years of the state; reimagining Northern Ireland; the literary representations of women; and the literature’s relationship to Modernism, Post-Colonialism, and Gothic.