Admission Requirements
None.
Description
This course offers a selection of texts from the various literatures in English of the last 50 years, with an emphasis on the last 25 years. We will study the work of novelists like John Fowles, J.M. Coetzee, A.S. Byatt and Jhumpa Lahiri, and of poets like Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott. These texts will be studied in relation to the great shifts taking place within late 20th-century literature (e.g. Postmodernism and Postcolonialism), but also in relation to the social, political and cultural changes after World War II (with themes such as ‘feminism’, ‘race’, ‘migration and globalisation’, and ‘9/11’).
Course Objectives
This course will extend and deepen the power of students’ literary critical analysis through in-depth consideration of texts. Students will explore critical debates central to the literature of the post-War period. The course will also aim to extend the students’ skills in the reading of narrative and the understanding of the relationship of a text to its cultural/social context. Students will be encouraged to share analytical and critical views on the texts ascribed in class discussion, including short presentations, and will focus research skills in the writing of a final essay. This essay will be on a relevant subject of their own choice within the parameters of the course, and will further extend the students’ critical skills and their ability to produce good, clear writing.
Timetable
The timetable will be available from June 1st on the Internet.
Mode of Instruction
Two hour seminar per week.
Assessment
Presentation (15%); Weekly reading reports (15%); Final essay (70%).
Blackboard
This course is not supported by Blackboard.
Reading list
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49.
Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea.
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
A.S. Byatt, Possession
Derek Walcott, Omeros.
Seamus Heaney, Seeing Things.
J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace.
Zadie Smith, White Teeth.
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake
Ian McEwan, Saturday
Don DeLillo, Falling Man.
Registration
Students can register through uSis.
Register for ‘Contractonderwijs’ via: www.hum.leidenuniv.nl/onderwijs/contractonderwijs
Contact information
English Department, P.N. van Eyckhof 4, room 103c. Phone: 071 527 2144, or mail: english@hum.leidenuniv.nl