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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2015/2016

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : Common Courses (School of Lit, Lang and Cult)

Postgraduate Course: Fantastic Fiction (CLLC11112)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course is being proposed to complement existing options available to students on the MSc programme in Comparative and General Literature. It offers an opportunity to engage with a wide range of 20th century and contemporary European and Latin-American texts through the specific perspective of the genre of the fantastic.

How do we define 'Fantastic Fiction' and what is its purpose and effect? Through study of a wide range of modern and contemporary texts that engage with the 'Fantastic' as a genre, this option aims to examine such questions, whilst considering the particular contexts in which each work was published. Students may engage with the intertextual dimensions of particular works; the use of the fantastic as ideological or political tool in literature; society and the individual; the relationship of the fantastic to the 'real'; utopias and dystopias; negotiations of gender and race etc. The course begins with an overview of attempts to theorise the genre (Todorov et al), and is followed by close analysis of a selection of texts (selection may vary from year to year depending on staff availability).
Course description Week 1: Introductory seminar (all tutors, if possible, for round table discussion, with highlighting of key texts eg. Todorov)

Preparation for 1st seminar
Please read Neil Cornwell's Introduction, 'The Literary Fantastic'
(1990), and/or one other text from the reading list (eg. Todorov, Apter etc.)

Please come prepared to discuss the Cornwell and/or Apter and/or Todorov text, and to present the salient points you have gleaned from your reading thus far.

Weeks 2-3
- Russian

M. Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (Penguin Classics)(Dr Alexandra Smith)

Week 4-5
- Spanish

Julio Cortázar, End of the Game (any edition). (Dr Fiona Mackintosh)

Week 6 No classes: Innovative learning week

Weeks 7-8
- French/Francophone
J. Harpman, Moi qui n'ai pas connu les hommes/ I Who Have Never Known Men/ Seven Stories Press, 1997.
M. Darrieussecq, Truismes/Pig Tales (Poche, 1996/Faber, 2003) (Dr Susan Bainbrigge)

Weeks 9-11
- Italian
I. Calvino, Our Ancestors. Three novels. The Cloven Viscount, The Baron in the Trees, The Non-Existent Knight. Translated by Archibald Colquhoun with a new introduction by the author, Secker&Warburg, London 1980; Minerva, London, 1992. (Dr Claudia Nocentini)


This course is being proposed to complement existing options available to students on the MSc programme in Comparative and General Literature. It offers an opportunity to engage with a wide range of 20th century and contemporary European and Latin-American texts through the specific perspective of the genre of the fantastic.

Aims and Objectives
How do we define 'Fantastic Fiction' and what is its purpose and effect? Through study of a wide range of modern and contemporary texts that engage with the 'Fantastic' as a genre, this option aims to examine such questions, whilst considering the particular contexts in which each work was published. Students may engage with the intertextual dimensions of particular works; the use of the fantastic as ideological or political tool in literature; society and the individual; the relationship of the fantastic to the 'real'; utopias and dystopias; negotiations of gender and race etc.
The course begins with an overview of attempts to theorise the genre (Todorov et al), and is followed by close analysis of a selection of texts by the following authors (selection may vary from year to year depending on staff availability).

The students should, by the end of the course, be able:

- to recognise and acknowledge the complexity of the subject
- to show a good understanding of and apply competently complex conceptual frameworks
- to construct coherent arguments which demonstrate an awareness of the problems posed by the texts/ issues which they are studying
- to demonstrate a high level of expression in both written and oral presentations
- to demonstrate the mastery of relevant technical terminology and research methods
- to carry out personal research under the guidance of the tutor and offer evidence of research initiative
- to offer alternative perspectives, identify and accommodate ambiguities and show an awareness of nuance
- to develop original ideas
- to demonstrate an awareness of the research agenda relating to the topic.

Texts are to be taught in English translation (although students are welcome to read in the original where appropriate).

Generally, the intended learning outcomes are those of all MSc Options offered on the General and Comparative Programme; they include the ability to negotiate complex intellectual ideas, in debate as well as in essays, and the appreciation of contrasting and evolving viewpoints. Intended learning outcomes are:

- to demonstrate advanced knowledge and understanding of the chosen specialism(s)
- to recognise and acknowledge the complexity of the subject
- to show a good understanding of and apply competently complex conceptual frameworks
- to construct coherent arguments which demonstrate an awareness of the problems posed by the texts/ issues which they are studying
- to demonstrate a high level of expression in both written and oral presentations
- to demonstrate the mastery of relevant technical terminology and research methods
- to carry out personal research under the guidance of the tutor and offer evidence of research initiative
- to offer alternative perspectives, identify and accommodate ambiguities and show an awareness of nuance
- to develop original ideas
- to demonstrate an awareness of the research agenda relating to the topic
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
Generally, the intended learning outcomes are those of all MSc Options offered on the Comparative and General Literature Programme; they include the ability to negotiate complex intellectual ideas, in debate as well as in essays, and the appreciation of contrasting and evolving viewpoints. Intended learning outcomes are:

- to demonstrate advanced knowledge and understanding of the chosen specialism(s)
- to recognise and acknowledge the complexity of the subject
- to show a good understanding of and apply competently complex conceptual frameworks
- to construct coherent arguments which demonstrate an awareness of the problems posed by the texts/ issues which they are studying
- to demonstrate a high level of expression in both written and oral presentations
- to demonstrate the mastery of relevant technical terminology and research methods
- to carry out personal research under the guidance of the tutor and offer evidence of research initiative
- to offer alternative perspectives, identify and accommodate ambiguities and show an awareness of nuance
- to develop original ideas
- to demonstrate an awareness of the research agenda relating to the topic
Reading List
Indicative Bibliography
In addition to the list of Primary texts and General secondary reading, tutors may provide individual bibliographies for each unit on the option.

Alonso, Carlos J., ed., Julio Cortázar: New Readings (CUP, 1998)
Apter, T. E., Fantasy literature: an approach to reality (London: Macmillan, 1982)
Armitt, Lucy, Theorising the Fantastic (London: Arnold, 1996).
Bioy Casares, Adolfo, La invención de Morel / The Invention of Morel (Penguin, 1996/ NYRB Classics, 2003)
Booker, M. Keith, The Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as Social Criticism (Portsmouth, NH: Greenwood Press, 1994).
Borges, Jorge Luis, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo, Antología de la literatura fantástica / The Book of Fantasy (Sudamericana, 2003 / Carroll and Graf, 1990)
Brooke-Rose, Christine, A Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1981).
Clute, John, and John Grant, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (St Martin's Griffin, 1999)
Cornwell, Neil, The Literary Fantastic: From Gothic to Postmodernism (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990).
Cruz, Julia G., Lo neofantástico en Julio Cortázar (Madrid: Pliegos, 2003)
Twentieth-Century Fantasists: Essays on Culture, Society and Belief in Twentieth-Century Mythopoeic Literature, ed. by Kath Filmer (New York: St Martin's Press, 1992).
Del George, Dana, The Supernatural in Short Fiction of the Americas: The Other World in the New World (Greenwood, 2001)
Esteban, Angel (ed.), Miradas oblicuas en la narrativa latinoamericana contemporánea: límites de lo real, fronteras de lo fantástico (Madrid / Frankfurt: Iberoamericana / Vervuert, 2009)
Fishburn, Evelyn and Eduardo L. Ortiz, Science and the Creative Imagination in Latin America (London: ISA, 2005).
Hume, Kathryn, Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature (NY: Methuen, 1984).
Hutton, Margaret-Anne, Redefining the real: the fantastic in contemporary French and Francophone women's writing (Oxford, [England] ; New York, N.Y. : Peter Lang, c2009)
Jackson, Rosemary, Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion (London: Methuen, 1981).
Kahn, Lauri Hutt, Vislumbrar la otredad: Los pasajes en la narrativa de Julio Cortázar (Peter Lang, 1996)
Klingenberg, Patricia N., Fantasies of the Feminine: The Short Stories of Silvina Ocampo (Lewisberg: Bucknell UP, 1999)
Labbé, Denis, and Gilbert Millet, Le fantastique (Paris: Ellipses, 2000).
Le fantastique argentin: Silvina Ocampo, Julio Cortázar, special issue of América: Cahiers du CRICCAL, 17 (Presses de la Sorbonne-nouvelle, 1997)
López Martín, Lola, Penumbra: antología crítica del cuento fantástico hispanoamericano del siglo XIX (Madrid: Lengua de Trapo, 2006)
Matthews, Richard, Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination (Routledge, 2002)
Rabkin, Eric S., The Fantastic in Literature (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971).
Rodero, Jesús, La edad de la incertidumbre: un estudio del cuento fantástico del siglo XX en Latinoamérica (NY; Oxford: Peter Lang, 2006)
Rodríguez-Luis, Julio, The Contemporary Praxis of the Fantastic: Borges and Cortázar (NY: Garland, 1991).
Sauble-Otto, 'Writing to Exist: Humanity and Survival in Two fin de sičcle Novels in French (Harpman, Darrieussecq), L'esprit créateur, 45, 1 (Spring 2005), 59-66 (p. 59).
Saciuk, Olena H., ed., The Shape of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the 7th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (NY: Greenwood, 1990).
Selnes, Gisle, 'The Feminine (Ob)scene of Cruelty: On the Fantastic, its Genealogy and Margins', Orbis Litterarum, 63:6 (2008) 510-28
Silva-Cáceres, Raúl H., L'arbre aux figures: Étude des motifs fantastiques dans l'oeuvre de Julio Cortázar (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1996)
Slusser, George Edgar, Eric S. Rabkin and Robert E Scholes, Bridges to Fantasy (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1982).
Stavans, Ilan, Julio Cortázar: A Study of the Short Fiction (Twayne, 1996)
Sullivan, Ceri, ed., Writing and Fantasy (Longman, 1999).
Tcherepashenets, Nataly, Place and Displacements in the Narrative Worlds of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar (Peter Lang, 2007)
Todorov, Tzvetan, Introduction ŕ la littérature fantastique (Paris: Seuil, 1970)/ The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Cornell Uni Press, 1975).
Warner, Marina, Fantastic Metamorphoses (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002).
Yurkievich, Saúl, Julio Cortázar, mundos y modos (Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2004)
Special issue on the Fantastic in Forum for Modern Language Studies, ed. C Whitehead (October 2008).
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
KeywordsFanFi
Contacts
Course organiserDr Susan Bainbrigge
Tel: (0131 6)50 8417
Email: Susan.Bainbrigge@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMs Ersev Ersoy
Tel: (0131 6)50 4465
Email: Ersev.Ersoy@ed.ac.uk
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