Undergraduate Course: Modernism and Empire (ENLI10338)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course explores the relationship between European imperialism and literary modernism, focusing primarily on British colonial contexts and legacies (in South Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific), but also engaging with other European empires (such as the French Caribbean and the Belgian Congo). We will analyse a range of texts published from the 1890s through to 1960, exploring the centrality of empire to various phases of literary modernism. |
| Course description |
Week 1: Course introduction; Joseph Conrad, 'An Outpost of Progress' (1897); Rudyard Kipling, 'Regulus' (1917).
Week 2: Miscegenation and degeneration: Rudyard Kipling, 'Kidnapped' (1888); Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Ebb Tide'; Jack London, 'Goodbye Jack' (1909); W. Somerset Maugham, 'Rain' (1921).
Week 3: Ezra Pound and 'The East': Pound's ideogrammatic poetry and the Chinese Cantos; Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali poems (1912).
Week 4: E.M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924).
Week 5: Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable (1935).
Week 6: Leonard Woolf, 'Pearls and Swine' (1921) and selected letters; George Orwell, 'Shooting an Elephant' (1936).
Week 7: Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (1937); selected stories by Katherine Mansfield.
Week 8: READING WEEK.
Week 9: Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1939; using the Bloodaxe translation, Notebook of a Return to my Native Land (1995)).
Week 10: Joyce Cary, Mister Johnson (1939) and 'Umaru' (1921).
Week 11: Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease (1960).
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | A MINIMUM of 4 college/university level literature courses at grade B or above (should include no more than one introductory level literature course). Related courses such as civilisation or other interdisciplinary classes, Freshman Year Seminars or composition/creative writing classes/workshops are not considered for admission to this course. Applicants should also note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission. In making admissions decisions preference will be given to students who achieve above the minimum requirement with the typical visiting student admitted to this course having 4 literature classes at grade A.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course ** |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2017/18, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: 13 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
196 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
60 %,
Coursework
30 %,
Practical Exam
10 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One course essay of 2,500 words (worth 30% of overall course mark)
One practical assessment (worth 10%)
and one take home exam essay of 3,000 words (worth 60%). |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
|
| Academic year 2017/18, Part-year visiting students only (VV1)
|
Quota: 12 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Other Study Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
166 )
|
| Additional Information (Learning and Teaching) |
one hour per week Autonomous Learning Group
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
60 %,
Coursework
30 %,
Practical Exam
10 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One course essay of 2,500 words (worth 30% of overall course mark)
One practical assessment (worth 10%)
and one take home exam essay of 3,000 words (worth 60%). |
| Feedback |
Not entered |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- By the end of this course, through contributions to group discussion, independent reading, and assessed and non-assessed work, students will be able to:
- Understand the ways in which empire and its legacies has contributed to certain thematic and stylistic innovations in British (and other) literary modernism(s).
- Develop a critical vocabulary for analysing the thematics and aesthetics of modernist writing, drawing upon a range of theory and criticism (including, inter alia, formalist, Marxist, postmodernist and postcolonial perspectives).
- Analyse the active contribution of writers and cultures on the colonial 'periphery' to developments in (and critiques of) literary modernism.
- Articulate (in written and oral forms) a considered, informed sense of the breadth and range of responses to imperialism in course texts and reflect on good learning practice.
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Reading List
Week 1: Joseph Conrad, 'An Outpost of Progress' (1897); Rudyard Kipling, 'Regulus' (1917).
Week 2: Rudyard Kipling, 'Kidnapped' (1888); Robert Louis Stevenson, 'The Ebb Tide'; Jack London, 'Goodbye Jack' (1909); W. Somerset Maugham, 'Rain' (1921).
Week 3: Pound's ideogrammatic poetry and the Chinese Cantos; Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali poems (1912).
Week 4: E.M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924).
Week 5: Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable (1935).
Week 6: Leonard Woolf, 'Pearls and Swine' (1921) and selected letters; George Orwell, 'Shooting an Elephant' (1936).
Week 7: Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (1937); selected stories by Katherine Mansfield.
Week 8: READING WEEK.
Week 9: Aimé Césaire, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal (1939; using the Bloodaxe translation, Notebook of a Return to my Native Land (1995)).
Week 10: Joyce Cary, Mister Johnson (1939) and 'Umaru' (1921).
Week 11: Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease (1960).
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Contacts
| Course organiser | Miss Sarah Bernstein
Tel:
Email: sbernste@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Ms June Haigh
Tel: (0131 6)50 3620
Email: j.haigh@ed.ac.uk |
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