Undergraduate Course: Water and World Literature (ENLI10399)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Taking the world ocean as its organising principle, this course will allow students to engage with a range of disparate spaces and texts that are connected
through the material, historical, economic and cultural flows of the ocean. By introducing students to contemporary theories from world literature studies
and critical ocean studies the course will prompt students to explore alternative models of organising literary studies, ones that seek to contextualise
literary works within a global framework as opposed to restrictions based upon period, genre or nationality. If world literature is understood as the
literature of the capitalist world-system, this course prompts students to consider the extent to which the ocean registers the consequences of capitalist
modernity and its attendant crises. The module will introduce students to a range of textual forms (including experimental poetry, the historical novel,
magical realism, weird fiction and sci-fi) from across the globe (including the Caribbean, India, Nigeria, North America, South America, Australia and
Oceania) and will map the ways in which different genres and geographies inscribe the historical, social, and ecological consequences of continuing
imperialism and globalisation. The course will ask a series of key questions regarding the ways in which world literature registers the seas and oceans as
mediums of exchange, encounter, and expropriation, and will further enable students to examine the critical intersections between world literature,
postcolonial, and ecocritical perspectives. Of concern for this module will be how the emergent interdisciplinary area of the Blue Humanities recognises
the ocean as not merely a backdrop to human action, but positions the ocean as an active force in shaping human histories, environments, and cultures. |
| Course description |
While the ocean often emerges at the margins of literary scholarship, its vast body is central to the production of food, energy, communication and
transport links that underpin our daily lives. This course invites students to reorient the traditionally terrestrial focus of environmental literary discourse
and to actively consider the role of the ocean in facilitating, shaping, and disrupting the unfolding of capitalist modernity. This course will further allow
students to investigate the ways in which world literary texts register the unevenness and inequalities of the world system, and will prompt them to
comparatively consider the ways in which such texts respond to conditions of social and environmental injustice that are inflected and complicated by
factors including race, gender and class.
The ability to read literary and theoretical writing independently and with precision and confidence that students have gained from their prior study of
English Literature will be essential for the successful completion of this course. In addition to set literary texts, the course will begin with two introductory
weeks of theory-based discussion which will allow students to develop confidence with new critical terminologies, methodologies, and concepts that will
be integral to the successful completion of the course. On the basis of independent preparatory reading, seminars will be used to discuss the literary,
philosophical, social, cultural, environmental and political implications of world ocean literatures. In addition to individual reading, students will be
required to meet in advance of seminars in autonomous learning groups (ALGs) to produce material that will be presented to class in a variety of
formats (including: written reports, verbal presentations, poster presentations and other activities). Active preparation for and participation in class
discussion is required, and will be assessed as part of the student's overall performance.
The structure of the course is broadly comparative in nature and asks students to explore the similarities and differences evident in a range of cultural
forms spanning the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The course will enable students to reach an informed understanding of the relationship
between postcolonial, ecocritical, and oceanic approaches to literature and will provide students with the theoretical and methodological skills that will
enable them to critically engage with this rich field of study, and to develop the analytical skills and knowledge that will be assessed in their essays. The
course is assessed by two essays, one to be completed by Week 9 of the course and one to be written during the exam period, and an assessment of
students' participation in class and their autonomous learning groups. Written feedback will be provided on each element of assessment, and further oral
follow-up feedback from the tutor will be available for anyone who would like it.
|
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2019/20, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
|
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
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
One Coursework Essay of 2,500 words: 30%
One time-limited Final Essay of 3000 words: 60%
Class Participation Assessment: 10% |
| Feedback |
Detailed written feedback will be provided on each element of assessment, and further oral follow up feedback from the tutor
will be available from anybody who would like it. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Construct original and clear arguments that demonstrate an understanding of literary depictions of ecological and social crises in postcolonial and critical ocean studies contexts.
- Analyse world ocean literatures using critical theoretical methodologies such as ecocriticism, postcolonial studies and world literature to substantiate and illustrate those arguments.
- Extrapolate, evaluate and assess ideas from a range of critical sources in order to bring them to bear on their analyses of world ocean literature.
- Demonstrate the ability to apply skills of close reading and of comparative analysis that rejects a critical understanding of similarities and differences across and between texts, genres and spaces.
- Orally present the results of research undertaken individually and as part of a small group, respond judiciously to such research undertaken by others, and critically evaluate the importance of such material for an understanding of the chief themes of the course.
|
Reading List
Core texts:
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel. The Autumn of the Patriarch. London: Penguin, 2008.
Ghosh, Amitav. Sea of Poppies. London: Penguin, 2015.
Hogan, Linda. People of the Whale. New York: Norton, 2008.
Okorafor, Nnedi. Lagoon. London: Hodder & Soughton Ltd, 2014.
Winton, Tim. Shallows. London: Penguin, 2012.
Core Extracts provided:
Brathwaite, Kamau. Arrivants: New World Trilogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Dunham, Rebecca. Cold Pastoral. Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions, 2017.
Gautreaux, Tim. 'Gone to Water', The Guardian: Oil Stories, 20 April 2011 «https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/20/gone-water-tim-gautreauxstory»
Jetnil-Kinjiner, Kathy. Iep Jaltok. Arizona: University of Arizona Press, 2017.
Kavenna, Joanna. 'Barthelme', The Guardian: Oil Stories, 19 April 2011 «https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/19/barthelme-joanna-kavennastory»
Mieville, China. 'Covehithe', The Guardian: Oil Stories, 22 April 2011 «https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/22/china-mieville-covehithe-short2/
11/2019 World Literature and the World Ocean (Proposal)
https://www.star.euclid.ed.ac.uk/urd/sits.urd/run/SIW_YGSL.start_url?AB0D783E2E4011E95x2SDd3gaeNtAhdqSzVPggWGoLwcIpw5W2OGrZv6¿ 3/4
story»
Philips, M. NourbeSe. Zong!. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2008.
Santos Perez, Craig. Unincorporated Territory [Saina]. California: Omnidawn, 2010.
Senior, Olive. Shell. London Ontario: Insomniac Press, 2007.
Skinner, Jonathan. 'Two Poems', Wave Composition, 10.1 (September 7 2015) «http://www.wavecomposition.com/article/issue-10/skinner/»
Walcott, Derek. Collected Poems. London: Faber, 1992.
Wong, Rita. Undercurrent. British Colombia: Harbour Press, 2015. |
Additional Information
| Course URL |
https://www.ed.ac.uk/literatures-languages-cultures/english-literature/undergraduate/current/honours |
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
As an outcome of having studied this course, students will benefit from having developed a range of personal and professional
skills commensurate with the range of SCQF Level 10 characteristics:
Knowledge and understanding: students will have had the opportunity to demonstrate their critical understanding of a range of
literatures and theoretical concepts and to relate their concerns and modes of expression to their cultural, political, social and
critical contexts.
Applied Knowledge, Skills and Understanding: in their work for class discussion, presentations and formal assessment tasks,
students will have been able to practice the application of these theories and concepts in their construction of arguments about
the course material and to situate these arguments in the wider context of cultural and intellectual history.
Generic Cognitive Skills: in completing assessed essays and class presentations, students will have practised identifying, defining,
conceptualising and analysing complex problems and issues germane to the discipline.
Communication: through participating in these tasks students will also have demonstrated the ability to communicate ideas and
information about specialised topics in the discipline to an informed audience of their peers and subject specialists.
Autonomy and Working with Others: students will also have shown the capacity to work autonomously and in small groups on
designated tasks, develop new thinking with their peers, and take responsibility for the reporting, analysis and defence of these
ideas to a larger group. |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
One two hour seminar per week for 10 weeks plus a one hour autonomous learning group per week at a time to be arranged. |
| Keywords | World Literature,Blue Humanities,Ecocriticism,Postcolonial Studies |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Alexandra Campbell
Tel:
Email: Alexandra.Campbell@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Helene Thomsen
Tel: (0131 6)50 3618
Email: Helene.Thomsen@ed.ac.uk |
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