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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2021/2022

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : English Literature

Undergraduate Course: Global LGBT Fiction (ENLI10389)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course will introduce students to the increasingly global genre of contemporary LGBT literature. A central focus of the course will be how LGBT subjectivities, needs, and desires differ across regional and national contexts and how LGBT culture and personhood are being rethought and restructured in the wake of HIV/AIDS becoming a more manageable illness and of important though uneven gains in civil rights and recognitions. Of particular concern will be the fate of LGBT subcultures and resistance movements in an age of assimilation, the intersection of sexuality with other axes of identity and identification, the persistence of homophobia and transphobia, the lingering resonance of negative feelings and anti-social orientations, and the cooptation of LGBT lives by neoliberal narratives of success and individualism. Literary form will also be a primary consideration, specifically the use of non-chronological narration to question and disrupt the teleological trajectories of reproductive futurism. Key texts in queer theory will supplement the readings when appropriate.
Course description This course will allow students to examine the variety of ways in which contemporary fiction explores global LGBT lives, experiences, challenges, and imaginative visions. These literary texts will be read in the light of critical and theoretical arguments as well as selected texts from LGBT history, philosophy, political theory, sociology, and public policy. 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. Also, although not set as part of the course, students will have the opportunity to discuss other modes of LGBT representation (television, film, popular music) in relation to the literature they are reading.
On the basis of students' preparatory reading, seminars will be used to discuss the literary, philosophical, psychological, social, cultural and political implications of different manners of contemporary and global LGBT fiction. In order to fully prepare for these seminar discussions, students will be required to meet in advance in smaller 'autonomous learning groups' to produce material which will be presented to the class in a variety of forms (written reports posted to the course v.l.e., informal contributions to class discussion, or more formal verbal presentations during the seminar). Active preparation for and participation in class discussion is required, and will be assessed as a part of the student's overall performance on the course.
The structure of reading and analysis on the course is broadly comparative: students will be asked to explore the similarities and differences between the set texts, and examine the various types of analysis made possible by the critical and theoretical modes of reading to which they are introduced. The guided examination of the similarities and differences between the range of texts and approaches studied will help students 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.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Students MUST have passed: English Literature 1 (ENLI08001) OR Scottish Literature 1 (ENLI08016) AND English Literature 2 (ENLI08003) OR Scottish Literature 2 (ENLI08004)
Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Construct original, clear and coherent arguments about contemporary and global LGBT fiction¿s depictions of contemporary lives, experiences, institutions, practices and problems
  2. Evaluate the ways in which different forms of global LGBT fiction make possible different modes of engagement with these
  3. Analyse global LGBT fiction using recognised literary critical and critical theoretical methodologies to substantiate and illustrate those arguments
  4. Extrapolate, evaluate and assess ideas from a range of non-literary sources in order to bring them to bear on their analyses of global LGBT fiction
  5. 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
Primary
Aciman, André. Call Me by Your Name. Picador, 2017.
Cassara, Joseph. The House of Impossible Beauties. Ecco (Harper Collins), 2018.
Fagan, Jenni. The Sunlight Pilgrims. Hogarth, 2017.
Feinberg, Leslie. Drag King Dreams. Seal Press, 2006.
Greenwell, Garth. What Belongs to You. Picador, 2016.
Kay, Jackie. Trumpet. Vintage, 2000.
Louis, Édouard. History of Violence. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2018.
Okparanta, Chinelo. Under the Udala Trees. Mariner Books, 2016.
Selvadurai, Shyam. Funny Boy. William Morrow, 2015.
Yanagihara, Hanya. A Little Life. Anchor, 2016.

Secondary
Barrett, Rusty. From Drag Queens to Leathermen: Language, Gender, and Gay Male Subcultures. Oxford University Press, 2017.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge, 2006.
Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Duke University Press, 2004.
Faderman, Lillian. The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle. Simon and Schuster, 2016.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction. Vintage, 1990.
Gamson, Joshua. Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and Sexual Nonconformity. University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Medd, Jodie. The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Ponce, Martin. Beyond the Nation: Diasporic Filipino Literature and Queer Reading: New York University Press, 2012.
Prosser, Jay. Second Skins. Columbia University Press, 1998.
Robbins, Jill. Crossing Through Chueca: Lesbian Literary Culture in Queer Madrid. University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Sedgwick, Eve. Epistemology of the Closet. University of California Press, 2008.
Stevens, Hugh. The Cambridge Companion to Gay and Lesbian Writing. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life. Harvard University Press, 1999.
Additional Information
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 the principal theories and concepts of literary analysis in relation to their reading and discussion of the course material;
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;
Generic Cognitive Skills: in completing assessed essays and class presentations, students will have practiced 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.
KeywordsLGBT fiction,theory and criticism,contemporary literature,literature and sexuality,world literature
Contacts
Course organiserDr Benjamin Bateman
Tel: (0131) 650 4288
Email: benjamin.bateman@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Kara McCormack
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: Kara.McCormack@ed.ac.uk
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