English Literature - 20th Century Narrative

Code:

LLC089

Acronym:

LIN_20

Instance: 2013/2014 - 1S

Active?	Yes
Web Page:	http://moodle.up.pt/course/view.php?id=3701
Responsible unit:	Department of Anglo-American Studies
Course/CS Responsible:	Bachelor in Languages, Literatures and Cultures

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
LA	1	LA - Study Plan	3	-	6	52	162
LLC	54	Plano Oficial do ano letivo 2013_2014	2	-	6	52	162
			3

Teaching language

Portuguese

Objectives

- To enable students to gain a detailed knowledge of some relevant narrative works of early 20th-century Britain;

- To study how the British novel contributed to the formation of certain images of the British Empire;

- To elucidate the relations between text and world, namely through the analysis of the involvement of narratives in ideological and political configurations.

Learning outcomes and competences

- To understand the role of literature in the shaping of representations of national identity;

- To promote students’ contact and familiarisation with concepts and points of view which occupy an important place in contemporary literary and cultural studies.

Working method

Presencial

Program

English Literature - 20th Century Narrative: Narratives of Empire

The British Empire represented a determining factor in the shaping of contemporary history due to its centrality within European power relations as well as to the extent of its dominance on a global scale. As is usually the case with relevant historical facts, the British Empire gave rise to several narratives and was, at the same time, diversely narrated, thus being also the result of these diverse narratives. The module will focus on this double status of the Empire, seen as both a cause and an effect of narratives. The coursework will emphasise the study of images of the Empire built from national stereotypes, thus falling within the scope of identity studies; on the other hand, it will point towards further representations of identity, either determined or influenced by the Empire, hence linking to research in post-colonial studies. These various trends will call the students’ attention to ways of re-evaluating narrative fiction which developed within the theoretical and critical frameworks that characterized of the last decades of the 20th century.

Novels to be studied:

Rudyard Kipling, Kim (1901), Oxford World's Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1902), Penguin Classics, London: Penguin, 2007

E. M. Forster, A Passage to India (1924), Penguin Classics, London: Penguin, 2005

Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958), Penguin Books. London: Penguin, 2006

Mandatory literature

Chinua Achebe; Things Fall Apart (1958), London: Penguin, 2006
Joseph Conrad; Heart of Darkness (1902), London: Penguin, , 2007
E. M. Forster; A Passage to India (1924), London: Penguin, 2005
Rudyard Kipling; Kim (1901), Oxford World's Classics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998

Complementary Bibliography

Ashcroft, Bill, 1946-; Post-colonial studies
Bradshaw, David, 1955- 340; The^Cambridge companion to E. M. Forster. ISBN: 978-0-521-54252-4
Brantlinger, Patrick, 1941-; Rules of darkness. ISBN: 0-8014-9767-1
Lazarus, Neil 340; The^Cambridge companion to postcolonial literary studies. ISBN: 978-0-521-53418-5
Moore, Gene M. 340; Joseph Conrad.s Heart of darkness. ISBN: 0-19-515996-9
Said, Edward W.; Culture and imperialism. ISBN: 978-0-099-96750-7
Whittaker, David; Chinua Achebe.s. ISBN: 978-0-415-34456-2

Teaching methods and learning activities

Lectures and Tutorial classes

keywords

Humanities > Literature > European literature > Germanic literature > English literature

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation with final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Exame	70,00
Trabalho escrito	30,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Estudo autónomo	108,00
Frequência das aulas	54,00
Total:	162,00

Eligibility for exams

Attending 75% of classes, unless established otherwise by law.

Calculation formula of final grade

Active participation in class (includes written essay) - 30% + Exam - 70%

Examinations or Special Assignments

Not applicable

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

Not applicable

Classification improvement

Apliccable only to the final exam. 

Observations

There is no re-sitting for the written essay.