Contemporary English Culture

Code:

LA006

Acronym:

CICON

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Cultural Studies

Instance: 2022/2023 - 1S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Department of Anglo-American Studies
Course/CS Responsible:	Bachelor in Applied Languages

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
LA	81	Study plan	1	-	6	41	162

Teaching language

English

Objectives

            To familiarize students with ethical and political problems which have proved decisive for the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in Britain.

            To familiarize students with a set of works of distinction, of different types, and with their respective intellectual and social-historical contexts.

Learning outcomes and competences

Students are expected to be able to recognize fundamental data in the context of Contemporary English (British) Culture, namely as regards the problematics of identity and of cultural memory. They are also expected to have acquired fundamental skills for cultural and literary analysis.

Working method

Presencial

Pre-requirements (prior knowledge) and co-requirements (common knowledge)

Not applicable.

Program

TITLE OF THE COURSE: A SENSE OF HISTORY: ISSUES OF IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY BRITISH CULTURE

 

            This course will examine the ways in which the problem of defining British national identity in an age of collapse or contestation of unitary assumptions – with the (re)emergence of competing nationalities within the United Kingdom, the end of the British Empire, issues surrounding class, race, ethnicity, and gender... – has been equated with a sense of collective memory, in critical and/or celebratory mode.

            The course includes discussion of several dimensions of British cultural production (essay, poetry, prose, drama, and film) between the 1920s and the 2000s. The following works will be examined (listed in order of study):

            
            1. George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn (1941);

            2. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own (1929);

            3. Philip Larkin, poemas seleccionados;

            4. Caryl Churchill, Cloud Nine (1979);

            5. Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000).

 

N.B.:

1. Students are expected to purchase the works mentioned in the course programme (not necessarily in the editions listed in the Primary Bibliography), except for the poems of Philip Larkin.

2. Further bibliographical references will be given in class.

Mandatory literature

George Orwell; The Lion and the Unicorn, Penguin Books, 2018. ISBN: 9780241315682
Woolf, Virginia, 1882-1941; A^room of one.s own. ISBN: 0-14-00-0481-5
Larkin, Philip; Collected poems. ISBN: 0-571-15196-5
Caryl Churchill; Cloud nine. ISBN: 1-85459-090-1
Zadie Smith; White Teeth, Penguin Books, 2001. ISBN: 9780140297782

Complementary Bibliography

Abercrombie, Nicholas; Contemporary british society. ISBN: 978-0-7456-2297-2
Collini, Stefan; Absent minds. ISBN: 978-0-19-921665-9
Connerton, Paul; How societies remember. ISBN: 978-0-521-27093-9
Conrad, Peter; Modern times, modern places
Erll, Astrid, and Ansgar Nünning, eds.; Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, Walter De Gruyter, 2008
Ford, Boris 340; Modern Britain. ISBN: 0521428892
Macmillan, Margaret; The^uses and abuses of history. ISBN: 978-1846682049
Marwick, Arthur; British Society since 1945. ISBN: 0-7139-1075-5
Marwick, Arthur; A^history of the modern British Isles, 1914-1999. ISBN: 978-0-631-19522-1
McKibbin, Ross; Classes and cultures. ISBN: 978-0-19-820855-6
Morgan, Kenneth O.; Britain since 1945. ISBN: 978-0-19-280225-5
Morgan, Kenneth O.; Twentieth-century Britain. ISBN: 978-0-19-285397-4
Olick, Jeffrey K. 340; The^ collective memory reader. ISBN: 978-0-19-533742-6
Rosen, Andrew; The^transformation of British life, 1950-2000. ISBN: 978-0-7190-6612-2
Sanders, Andrew; The^short Oxford history of english literature. ISBN: 0-19-811201-7
Weedon, Chris; Identity and Culture: Narratives Of Difference And Belonging, Open University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0335200869
Wright, Patrick; On living in an old country. ISBN: 978-0-19-954195-9

Teaching methods and learning activities

            Exposition and discussion of the relevant historical and cultural contexts.

            Analysis and critical commentary of the aforementioned texts.

            Lectures, practical lessons, tutorials.

keywords

Humanities
Humanities > Literature > European literature > Germanic literature > English literature
Social sciences > Cultural studies > Anglo saxon studies

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation without final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Teste	100,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Estudo autónomo	75,00
Frequência das aulas	41,00
Trabalho de investigação	46,00
Total:	162,00

Eligibility for exams

75 per cent minimum attendance.

Calculation formula of final grade

Two written tests (50% + 50%) = 100 %.

Examinations or Special Assignments

Not applicable.

Internship work/project

Not applicable.

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

Not applicable.

Classification improvement

Students with will be allowed a resit for one of the tests (after the end of the teaching semester).

Observations

The assessment component to be considered to be considered for appeal purposes should be one of the tests.