Objectives and competences
To provide students with the opportunity for in-depth study of one major author from the English literature, for example: Dickens; Thackeray; Wordsworth; Dickinson; Wharton; Joyce; Woolf; Shaw; Nabokov; Walcott; Pinter; Atwood; Naipaul; Morrison, Le Guin.
To teach students to use social and cultural background, life writing and literary criticism to build a holistic picture of a major author
To expose students to concepts of canon formation and genre hierarchy
Content (Syllabus outline)
Social and cultural context: Background study through a selected work of the author
The context of life writing: Relevance autobiography / journals / autobiography to a selected work
Reviews and initial reception: focus on one work
Genre: two or three works in contemporary generic context
Major critical approaches to the author's work
Canon formation: emergence of major and minor works
Learning and teaching methods
• lectures,
• seminars.
Intended learning outcomes - knowledge and understanding
In depth knowledge of the works of an author from the canon of English literature
Familiarity with a range of critical approaches and their deployment
Ability to study one topic intensively and from a range of perspectives
Preparation for the research focus needed for writing a thesis
Intended learning outcomes - transferable/key skills and other attributes
Ability to do research and to present before a group
General knowledge of a foreign culture
Teamwork, negotiation and cooperation skills
Ability to formulate a pedagogical approach to cultural themes and literature
Readings
Textbooks would vary, depending on the author selected. The list would always include the following:
A collected works; individual publications of the author
A life-writing text: journal/memoir/autobiography
A selection of reviews and critical approaches
