SCHOOL OF ENGLISHUNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK

National University of Ireland, Cork

MA in ENGLISH2014-15

MODERNITIES: ROMANTICISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM

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SCHOOL OF ENGLISHUNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK

National University of Ireland, Cork

MA in ENGLISH2014-15

MODERNITIES: ROMANTICISM, MODERNISM, POSTMODERNISM

This MA programme will introduce you to an advanced level of study of literature and film in English from the Romantic period to the present day by focusing on three key movements of the period: Romanticism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. You will be introduced to some of the most influential contemporary critical and theoretical models currently being applied to the notion of modernity.

The course will focus on issues such as: the rise of national literatures; changes within historical consciousness; the end of history; the possibility for and force of the New; revolution and artistic creation; originality, individuality, difference; the relation between models of education and literary texts; the connections between the realms of the aesthetic, the political, and the cultural.

The MA in English (Modernities) consists of two parts: (Part 1) a taught course; and (Part 2) a dissertation.

The MA involves a combination of seminars, consultation, presentations, and directed study, as well as associated reading. Part 1 is examined by means of continuous assessment, including written assignments, in-class assignments, seminar participation, research journal, literature and IT review, and research presentation. In Part 2 you will carry out independent research for your dissertation in close consultation with your supervisor(s).

Part 1 (50 credits)

In Part 1 of the MA, the following module is mandatory:

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EN6009 Contemporary Literary Research: Skills, Methods, and Strategies (10 credits)

The remaining 40 credits in Part 1 are comprised through choosing four of the following modules:

EN6028 Theories of Modernity (10 credits)EN6027 Romanticism and Modernity (10 credits)EN6025 Literary and Cultural Modernisms (10 credits)EN6026 Postmodernism in Literature and Film (10 credits)

EN6029 American Modernities: From Modernism to Postmodernity (10 credits)FX6007 American Cinema from 1960 to 1985 (10 credits)

NB: with the agreement of the MA co-ordinator(s) and Head of School one 10-credit module may be substituted from one of the other English MA programmes.

Essay Requirements

EN6009 is examined as outlined in the module description. The remaining modules (EN6028, EN6027, EN6025, and EN6027, EN6029, FX6007) are each examined as follows: Continuous Assessment 200 marks (1 x 3000 word assignment 180 marks; Preparation, Attendance, and Participation 20 marks). Total Marks 200.

For further details, see the relevant descriptions in the Book of Modules:http://www.ucc.ie/modules/descriptions/page019.html

Part 2 (40 credits)

EN6017 Dissertation (40 credits)

Following the taught course, you will write a 15,000–17,000-word thesis, on a topic agreed by you and your supervisor(s), and the module coordinator. You must complete the modules in Part 1 to move on to the dissertation.

For further details, see the description in the Book of Modules:http://www.ucc.ie/modules/descriptions/page019.html#EN6017

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Staff

The members of academic staff teaching on this MA are all actively engaged in research and have national and international reputations in a range of relevant fields. Full details of their areas of expertise and a list of their publications can be accessed via the School of English website:http://www.ucc.ie/en/english/

Prof. Graham Allen (literary and cultural theory and romanticism)Prof. Alex Davis (literary modernism, Anglophone poetry from the

1890s to the present day, and Irish studies)Dr Anne Etienne (twentieth-century British drama and theatre

censorship)Dr Alan Gibbs (American literature, trauma narratives, and narrative

theory)Dr Jools Gilson (theatre and performance studies)Dr Sarah Hayden (literary and visual modernism and twentieth-

century avant-garde movements)Dr Lee Jenkins (American Literature, American Studies and

transnationalism, literary modernism, Caribbean poetry, and contemporary black British poetry)

Dr Heather Laird (Postcolonialism and Irish studies)Dr Barry Monahan (film studies and Irish cinema)Dr Clíona Ó Gallchoir (Irish women’s writing, Irish and British

eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writing, the novel in Ireland, post-colonial writing, and children’s literature)

Dr Gwenda Young (classical Hollywood cinema, silent cinema, and ethnicity in American cinema)

Reading List

EN6009 Contemporary Literary Research: Skills, Methods, and Strategies

Delia da Soysa Correa and W. R. Owens, eds, The Handbook to Literary Research (2nd edn, London: Routledge, 2010)

The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, (7th edn, New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2009)

EN6028 Theories of Modernity

Jürgen Habermas, ‘Modernity—an Incomplete Project’, in Peter Brooker, ed., Podernism/Postmodernism (London: Longman, 1992).

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Fredric Jameson, ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, in Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism.

Jean-François Lyotard, ‘Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?’, in Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism.

Jean Baudrillard, from ‘Simulacra and Simulations’, in Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism.Jacques Derrida, TBAFriedrich Nietzsche, ‘On the Use and Abuse of History for Life’ (1874);

available as a photocopy; [online], <http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/nietzsche/history.htm> accessed 13 Aug. 2013.

Sigmund Freud, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life (1901); selections available as a photocopy.

Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (London: Methuen, 1976); available in Boole Library, 801.9 EAGL.

Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); available in Boole Library, 801.9 MARX.W.

Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics (London: Methuen, 1983); available in Boole Library, 808.3 RIMM.

Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, tr. Jane E. Lewin (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980); available in Boole Library, U 808.3 GENE.

Richard Walsh, ‘Who is the Narrator?’ Poetics Today 18/4 (1997), 495-513; available online via JStor.

Jonathan Culler, ‘Omniscience,’ Narrative 12/1 (2004), 22-34; available online via JStor.

Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, ed. Charles Bally and Albert Reidlinger, tr. Wade Baskin (Glasgow: Fontana, 1974); available in Boole Library, 410 SAUS.

Peter Bürger, ‘Avant-Garde and Engagement’, in Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism.

Theodor Adorno, ‘Letter to Walter Benjamin’, in Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism.

Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in Lawrence Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).

Bertolt Brecht, from ‘The Popular and the Realistic’, in Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism.

Georg Lukács, from The Meaning of Contemporary Realism, in Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism.

Futurist, Dada, and Surrealist texts, in Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology.

EN6027 Romanticism and Modernity

Byron, Cain (1821); available as a photocopy.John Keats, ‘The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream’ (1819); available as a

photocopy.Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘The Triumph of Life’ (1822); available as photocopy.Mary Jacobus, ‘Behold the Parent Hen: Romantic Pedagogy and Sexual

Difference’, in Mary Jacobus, Romanticism, Writing and Sexual

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Difference: Essays on ‘The Prelude’ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); available in Boole Library, 821.7 JACO.

Sherry B. Ortner, ‘Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?’, Feminist Studies, 1 (1972), 5-31; available online via JStor.

Maria Edgeworth, Belinda, ed., Kathryn Kirkpatrick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Selected texts by Anna Barbauld, Charlotte Smith, Mary Robinson, Edmund Burke, William Wordsworth; available as a photocopy.

EN6025 Literary and Cultural Modernisms

Poetry and critical essays by H.D., T. S. Eliot, Mina Loy, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, in Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology.

Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts and critical essays, in Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology.

James Joyce, Ulysses: The 1922 Text, ed. Jeri Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

Eugene O’Neill, Strange Interlude; available as a photocopy.Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot; available as a photocopy.Samuel Beckett, Endgame, in Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology.Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (1961) [online],

<http://archive.org/details/TheTheatreOfTheAbsurd> accessed 4 Sept. 2013.

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (London: Faber, 1993).

EN6026 Postmodernism in Literature and Film

Selected theoretical texts by Caruth, Whitehead, Vickroy, Luckhurst, Gibbs; available as a photocopy.Excerpt from Art Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers; available as a photocopy.Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5 (London: Vintage, 1991).Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (London:

Penguin, 2006),The Shining, Stanley Kubrick, dir. (Warner Brothers, 1980).Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Jim Jarmusch, dir. (Channel Four Films,

1999). Goodbye Lenin!, Wolfgang Becker, dir. (Sony Pictures, 2003).Matthew Goulish, 39 Microlectures: In Proximity of Performance (London:

Routledge, 2000).

Set Texts (aside from films, photocopies, and texts available online and in the Boole Library)

All available from John Smith’s Booksellers, Aras na MacLéinn/Devere Hall

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Peter Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism (London: Longman, 1992).

Maria Edgeworth, Belinda, ed. Kathryn Kirkpatrick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (London: Penguin, 2006).

Matthew Goulish, 39 Microlectures: In Proximity of Performance (London: Routledge, 2000).

James Joyce, Ulysses: The 1922 Text, ed. Jeri Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).

Lawrence Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia (London: Faber, 1993).Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5 (London: Vintage, 1991).

We also recommend that you purchase an up-to-date English usage guide, e.g.

Robert Allen, ed., Pocket Fowler’s Modern English Usage (2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

A valuable reference work, covering traditional terminology and literary theory, is:

Chris Baldick, ed., A Dictionary of Literary Terms (3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)

Timetable

TP 1 Monday 3.00-5.00ORB 1.44

Thursday 12.00-2.00ORB 1.65

Week beginning

EN6028 Theories of Modernity

8 September 2014

No Class Introductory Class Meeting

15 September Habermas and Lyotard GA

Baudrillard and Jameson GA

22 September Nietzsche AD Saussure BM29 September Marx AD Freud GA6 October Feminist Theory CÓG Derrida GA

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13 October Theories of the avant-garde AD

Theories of the avant-garde AD

20 October Reading WeekEN6025 Literary and Cultural Modernisms

27 October Holiday Pound, poetry and critical prose AD

3 November Eliot, poetry and critical prose LJ/AD

Stein and Loy, poems and other writings AD

10 November Lawrence, shorter fiction LJ

Woolf, fictional and critical prose AD

17 November Lawrence and H.D., poetry LJ

Beckett, Waiting for Godot AE

24 November Joyce, Ulysses HL Beckett, Endgame AEChristmas Recess

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TP 2 Monday 3.00-5.00ORB 1.65

Thursday 12.00-2.00 ORB 1.65

Tuesday 2.00-4.00

ORB 1.65

Wednesday 2.00-4.00Windle Building

Week beginning

EN6027 Romanticism and Modernity EN6029 American

Modernities: From

Modernism to Postmodernit

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FX6007 American

Cinema from 1960 to 1985

12 January 2015

Theories of Romanticism GA

Byron, Cain GA See syllabus below

For details, contact Dr Gwenda Young

19 January Keats, The Fall of Hyperion GA

Shelley, The Triumph of Life GA

26 January Shelley, The Triumph of Life GA

Romanticism and Gender CÓG

2 February Romanticism: Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry; Wordsworth, poetry CÓG

Charlotte Smith, poetry CÓG

9 February Anna Barbauld and Mary Robinson, poetry CÓG

Edgeworth, Belinda CÓG

EN6026 Postmodernism in Literature and Film

16 February Intro to postmodernism and trauma.AG

Postmodernism, war, and trauma: Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5 AG

23 February Reading Week2 March Postmodernist

responses to 9/11: Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and

Kubrick, The Shining BM

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Spiegelman, In the Shadow of No Towers AG

9 March Jarmusch, Ghost Dog BM

Becker, Goodbye Lenin BM

16 March Thesis Preparation Session

Goulish, 39 Microlectures JG

23 March Goulish, 39 Microlectures JG

Postmodern poetry AD

30 March Thesis Proposal Presentations

Thesis Proposal Presentations

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EN6029 American Modernities: from Modernism to Postmodernity

(Dr Lee Jenkins, Dr Alan Gibbs)

Syllabus

1. The Jazz Age: F.Scott Fitzgerald, short stories & essays (LJ)

2. The Lost Generation: Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (LJ)

3. Modernism, modernity, and the American avant-garde: Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, Mary Austin (poems, manifestos & the visual arts) (LJ)

4. Black modernism: the Harlem Renaissance (poems, manifestos & the visual arts) (LJ)

5. Harlem Renaissance 2: Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (LJ)

6. Intro to postmodernism and America: Barth and Barthelme short stories (AG)

7. Postmodernism and American paranoia: Pynchon, Crying of Lot 49 (AG)

8. Postmodernism and sequential art: excerpts from Spiegelman, Breakdowns and Pekar, American Splendor series (AG)

9. Postmodernism and American film: American Splendor (film) (AG)

10. The politics of postmodernism: Doctorow, The Book of Daniel (AG)

Set Texts

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (Arrow)

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (Vintage)

Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (Vintage Classics)

E.L. Doctorow, The Book of Daniel (Penguin)

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Other texts will be made available in photocopied form

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