James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2001

EL4001:08

English 4 Honours

Townsville

Prerequisites: 24 units of level 3 EL subjects including EL3005 and EL3025
Inadmissable Subject Combination: EL4004

52 seminars. Full year.

Staff: Dr G Manning, Dr C Taylor, Professor P Pierce.

Renaissance literature; Modernism and Postmodernism.

Learning Objectives:

Substantially to develop the literary critical and theoretical skills and understanding attained at earlier levels.

Renaissance Drama: Students completing this section of the course should demonstrate:

  1. a detailed knowledge of all the set texts;
  2. a scholarly understanding of the ways in which literary and other historians have constructed the Renaissance as a cultural period;
  3. an ability to approach English Renaissance drama from a range of critical perspectives;
  4. a knowledge of the staging and performance conventions of Renaissance drama and their relevance to interpreting the set texts;
  5. an understanding of the connections between the drama and changing social, economic and political conditions in England.

Modernism and Postmodernism: Students completing this section of the course should demonstrate:

  1. close and detailed familiarity with the set texts in their historical and cultural contexts and a knowledge of their critical receptions;
  2. an understanding of modernism as a literary, cultural and historical movement and an ability to relate this understanding to the texts in the subject;
  3. an understanding of the debate over postmodernism, particularly as it affects literature and an ability to relate this understanding to the texts in the subject;
  4. an understanding of the relations between modernism and postmodernism;
  5. an understanding of some of the theoretical questions raised by modernist and postmodernist writing.

Assessment by:

Renaissance Drama: one seminar paper, to be written up and presented as a formal scholarly essay of 3,000 words (20%); seminar participation (10%); one three-hour examination (20%).

Modernism and Postmodernism: one seminar paper, to be written up and presented as a formal scholarly essay of 3,000 words (20%); seminar participation (10%); one three-hour examination (20%).