A good command of spoken and written English; a sound knowledge of the history of English literature and culture; students should also possess a good knowledge of Italian.
Modules A and B are meant 1. to provide tools of critical, cultural and literary analysis along with notions of critical theory; 2. to teach ways of reading cultural and literary texts.
At the end of the course students:
a. will have acquired an enhanced familiarity with British literary and cultural history;
b. will competently apply critical skills to literary texts;
c. will be able to describe and discuss literature as a complex cultural system;
d. will be able to assess literary texts independently;
e. will have refined their aesthetic sensibility to literary language and to the rhetorical richness of the texts to literary language and to the rhetorical richness of the texts.
The course consists of two modules which address a selection of novels. Module A moves from the definition of literature, introduces the historical development of the novel as genre and analyzes with different critical approaches some works of the XIXth C..
Module B is focused on XXth C and XXIth C and specifically on British culture and the Imperial roots of contemporary multiethnic culture.
Module A
Context and theory
- A.Marzola, Englishness. Percorsi nella cultura britannica del Novecento, Carocci 1999. i paragrafi indicati
cap. 1 (1.1;1.2;1.3;1.4), (pp. 14)
- David Herman (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, Cambridge University Press pp. 1-123.
Texts
- J.Austen, Mansfield Park, Norton critical edition (C.Johnson ed.) pp.320.
- E. Gaskell, North and South, any edition (kindle pp. 204)
- R.Ballantyne, Coral Island: a tale of the Pacific Ocean, any edition (kindle pp. 167)
Secondary bibliography
1) E.Said,"J.Austen and empire" e un secondo saggio a scelta contenuto in J.Austen, Mansfield Park, Norton critical edition (C.Johnson ed.) pp.30.
2) Un saggio a scelta scaricabile gratuitamente da MLA bibliography tra:
C.Frank,” Revolution and Reform in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Fiction”, in Law, Culture and the Humanities 2014, Vol. 10(3) 421–439.
P.Johnson, “Elizabeth GaskelFs North and South: A National Bildungsroman”, in Victorian Newsletter, Spring 1994, pp.1-9.
J.Reeder, “Broken Bodies, Permeable Subjects: Rethinking Victorian Women’s “Agency” in Gaskell’s North and South” in Nineteenth- Century Gender Studies, (NCGS) 2013 Winter; 9 (3).
3) Martine Hennard Dutheil, ‘The Representation of the Cannibal in Ballantyne's "The Coral Island." Colonial Anxieties in Victorian Popular Fiction’ in College Literature Vol. 28, No. 1, Oral Fixations: Cannibalizing Theories, Consuming Cultures (Winter, 2001), pp. 105-122 Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25112562
Module B
Context and theory
- A.Marzola, Englishness. Percorsi nella cultura britannica del Novecento, Carocci 1999. i paragrafi
2(2.1;2.2),3 (3.1;3.3;3.4),4 (4.1;4.2; 4.3), -5 (5.1;5.2),6 (6.1)7 (7.1;7.2; 7.4.1) pp.75.
- Roy Porter, London. A Social History, Penguin Books, riferimento ai capitoli dedicati al Novecento (pp.80).
Texts
- J.Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Norton critical edition ed.P.Armstrong, 2006. pp.74.
- Hanif Kureishi, “My son, a fanatic,” in Love in a Blue Time, Faber & Faber p.10.
- A.Levy, Small Island, DVD, BBC tv series
- Z.Smith, White Teeth, London, Penguin,(200) 2001, p.520.
Secondary bibliography
C,Achebe, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, in P.Armstrong (ed.), in Heart of Darkness, Norton critical edition, pp.10.
Un altro saggio a scelta della sezione “Criticism” in P.Armstrong (ed.), Heart of Darkness, Norton critical edition, pp.10.
S. Rushdie, “The New Empire within Britain” in Imaginary Homelands, London, Vintage books (1991)2010. pp.7.
Due saggi a scelta in:
P.Tew(Ed.), Reading Zadie Smith,London,Bloomsbury 2013. pp.20.
Lectures, films. Lessons will include PowerPoint slides, as well as audio-video materials.
Students will be asked to actively participate in these activities, with discussion and debate.
Guest lecturers will contribute to focus on specific topics.
Students will be tested by means of a final oral exam or, alternatively, for attending students, by the assessment of oral and written tests during the course: 40% oral presentation; 60%final oral exam. Alternatively: 60% written paper of min 4000 words; 40% final oral exam. Required abilities for the oral or written exam:
1. students must show good knowledge of the literary and cultural contexts related to the issues discussed in the course
2. students are expected to read all the texts in English and to translate them into Italian
3. students are expected to engage the issues critically with relevant references to the texts addressed in the course.
The final mark is the average mark for the two assessments given in the same exam session. The mark of the written exams is visible in the student's webpage. A mail is sent by the system to inform about the publication of results.
Erasmus students and students who cannot attend classes may meet the instructor during tutorial hours (not by e-mail) if they need advice or feel the necessity of supplementary reading to gain a full understanding of the topics