ELS3323 Gender and the Postmodern
Dates:
Times:
Credits:
Lecturer:
Prerequisites:
Barred
Combination:
Assessment:
Four weeks, 3 to 21 July
Week 1: 10am to 1pm Thursday and Friday
Weeks 2 and 3: 10am to 1pm Tuesday and Thursday
Week 4: 10am to 1pm Monday
15
Dr Caroline Walters
Familiarity with literary theory and an interest in books and ideas.
ELS3303
Coursework (100%):
A theoretical close reading exercise of 1000 words (40%)
An essay of 2500 words using theoretical material (60%)
Aims:
Gender is a central way in which we think and imagine ourselves. This third level module
examines how gender has been configured within twentieth-century literary texts, and the
role of writing in producing gendered identities. Postmodernism has further complicated the
ways in which we conceptualise gender, and this module examines the link between
postmodern literature and contemporary postmodern culture. It maps important social,
political and cultural themes in relation to how gender is understood in relation to history, the
body, ethnicity, and sexuality.
Learning Outcomes:
On completion of the module, the successful student will have acquired:
Knowledge
• Knowledge of linguistic, literary, cultural and socio-historical contexts in which
literature is written and read
• Knowledge of theoretical debates in relation to gender
• Awareness of shared thematic concerns across a range of texts
Skills
• Capacity for independent thought and judgement
• Ability to understand, interrogate and apply a variety of theoretical positions and
weigh the importance of alternative perspectives
• Advanced literacy and communicative skills in the construction of academic
argument
• Research skills, including information retrieval, organisation and critical evaluation
Syllabus:
Compulsory Texts:
Angela Carter Nights at the Circus (London: Vintage, 1990)
J. M. Coetzee Foe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987)
Alan Hollinghurst The Line of Beauty (London: Picador 2006)
Nick Hornby FeverPitch (London: Indigo,1992)
Bharati Mukherjee Jasmine (London: Virago, 1991)
Barbara Wilson, Gaudi Afternoon (Seattle: Seal Press, 1990)
Recommended:
Brod, Harry and Michael Kaufman, eds., Theorizing Masculinities (Oxford: Sage, 1994)
Butler, Judith,
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, (London: Routledge, 1990)
Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York: Routledge, 1993)
Chapman, Rowena and Jonathan Rutherford, eds., Male Order: Unwrapping Masculinities
(London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988)
Cixous, Hélène and Catherine Clement, The Newly Born Woman Translated by Betsy Wing
(Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1986)
Cleto, Fabio, ed., Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1999)
Culler, Jonathan, A Very Short Introduction to Literary Theory (Oxford: Oxford, 1997)
Eagleton, Mary, Feminist Literary Theory: A Reader 2nd ed (Oxford: Blackwells, 1996)
Fraser, Mariam and Monica Greco, eds., The Body: A Reader (London: Routledge, 2005)
Knights, Ben Writing Masculinities: Male Narratives in Twentieth-Century Fiction (London:
Macmillan, 1999)
Malpas, Simon, The Postmodern (New Critical idioms) (London: Routledge,
2004)
Morrison, Jago, Contemporary Fiction (London: Routledge, 2003)
Sim, Stuart, The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism (London:
Routledge, 2001)
Woods, Tim, Beginning Postmodernism (Manchester: Manchester Univ Pr.,
1999)