ANGLOPHONE LITERATURES
cod. 1000633

Academic year 2017/18
2° year of course - Second semester
Professor
Academic discipline
Letteratura inglese (L-LIN/10)
Field
A scelta dello studente
Type of training activity
Student's choice
30 hours
of face-to-face activities
6 credits
hub:
course unit
in - - -

Learning objectives

• Introduce the students to the discourses of contemporaneity and postcoloniality, which are useful to a theoretical approach to the selected texts;
• Provide the students with the guidelines in order to analyze a narrative/dramatic text in its essential and structural components;
• Give an overview of the most important features and directions in contemporary fiction and drama in the various geographical areas involved: Scottish, Irish, and postcolonial.

Prerequisites

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Course unit content

“WRITING, STAGING, AND TRANSLATING IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY ANGLOPHONE FICTION AND DRAMA (1980-2016)”
The course concentrates on the study of contemporary Anglophone authors and works dealing with the question of Scottish, Irish, and postcolonial identity (from the Eighties to post-Brexit Literature). It aims to explore the emergence of the different identities in the British Isles, as well as the problematization of a shared Britishness in the contemporary age. In the lectures, the introduction of historical and aesthetic contexts regularly accompanies the analysis of novels and plays from a structural, stylistic, and thematic-ideological point of view. Students are also expected to read and study a text to be chosen among those listed in the exam syllabus, drawn up by the professor at the end of the course and made available online.

Full programme

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Bibliography

Compulsory Literary Texts

• Scottishness
- Alison Louise Kennedy, Looking for the Possible Dance (1993)
- David Greig, Dunsinane (2010)
• Irishness
- William Trevor, Felicia’s Journey (1994)
- Brian Friel, Translations (1980)
• Postcolonial Identity
- Bernardine Evaristo, Mr Loverman (2013)
- Alia Bano, Shades (2009)
• Post-Brexit Lit.
- Ali Smith, Autumn (2016) [extracts]


Elective Literary Texts (Please Choose 1)

• Scottishness
- Jackie Kay, Trumpet (1998)
- David Greig, The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (2011)
• Irishness
- Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993)
- Marina Carr, By the Bog of Cats (1998)
• Postcolonial Identity
- Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000)
- Kwame Kwei-Armah, Elmina’s Kitchen (2003)

Teaching methods

The course is held through in-class lectures in English. During the lessons, the professor will introduce the main elements of the socio-cultural contex, the authors’profiles and the texts, supported by the course bibliography and other materials (both textual and visual) available to students on the University online platform “Elly”. The professor will also give advice for personal research and study, in order to stimulate students’autonomy.

Assessment methods and criteria

Students will be assessed on their knowledge and skills through an oral examination in English. During the examination, the student will be requested to answer in English to questions regarding the teaching programme, the texts analysed, the books read and autonomous research work.

Other information

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