Picture (Im)Perfect: Utopia and Dystopia in Literature

Utopia is a term coined by Sir Thomas More in the sixteenth century, a play on Greek for both "no place" and a "good place", setting up an imaginative projection of an idealised socio-political "place". Alongside the domain of the ideal, there is an equally compelling tradition of projecting dystopian visions: the "dark mirror" of the writers’ concerns. The focus of the course is both on texts and theories surrounding these trends in envisioning the desires and anxieties of particular cultures and individuals, examining treatises, fantasies, essays and other speculative fiction. Plotting an historical course through this domain, we will also be questioning the shifting ideals represented, and the kinds of social and political positioning engendered in the shifts. While students will expected to read a number of key texts in the thematic "genres" of utopian or dystopian subjects, and relevant theory, there will also be sufficient opportunity to view other examples and map out the differences and similarities in representation that different choices of texts negotiate.

30 points

Subject to approval of the Head of Department.

'A Small Good Thing': The Short Story in the Old World and the New

The first theorist of the short story, Edgar Allan Poe, famously defined the form as something one might peruse at a single sitting. Like a poem, thought Poe, the story ought to achieve a 'unity of effect or impression', a kind of transient but intense excitement. Henry James saw in the form's brevity the 'science of control'; and while some readers enthused about the form's commitment to the moment, the event, the epiphany, others saw only a symptom of cultural fragmentation. This course examines the history and characteristics of the short story as it has been developed in the European and American traditions. More specifically, the course focuses on the relationship of the short story to some of the most persuasive ideas of modernity. Students will have an opportunity to read and place in context such greats of the form as Anton Chekov, Mark Twain, Nikolai Gogol, Poe, Flannery O'Connor, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, Alice Munro and David Foster Wallace. As the course progresses we will make our way through movements such as romanticism, modernism and postmodernism - all of which define themselves in relation to modernity - concluding with a selection of some of the most exciting new writers working in America.

30 points

Subject to approval of the Head of Department.

Modern Poetry

This course takes a broad view of modern poetry. We begin with a selection of English and American poets identified with literary modernism, before widening our reading to encompass poets of other places and more recent eras who have responded in a variety of ways to modernist forms, techniques and preoccupations.

30 points

Subject to approval of the Head of Department.

ENGL317, ENGL434

Directed Reading and Writing

English 442 provides an opportunity for BA(Honours) and first-year MA students to study areas of interest not otherwise available as 400-level courses. Students work independently under the direction of an academic staff member. They are required to read prescribed primary and secondary materials, to undertake assigned research tasks, and to produce two or more essays or other written exercises (with a total length of about 10,000 words). Interested students must contact the Supervisor of Honours Students well in advance of the start of semester.

30 points

Subject to approval of the Head of Department.

Research Essay

30 points

Subject to approval of the Head of Department.

MA Dissertation

MA Dissertation

60 points

Subject to the approval of the Head of Department.

MA Thesis

120 points

Subject to approval of the Head of Department.