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The novelist and philosopher Jean Paul Sartre once described the experience of the contemporary as like looking out the back of a moving car: the present, glimpsed through the side windows, appears as a blur, but as one looks through the rear window the blur begins to take the forms we recognise as constituents of contemporary experience, now seen with the aid of perspective. To study the contemporary novel is to read for what the poet T.S. Eliot called the ‘pastness’ of the present, which involves reading for the ways in which the novel form has been, and will continue to be, used to question, critique, and imagine the contemporary.The course will look primarily at novels from the Twentieth Century, but will conclude with a look towards recent twenty-first century fiction.
We will examine a diverse selection of contemporary novels that respond to social, political, economic, cultural and environmental challenges. This will include examples from literary modernism, postmodernism and the post-colonial world, alongside acclaimed 21st century works of fiction. Some attention will be paid to earlier novels that have been key to the historical development of the form. This course can be used towards an English major or minor. BA students who major in English would normally take at least two 100-level 15 point ENGL courses (which must include at least one of the following: ENGL117, ENGL102 or ENGL103), at least three 200-level 15 point ENGL courses, and at least two 300-level 30 point ENGL courses. Please see the BA regulations or a student advisor for more information.
In this course you will:become familiar with a selection of contemporary novels and the conditions of each novel’s production;consider both literary and cultural ways of reading contemporary novels;discover how historical and cultural movements shape literature and literary criticism;develop advanced skills in academic writing, with a focus on constructing and articulating a critical argument.
This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:
Critically competent in a core academic discipline of their award
Students know and can critically evaluate and, where applicable, apply this knowledge to topics/issues within their majoring subject.
Employable, innovative and enterprising
Students will develop key skills and attributes sought by employers that can be used in a range of applications.
Globally aware
Students will comprehend the influence of global conditions on their discipline and will be competent in engaging with global and multi-cultural contexts.
Any 30 points at 200 level from ENGL, orany 60 points at 200 level from the Schedule V of the BA.
Students must attend one activity from each section.
Paul Millar
Nicholas Wright
Because of the substantial reading load, students are strongly advised to read as many novels as possible before classes commence. Class discussions will proceed on the assumption that all students have read the text. Text books (in order of study):• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)• Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)• Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (1945) • Tim Winton, Cloudstreet (1991)• Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) • Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)• Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987)• Sally Rooney, Normal People (2018)
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Domestic fee $1,687.00
International fee $7,900.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Humanities .