English on the Move

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• question the relationship between ‘England’ and ‘English Literature’.
• debate the historical and geographical lives of literary genres.
• respond creatively and knowledgeably to questions about the value and circulation of literature.
• draw on literary and cultural histories when analysing individual texts.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• debate the constitution of national, regional, and world cultures.
• think and write critically about cultural production.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• the connections and collisions between national literature and national identity.
• English Literature in its global contexts.
• the relationship of Literatures in English to other languages.

Beginning in the 21st century, we will travel back through one thousand years of Literatures written in ‘English’ that are not only or exactly ‘English’. By the time we arrive in the tenth century and we encounter the foundational texts of ‘English literature’, you will not be surprised to find yourself in a place that is not England, reading a language that is evidently the product of worldly encounters. Across the course of the module, we will read primary literary works written from and about various parts of the globe; from Zanzibar to England, Scandinavia to India, America to Nigeria. Alongside this reading, we will work with critical secondary texts that are key to ongoing debates about:

• the establishment of English Literature as a discipline, and the canonisation of literary epochs, styles, and authors;
• the relationship between literary production, and national consciousness and identity;
• the complex and transitory, local and global formation of literary genres;
• the long and continuing history of ‘English literature’ as an encounter with other languages.

We will also work with emerging theories and terms that are encouraging various local, regional, and worldly futures of literatures written in English.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include lectures, seminars, learning support hours, and individual consultations.

Learning methods include independent study and group discussion.

This module includes a Learning Support Hour. This is a flexible contact hour, 5 in total, designed to support and respond to the particular cohort taking the module from year to year. This hour will include (but not be limited to) activities such as language, theory and research skills classes; group work supervisions; assignment preparation and essay writing guidance; assignment consultations; feedback and feed-forward sessions.

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

Wars of Position. Please do not buy this book. Access to relevant chapters will be provided.

Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. Please do not buy this book. Access to relevant chapters will be provided.

What is a World? On Postcolonial Literature as World Literature. Please do not buy this book. Access to relevant chapters will be provided.

Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Please do not buy this book. Access to relevant chapters will be provided.

Assessment strategy

Two essays.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External