Module overview
Africa has produced some of the world's outstanding literary texts, yet its literatures, cultures and people are often placed in opposition to the rest of the world. The module engages with the literary fictions by and about Africans, in order to ask: how do these texts produce innovative and emancipatory literary worlds that may be called 'African'? Lectures and seminars will scrutinise how senses of national, regional and continental affiliation may relate themselves to transnational and global modes of belonging. We will read texts by Chinua Achebe, Bessie Head, Taiye Selasi and other stars of world literature, as well as their predecessors.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- You will have improved your attentive reading, critical thinking and essay-writing skills (especially with regard to argument construction), in keeping with the requirements of second-year level of university study.
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- On completing the module, you will have gained an increased understanding of how to discuss Africa and its literature without unintentionally othering its cultures and peoples.
Cognitive Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- You will gain an increased understanding of the interface between literature, culture and politics in post/colonial Africa-related contexts.
Disciplinary Specific Learning Outcomes
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- You will have internalised a specific cluster of analytical terms to do with thinking and feeling beyond the nation.
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- You will have read gained an increased understanding of a group of formally innovative and politically emancipatory contemporary African fictions.
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- You will have internalised some of the academic protocols of cross-cultural conversation about literature and culture.
Learning Outcomes
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- You will come closer to being a socially and culturally aware global citizen.
Syllabus
Topics for study typically cover critical debates around the following questions:
* What is a world?
* How was the colonial encounter world-changing?
* How is a modern African city represented in literature as a location of worldly belonging?
* What is the link between African rural locations and notions of home?
* What does it mean be an African?
* What is an Afropolitan?
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Lectures
Seminars
One-on-one discussion and feedback with tutor during office hours
Attentive individual reading
Group work in and (optional) outside of seminars
Individual research
Assessed and non-assessed writing
This module includes a Learning Support Hour. This is a flexible weekly contact hour, 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.
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Seminar | 10 |
| Lecture | 10 |
| Independent Study | 118 |
| Teaching | 12 |
| Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
Internet Resources
Access to module Blackboard site.
Textbooks
Taiye Selasi (2013). Ghana Must Go.
Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1989). Matigari.
Simon Gikandi (2016). The Novel in Africa and the Caribbean since 1950.
Achebe, Chinua (2010 [1964]). The Arrow of God.
Bessie Head (1968 [2006]). When Rain Clouds Gather.
Tejumola Olaniyan and Ato Quayson (2007). African Literature, An Anthology of Criticism and Theory.
Doris Lessing (1950). The Grass is Singing.
Amos Tutuola (1952). The Palm-Wine Drinkard.
Assessment
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Analytical essay | 60% |
| Analytical essay | 40% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Analytical essay | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External