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ENGL8003 Cultural Formations

Offered By School of Humanities
Academic Career Graduate Coursework
Course Subject English
Offered in First Semester, 2009
Unit Value 12 units
Course Description

FROM THE JAZZ AGE TO THE HUNGRY YEARS
INTERWAR LITERATURE, 1919 - 1939

This course focuses on the literature (novels, stories, poetry, essays and magazines) that emerged in the period between the two World Wars. We will look at writers' responses to the Great War, the Crash, the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Hitler in Germany. We will also see what they've got to say about Freud, flappers, technology, the city, jazz, modern art and the cinema. There will be a special focus on what Gertrude Stein called the 'The Lost Generation' - American writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway who lived and worked in Paris in the 1920's.

Learning Outcomes On satisfying the requirements for this course, students will further develop analytic and evaluative skills, begun at undergraduate level. Students will learn the value of a theoretical approach to study of canonical and popular American texts and will discover new ways of thinking about the role of authorship in contemporary consumer culture.
Indicative Assessment

In order to pass this course, students must pass 60 % (in total) of the following assessment tasks:

1 x Oral Seminar presentation (10% of mark)

1 x 2000 word write up of seminar presentation (30% of mark)

1 x 3500 word major essay (60% of mark)

Workload Contact Hours: 1 x 2 hour seminar per week (26 hours per semester).
Course Classification(s) AdvancedAdvanced courses are designed for students having reached 'first degree' level of assumed knowledge, which provide a deep understanding of contemporary issues; or 'second degree' and higher levels of knowledge; or for transition to research training programs.
Areas of Interest English
Eligibility Students enrolled in this course would normally have obtained at least a Bachelor of Arts degree, with a major in English in which most of the grades are at Credit level or better. Consideration will also be given to those students with a good Bachelor's degree, or equivalent, with no English major.
Assumed Knowledge and
Required Skills
Skills in critical analysis and essay writing abilities.
Prescribed Texts

F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920)

Katherine Mansfield, Bliss and Other Stories (1922)

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1925)

D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

Elizabeth Bowen, The Last September (1929)

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938)

Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight (1939)

Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (1939)

Course reader (including writers such as e.e. cummings, W.H. Auden, William Faulkner, Cyril Connolly)

 

Academic Contact Dr Melinda Harvey

The information published on the Study at ANU 2009 website applies to the 2009 academic year only. All information provided on this website replaces the information contained in the Study at ANU 2008 website.

Updated:   13 Nov 2015 / Responsible Officer:   The Registrar / Page Contact:   Student Business Solutions