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for a past academic year. Please see the current academic year for up to date information.
| Unit name |
European Literature of Ideas |
| Unit code |
MODLM2044 |
| Credit points |
20 |
| Level of study |
M/7
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
|
| Unit director |
Professor. Stephens |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department |
School of Modern Languages |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Arts |
Description including Unit Aims
This unit explores the key discourses in Europe from the Renaissance to present day, notably: Humanism, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and (Post) Modernism. The unit will be team-taught by specialists in at least three major areas (as a typical minimum: French, German, Russian), drawing upon a broad but coherent range of examples from a 'literature of ideas' within the European tradition. The precise choice of texts will vary from year to year, but major contributions to each period will be selected so as to facilitate a comparison of the insights and blind-spots at work in each. The unit will evaluate a variety of critical responses and in so doing also explore the changing fortunes of the 'self' as a recurring theme since 1500, from the ultimate locus of personal identity with Humanism to the brutally stripped-down subjectivity of Postmodernism. Emphasis will be placed on the intersections and tensions between these various discourses, with particular attention to the contexts in which these movements unfold.
Intended Learning Outcomes
- Knowledge and understanding of major strands of European thought, literature, history and culture
- Knowledge and understanding of the commonalities and diversity of European culture, broadly defined
- Students will be able to interpret and evaluate literary and other works and cultural/historical/intellectual trends
- Students will be able to synthesise information from a variety of sources, evaluate competing interpretations and make reasoned academic judgements
- Students will be able to compare the textual and other cultural products of different cultures, making fresh and imaginative connections between disparate material Students will be able to critically survey, analyse and interpret complex texts
- Students will be able to communicate effectively and present a cogent and comprehensive argument, both orally and in writing
- Students will be able to make appropriate use of information technology for research and presentation of work
- Students will be able to undertake research using appropriate source materials
- Students will be able to work independently and to deadlines, to an exacting scholarly level.
Teaching Information
2 hour weekly seminar
Assessment Information
1 x 5000 word essay
Reading and References
Primary reading is dependent on staff research specialisms each year: the following is a list of texts that are typically drawn upon for this unit and that are taught in English translation:
Primary Reading
- Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris (1831)
- Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Sab (1841)
- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872)
- Thomas Mann, Death in Venice (1912)
- Simone de Beauvoir, The Woman Destroyed (1967)
- Javier Marías, Dark Back of Time (1998)
Recommended Introductory Reading
- Booth, Wayne C., The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988)
- Eldridge, Richard (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)
- Lamarque, Peter, The Philosophy of Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2009)
- Nussbaum, Martha, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)
- Rudrum, David (ed.), Literature and Philosophy: a Guide to Contemporary Debates (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
- Turner, Mark, The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)
