Literary Studies, an introduction

Course goals

Students:

• Consider literature as a cultural phenomenon
• Reflect academically on (the history of) the ethical and aesthetic aspects of literature
• Critically engage with different theoretical movements and texts
• Identify a number of case studies in different contexts in which literary texts have influenced social debates
• Acquire a supra-lingual perspective on literature (i.e. beyond the linguistic)
• Reflect on these issues in an academic way using academic forms
• Achieve an intermediate level of academic writing in English

Content

Literature is a cultural and aesthetic phenomenon that takes on many different forms in different periods, regions, and languages. In all of these forms, literature reflects in one way or another the society in which it emerges. In this course you learn to think about the complex relations between literature and society and to write and speak about them in an academic way. We consider the characteristics of narrative, interpretation, poetics, and textuality, and place literary texts and analyses in specific historical and cultural contexts. In this course students will consider these questions via the analysis of one novel from a number of key theoretical perspectives in literary studies, such as narratology, memory studies, and reader-response theory. 

Additional information

Students of the BA-programme Celtic Languages and Culture can only take this course in odd years.

This course has priority rules and a waiting list. Your enrolment is guaranteed if you are: 

• a student in the BA English Language and Culture.
• a student TCS enrolled in the hoofdrichting Middeleeuwen en Renaissance.  
• an exchange student and meet the course’s entry requirements.

In all other situations, you will be placed on a waiting list if you enrol in this course. For any remaining slots in the course, lots are drawn among the students on the waiting list.