The discipline has changed and expanded greatly during the course of the twentieth century in response to shifting perceptions and theories of what literacy and literature is or should be. Critical literacy now demands that students be able to respond to and to produce a much greater variety of kinds of texts. An increased focus on critical and literary theory in its various forms, historical and contemporary, is now a core element of the subject. This focus brings with it the need to understand and be explicit about the way `knowledge' is produced within the discipline. The contemporary forms of the discipline, under the impact of critical and literary theory, are frequently interdisciplinary in nature. It is the interdisciplinary nature of these new ways of thinking, speaking and writing `English' which makes our links with the Centre for Drama and Theatre Studies and with the Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies so important.
Learning objectives
As a consequence of these changes it is no longer possible for anyone to control the entire field of what is called English studies. There are, however, still a number of areas in which students taking a major or minor in English should be competent upon completion of their courses. Students should have:
* a familiarity with a range of genres, spoken and written, literary and non-literary, across a broad historical and cultural spectrum, and competence in reading and writing, and writing and speaking about, a representative selection of such genres;
* an understanding of contemporary and historical modes of literary and critical theory;
* an understanding of the nature and construction of the discipline of English, including its historical and contemporary forms.
The department therefore offers a number of different pathways through the discipline which will provide competence in these key areas. It also offers explicit consultation and advice on subject choice at first-year, second/third-year and fourth-year levels to ensure that suitable and coherent sequences are chosen.
The overall intention is to produce students who have a commitment to the value and importance of literary and textual studies in themselves and in relation to their cultural heritage; a tolerance and appreciation of human difference, arrived at through an engagement with the imaginative construction of different perspectives; a critical and reflective approach to received theories and opinions; an awareness of the complex and conditional nature of knowledge, heightened by experience of the multiple interpretive possibilities available within the literary and textual fields of the discipline; a sense of personal responsibility and accountability in their critical work; a flexibility and readiness to take new initiatives while showing a sensitivity to the ideas and approaches of others; and an interest in learning that will last well beyond the years of their university experience.
Undergraduate pass level
At first-year undergraduate level students are introduced to these key areas of English through a choice of three two-semester first-year subject sequences. The choice allows students to begin to follow a particular pathway in first year (eg a specialisation in literature, in textual analysis, or in theatre studies). However, as each of the sequences is structured around the three key learning objectives, students still have considerable flexibility of choice at the end of first year. All first-year sequences provide introductions to the historical and contemporary study of literature (novel, poetry and drama) and to aspects of literary and critical theory. All begin to teach students a variety of modes of reading and of speaking and writing about what they read.
Second and third-year subjects build on this foundation by providing extended or more intensive coverage of areas introduced in first year. Some subjects emphasise the study of language, style or genre, some the critical and scholarly methods of studying and writing about literature and other kinds of cultural texts, others consider literature in a context of social history and the history of ideas, and others again study literature in its relations to film, the media, the visual arts and popular culture. Some subjects may combine a number of these approaches. All are structured around our three key learning objectives, although obviously the emphasis and disciplinary content varies from subject to subject.
Assessment and teaching modes are flexible and adapted to the specific learning objectives of particular courses.
Students completing a major at third-year level should have acquired competence in the three key areas specified above and have well-developed discipline-based skills which will have emerged from the particular pathway they have chosen through the discipline.
Fourth year
The aims of the fourth year are to develop further the three key areas of competence listed above.
Students are required to attend a compulsory four-week introduction to disciplinary methodology at the beginning of the year and to pass its assessment before proceeding.
The core element in fourth year is a compulsory subject in one of two specified areas of critical theory. Both encourage students to work towards explicit discussion of theory and of the nature of knowledge within the discipline.
The thesis is a training in research methodology and practice, and should produce an understanding and a critical awareness of the way in which knowledge is constructed, and spoken and written, in the discipline.
All aspects of the fourth year require the development of spoken and written skills in communication and a critical understanding of the discipline-specific skills involved in the writing of the thesis and the successful completion of core and optional subjects.
Courses
The Department of English offers a variety of subjects in the literatures of Britain, America and Australia, in children's literature, in women's writing, in postcolonial literature and theory, in literary and critical theory, in literary semiotics, in critical discourse analysis, and in writing.
In order to assist students on the Clayton campus to make appropriate choices in their second and third years, the department will hold each year (prior to the second/third-year enrolment) an information session for intending second/third-year students. Staff will be available in the department at this time to give advice on students' subject choices. Students will be informed of the date, time and place of this session in lectures and on noticeboards.
A similar information session is held every year before the end of second semester for intending fourth-year honours students. Students are advised to consult the course recommendations at the beginning of the four-year honours entry before choosing their subjects for second and third year.
Students should also note that the degree structure on the Caulfield campus gives prominence to subjects relating to literature and film, that subjects in creative writing are offered at the Peninsula campus, and that children's literature is available at Caulfield, Clayton and Peninsula.
The department regards attendance at tutorials and seminars as compulsory. Students will be penalised for non-attendance.
Qualifications for fourth-year honours
Entry to fourth-year honours depends upon completion of a major sequence in English with at least credit level results in subjects to the value of twenty-four points at second and third-year level combined, of which sixteen points must be at third-year level. Further advice on desirable major sequences for the purpose of entering fourth-year honours will be given by the department at the time of enrolment at second and third-year entry.
Graduate work
At the graduate level the department offers a research MA and a PhD across a wide range of literary, cultural and theoretical studies. Library holdings for research are strong in the following areas: pre-1800 literature and culture including Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and poetry; seventeenth-century literature; eighteenth-century literature, in particular Swift and his milieu; American and Australian literature; nineteenth-century periodical and literary journalism; and bibliography and textual criticism. Staff research interests are diverse and cover all historical periods from Old English to the present, with particular strengths in pre-1800 literature, national literatures (American, Australian), genre studies (particularly drama), biography, women's studies, and bibliographical and textual criticism. For further information students should consult the graduate studies handbook.