Postgraduate - UnitAPR6724 - Literary and cultural theory: An overview

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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0 points, SCA Band 1, 0.000 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Offered	Clayton First semester 2014 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Professor Susan Kossew

Synopsis

The unit aims to establish the theoretical and methodological foundations for the analysis of literary and cultural texts. These will be examined from a range of contemporary theoretical perspectives. Approaches may include some of the following: postcolonial, eco-critical, new materialist, gender theory, semiotic, aesthetic, new media and post-structural. Each of these approaches will be examined for their respective accounts of literary and cultural theory and method. Students will be asked to consider the possible relevance of these approaches to their proposed research.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the unit, students should be able to:

demonstrate an advanced-level understanding of various influential attempts to establish theoretical and methodological foundations for the analysis of literature and culture;
articulate and practise the analytical skills, theoretical vocabularies and conceptual apparatuses necessary for literary and cultural studies at postgraduate level;
access the critical and expressive resources necessary to write clear, concise, accurate and independent essays on topics related to the readings;
consider the possible relevance to their own proposed research topic of the theoretical approaches discussed in this unit;
benefit from authentic academic assessments that are relevant to researchers in literary and cultural studies.

Assessment

Abstract for conference paper (200 words)
Conference paper (2,000 words)
Journal article (5,000 words)
Weekly log (1,800 words)
Total assessment: 100%

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Susan Kossew

Workload requirements

One 2-hour seminar per week

Prohibitions

APG6724