ATS1515 - Reading across cultures - 2019

Literature is often seen as an aspect of a specific culture, but some of the world's most memorable and significant literary works are about journeys between cultures and the crossing of boundaries beyond one's own cultural horizons. This unit is an investigation of a number of key literary and cultural texts that explore concepts of cultural difference and offer insights into diverse cultural environments. These texts produce new and provocative ways of looking at how humans have negotiated and continue to negotiate cultural identities in, transnational and global contexts. This unit offers students the opportunity to study a range of texts that bring to light connections between and among cultures.

Students who successfully complete the unit should be able to:

1. Critically evaluate literary and cultural texts from a variety of different cultures;
2. Understand these texts in terms of their geographical, historical and socio-political contexts;
3. Discuss and analyse these texts from literary, theoretical and critical perspectives;
4. Form an appreciation of the notion of cross-cultural literary communication.

Within semester assessment: 100%

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

Cultural competence

Monash Intercultural lab