ATS3189 - Literary theory - 2019

What is the relationship between reading and thinking?. And what are the particular ways of thinking that help and enrich how we read fiction, poetry, drama and literary non-fiction?. Literary theory refers to particular intellectual approaches or frameworks that assist us with understanding, enjoying, constructing meaning from and discussing literary texts. This unit provides a succinct and practical approach to the topic of literary theory. It provides students with the philosophical foundations of modern literary theory, and also with informative and interactive seminars on the contemporary schools of literary theory such as Marxist theory, psychoanalytic theory, poststructuralist theory, feminist theory and postcolonial theory. The unit then instructs the students on how to apply these theoretical approaches to the study of their favourite literary works, and it also provides those students interested in creative writing with the opportunity to develop their own literary and exegetical writings according to the insights of some of the world's major theorists of literature.

On successful completion of the unit, students will be able to:

1. discriminate between the major schools of literary theory;
2. explain some key critical and theoretical topics in literary theory;
3. critically read and interpret literary texts ;
4. produce a new work, in either poetry, fiction or literary non-fiction (Creative Writing stream students only).

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

Literary studies