Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An Introduction to the study of literature within the wider cultural field, with a focus on contemporary issues across genres and media. Students with credit for ENGL 105W may not take this course for further credit. Writing/Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Literature and Culture: Strong Subcultures

To what extent does culture matter in a novel? How does literature serve to represent and communicate culture, both within a cultural group and beyond? This course explores five novels set in the present day whose representations of culture overlap in various ways, at the levels of folklore (folk culture), subculture, and dominant culture.

Three novels are Canadian, of which two are from British Columbia, but each of the three is set among a different group: Caribbean Canadians, Chinese Canadians, and the indigenous Haisla people. In addition to taking these works on their own terms, the course will explore how their intersections represents Canadian culture, and what effect the omission or dimunition of white anglophone / francophone voices in fiction has.

The two British novels, like Monkey Beach, deal with issues of colonialism, but using speculative fiction to imagine post-colonial alternatives, with a fully Roman Britain in one and an independent Wales in another. Both raise the issue of culturally fraught issue of bilingualism. Three of the five novels have young adult protagoists; likewise, three are works by female authors with female central characters.

The focus on culture allows a thorough exploration of the kinds of diverse voices that make up contemporary fiction and the different issues they can raise.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Above all, this is a writing course. There are two short papers. Each student will give feedback to and receive feedback from other students on the papers, as well as receiving feedback from the instructor; the papers will be resubmitted after revision. By the end of the course, you should be comfortable writing fluently in formal standard Canadian English, including the conventions of punctuation and grammar used in the formal language. Other writing skills include citation, organization, structure, argument, and clear communication. The focus is on how to write effectively about literature, but the skills being built are crucial to success in every field.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: