Module Information
Course Delivery
Assessment
| Assessment Type | Assessment length / details | Proportion |
|---|---|---|
| Semester Assessment | Written Assignment English Literature: 1 x 5000 word comparative essay Creative Writing: 3000 words creative piece, 2000 word commentary | 100% |
| Supplementary Assessment | Written Assignment English Literature: 1 x 5000 word comparative essay Creative Writing: 3000 words creative piece, 2000 word commentary | 100% |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this module students should be able to:
Generate their own comparative critical and/or creative readings of Queer writing from the early 20th century to the present.
Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the literary, cultural and philosophical concerns of Queer writing from the long 20th century.
Engage meaningfully with relevant critical debates and developments in the fields of Queer literature and relevant areas of Queer Theory.
Discuss queer writing and queer theory in a critically-informed, focused, and well-structured manner.
Brief description
This module covers a wide range of queer writing from the early 20th century through to its end. It will also introduce students to the debates bookending this period, which our texts spring from and which they go on to shape. Beginning with late-Victorian sexology (such as Edward Carpenter’s philosophy of gender and its impact on E. M. Forster), it traces a through line of resistance to heteronormativity, threading through social satire of the 1920s (Lolly Willowes, 1926), intersectional depictions of the impact of mid-century misogyny, homophobia and coming of age in James Baldwin’s Go Tell It On the Mountain (1953) and Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt (Carol) (1952). The poet and activist Audre Lorde’s ground-breaking essays and poetry from the 1970s onwards introduces us to American Black lesbian experience; we then move to the writing of the Thatcher and HIV-AIDS era with Jeanette Winterson and Alan Hollinghurst’s early work, ending with Hollinghurst's novel The Swimming Pool Library, which reflects on the gay world depicted in Forster's Maurice and asks how far things have changed in the twentieth century.
Content
Contact time: 20 hours
Preparation for seminars: 20 hours
Reading of primary texts: 80 hours
Research for assignments: 80 hours
Content
E. M. Forster, Maurice (1913-14, revised 1939, 1959-60; published posthumously in 1971)
Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes (1926)
Virginia Woolf, Orlando (1928)
Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) (1952)
James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain (1953)
Audre Lorde Your Silence Will Not Protect You: selected poems and essays (2017)
Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (1985)
Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming Pool Library (1988)
Module Skills
| Skills Type | Skills details |
|---|---|
| Adaptability and resilience | Students will be supported in developing independent learning patterns and skills, and hone their analytical skills. |
| Co-ordinating with others | Students will form a learning community within their seminar group. |
| Creative Problem Solving | Students will be required to write either an essay or a creative piece and commentary which develops their creative problem solving skills. |
| Critical and analytical thinking | Students will be supported in developing their critical and analytical thinking skills in seminars and in their written work. |
| Professional communication | Students will be supported in developing their communication skills in seminars and in their written work. |
| Real world sense | Students will be supported in applying the insights gained during the module to the world around them. |
| Reflection | Students will be encouraged to reflect on the texts studied, the critical and cultural contexts they were produced in and in which we are studying them, and on their own practice. |
Notes
This module is at CQFW Level 7