Discipline of English,
NationalUniversity of Ireland,
Galway
Visiting Students
COURSE OUTLINE
Semester 2
2017-2018
Visiting Student Academic Co-ordinator:
Mrs Bernadette O’Sullivan, Room 336, Ext 2777
Floor 2, Arts Millennium Building
Visiting Student Administrative Co-ordinator:
Ms. Irene O’Malley, Room 511, Ext 2567
Floor 3, Tower 1, Arts/Science Building
Discipline of English Guidelines for Visiting Students
Please read the following carefully:
- Each Lecture and Seminar Course is worth 5 ECTS.
- Visiting Students may take as many Lecture Courses from the options available in 2BA and 3BA as their timetable allows. (Please note some lectures are capped and some lectures are on at the same time.)
- Only ONE Seminar Course per semester is allowed to be taken by any student.
- Semester 2 Lecture classes commence on Monday, 15th January while Seminar classes will commence on Monday, 22nd January.
- Registration for Discipline of English seminars:
Students must fill out the seminar registration form (available at the Advisory Session in the Bailey Allen Hall on 12th January) and return to the box in the Discipline of English by Wednesday, 17th January at 12 noon.
- All lecture courses are assessed by essay only.
- All seminar courses are assessed by continuous assessment and a final essay/portfolio.
Lecture Courses Semester 2, 2017-2018
EN385 drama and theatre studies
This course is an introduction to some of the key elements of late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century dramatic writing, dramaturgy and theatre history. We pay special attention to the ways in which meanings are produced by theatre through acting and directional practice, as well as to the various ways in which the theatre functions as a social and cultural institution. Naturalistic, modernist and postmodernist forms of theatre are considered in relation to a number of case studies. In the latter half of the course, the focus will be on how contemporary dramatists explore such issues as globalisation, climate change, terrorism, and contemporary business.
Venue: / Thursday 12-1 IT250 IT Building, 1st Floor and Thursday 3-4 AC003 Darcy Thompson TheatreLecturers: / Prof. Lionel Pilkington and Prof. Patrick Lonergan
Texts: / Students must read the following plays as well as a number of specified readings which will be posted on Blackboard. Most plays below may be read via the“Drama Online” database, which is accessible via the university library’s website, but if possible and if affordable, Prof Pilkington would prefer the use of printed texts for his section of the module. Prof Pilkington’s texts will be available for sale in Charlie Byrnes bookshop.
• Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (Nick Hern)
• Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (Faber and Faber)
• Harold Pinter, The Homecoming (Faber and Faber)
• Caryl Churchill, Serious Money (Drama Online)
• Caryl Churchill, Far Away (Drama Online)
• Lucy Prebble, Enron (Drama Online)
• Lucy Kirkwood, Chimerica (Drama Online)
• Simon Stephens, Pornography (Drama Online)
Assessment: / End-of-Semester Essay (100%)
EN2125 Studies in medieval literature
This course explores Sir Gawain and the Green Knight(anonymous, late fourteenth century), Chaucer’sKnight’s Tale(1380s), and Book III of Edmund Spenser’sFaerie Queene(1590).All three of these poems are usually described asromances, two of them dating from the late fourteenth century and one from the late sixteenth. All three are about knights, and about love, violence and the enormous problems of divine order and human conduct. Our focus will be on a close reading of these poems, exploring their form and meaning. Along the way we will ask several questions that pertain to the study of literature as a whole. What is the genre of ‘romance’? And what, for that matter, is ‘genre’? Does it survive across centuries? How meaningful are the conventional terms for different periods in literary history, such as ‘Renaissance’ and ‘medieval’? And how do these poems themselves understand and depict the force and function of poetry?
Venue: / Wednesday 10-11 AUC-G002 Theatre, Aras Ui Chathail and Thursday 3-4 Kirwan TheatreLecturers: / Dr. Clíodhna Carney and Dr. Dermot Burns
Texts: /
- Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: Fifteen Tales and the General Prologue, ed. Glending Olson, 2nd edition (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2005).
- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. A. C. Hamilton, rev. ed. (Longman, 2007) OR Edmund Spenser's Poetry, ed. Hugh MacLean and Anne Lake Prescott, third edition (New York: Norton, 1993)
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, W. R. J. Barron, ed., revised edition (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998)
Assessment:End-of-Semester Essay (100%)
EN2151SCIENCE FICTION AND SPECULATIVE FICTION
Once a cultural outlier, science fiction has become one of contemporary culture's most popular forms. This
course will examine some of the most significant works of science fiction and 'speculative fiction', its less
nerdish companion. We will explore the genre’s literary genealogy from the post-apocalyptic fiction of Mary
Shelley's The Last Man (1826) through the so-called 'golden age' of cold war science fiction to its present
day status as mainstream literature in works such as Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake (2003). Studying a range of
texts, this course will ask students to think comparatively about the works under discussion, making
connections between them as well as striving to situate the texts in their specific historical and social
contexts. We will think about how such fiction explores what it means to be human in a technologically
changing world; writing the anthropocene era; the politics of science and speculation; imagining humanity
and the forms of the future.
Venue:Monday 5-6 AM250 Colm O’hEocha Theatre and Tuesday 3-4 IT250 IT Building
Lecturers:Dr. Rebecca Barr, Dr. Muireann O’Cinneide and Dr. Elizabeth Tilley
Texts:Full reading list TBC.
Core texts will include
Mary Shelley, The Last Man (1826) (recommended ed. Morton D. Paley Oxford UP 2008);
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895) (recommended ed. Patrick Parrinder, intro. Marina Warner Penguin 2005);
Extracts from Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (1950);
Russell Hoban, Riddley Walker (1980);
William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984);
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2003);
Ann Leckie, Ancillary Justice (2013)
Students wishing to read ahead should begin with Shelley.
Assessment:End-of-Semester Essay (100%)
EN2134media, culture, society
This course will provide students with an understanding of our contemporary media environment, with attention to both Irish and international examples. Students will learn about the operation of the media industries, and will gain the ability to critically assess both media texts and the structures that shape them. The materials studied in the module include a number of cinematic works, which will be screened in the evening. These will include The Wire, Season 1, Episode 1, Invincible (Ericson Core, 2006), amongst others. Lectures on this material will be predicated on students being familiar with the work discussed, either by way of the screenings provided or through independent viewings.
Venue:Monday 5-6 IT250 IT Building and Tuesday 3-4 O’Flaherty Theatre
Lecturers:Dr. Andrew Ó Baoill, Dr. Conn Holohan and Dr. Seán Crosson
Texts:Supplementary Reader: Laurie Ouellette (Editor),The Media Studies Reader, Routledge [ISBN: 9780415801256]
Assessment:End-of-Semester Essay (100%)
ENG203.E GENRES STUDIES
This course explores ideas ofliterary genre through the prism of the novel. It willconsider the characteristics that constitute thegenre, how texts challenge and problematise generic conventions, and how theyreflect andengage with the specific contexts of their production. Focussing on a variedselection of modern and more historical novels, the course will explore narration and narrative forms; travel and slavery;classification issues and generic instability; realism and the problematising of romance; gender and genre; theories of genrewill also be examined.
Venue:Tuesday 5-6 AM250 Colm O’hEocha Theatre and Wednesday 9-10 IT250 IT Building
Lecturers:Dr. Rebecca Barr and Dr. Kerry Sinanan
Texts:(not in order)
Mansfield Park,Jane Austen(Broadview Editions, 2001)
Oroonoko,Aphra Behn(Oxford World Classics, 2009)
Foe, J.M. Coetze (Penguin, 2010)
Memoirs of Emma Courtney, Mary Hays (Oxford World's Classics, 2009)
Memoirs of a Justified Sinner, JamesHogg (Oxford World's Classics
I Love Dick, Chris Kraus (Profile Books, 2016)
Beloved, Toni Morrison (Vintage, 2011)
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys (Penguin, 2007)
Assessment:End-of-Semester Essay (100%)
ENG302.E MODERNISM/POSTMODERNISM
This course will introduce and explore two major cultural periodisations of the twentieth century: modernism and postmodernism. While emphasis will be on readings of literature in English, the wider geographical and cultural contexts will be discussed and parallel developments in other arts (including visual arts and architecture) will be explored.
Venue: / Wednesday 2-3 IT250 IT Building and Thursday 11-12 IT250 IT BuildingLecturers: / Prof. Sean Ryder
Texts: / ENG302 Course Reader (available from Print That, with other texts made available on Blackboard)
Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway (Oxford paperback)
Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (Penguin)
Assessment: / End-of-Semester Essay (100%)
EN388.ESTUDIES IN MODERN IRISH LITERATURE
This course introduces students to the rich, diverse and innovative drama of Irish playwrights and novelists and the politics of performance and prose in the twentieth century. It charts the movement in Irish theatre from the creation of the Irish National Theatre, the Abbey Theatre, to the present day, and explores the experimental prose that grew from the century’s cultural changes. Plays ranging from the works of Lady Gregory and W.B. Yeats to those of Brian Friel and Marina Carr will introduce students to the social, political, and cultural tensions, complexities and motives inherent in the making of Irish theatre during the Celtic Revival, the Irish Republic, the Troubles and Celtic Tiger Ireland. Pioneering prose writing by James Joyce, Flann O’Brien, and Samuel Beckett explores selfhood, language, madness, and the constrictions and liberations of Irish identity and foreignness, taking modern and postmodern fiction to new places. By the end of the course students will be able to analyze and contrast a range of plays and prose written in a variety of styles, and develop arguments exploring how literature relates to changing issues in society, politics, and culture in Ireland and elsewhere throughout the twentieth century.
Venue: Monday 4-5 O’Flaherty Theatre, and Friday 1-2 AC002 Anderson Lecture Theatre
Lecturers:Dr. Adrian Paterson and Dr. Ian Walsh
Texts:John Harrington (ed), Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama (Norton)
James Joyce, Dubliners (1914)
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)
Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds (1939)
Samuel Beckett, Six Residua (1978)
Note: Students are urged only to buy the editions mentioned above, as cheaper editions often contain uncorrected errors that will impede your appreciation and understanding of the text.
Assessment:End-of-Semester Essay (100%)
LIST OF SEMINARS (SEMESTERS 2)
You may choose ONE seminar each semester
STUDENTS MUST TAKE A DIFFERENT SEMINAR COURSE EACH SEMESTER. STUDENTS MAY NOT TAKE TWO SEMINARS WITH THE SAME COURSE TITLE EVEN IF THE COURSE CODE IS DIFFERENT.
Code / Seminar Title / VenueEN278.II / MILTON’S POETRY
Dr. Felicity Maxwell
This course focuses on John Milton’s biblical epic Paradise Lost. Composed during the Restoration period by a committed (and defeated) republican, the poem tells the story of Adam and Eve, their fall from Eden, and the conflict between Satan and God. The seminar’s primary aim is to facilitate a close reading of Milton’s poem, while also referring to seminal critical interpretations. We will explore the poem’s treatment of character and motivation, good and evil, free will, gender, politics, marriage, and literary epic. We will compare Milton’s poetic representations with extracts from the King James Bible and explore how the political, theological, and philosophical contexts of the seventeenth century inform Milton’s reading of the biblical narrative of Genesis.
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment, comprised of one oral presentation (10%) and one written assignment (20%); 70% final essay. / Monday 11-1
IT206, IT Building
EN298.II / SPENSER: THE FAERIE QUEENE
Dr. Clíodhna Carney
Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590s) is one those very rare works of art into which a whole culture seems to have been poured. There is everything in it: love, sex, evil, religion, theories of government, philosophy, violence, slavery, perversion. And above all, brilliant poetry. Spenser was looking in two directions: back to the literature of Virgil, and forwards through the political and religious change of his own time into a hypothetical future world. Our class will involve a close reading of Books 1 and 2, and students can bring all sorts of other interests to bear on our discussions: history, science, philosophy, political science, mythology, classics.
Text: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. A. C. Hamilton, rev. ed. (Longman, 2007).
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (4 short written assignments: 20% (i.e. 4 x 5%); one panel discussion: 5%, one debate: 5%) and one long end-of-term essay: 70%. / Wednesday 1-3
TB306, Tower 2
EN410.II / JANE AUSTEN
Dr. Muireann O’Cinneide
This seminar explores a selection of the writings of Jane Austen (1775-1817), one of the best-loved and most critically-admired novelists in English literature. The module begins with some of Austen’s earliest work, tracing a transition in her narrative voice from gleeful parody to pointed satire to a distinctive ironic mode. It then examines how she refined this ironic mode into a powerful tool of ethical commentary through discussion of two of Austen’s most complex and misunderstood mature novels. We will also consider the present-day cultural production of Austen as author through modern cinematic/television adaptations and literary pastiches.
Main Texts: “Love and Freindship” (~1790); “Lady Susan” (~1794); Northanger Abbey (1818); Mansfield Park (1814); Emma (1815). Oxford University Press editions (where possible), esp. the 2008 edition for NA (which includes “LS”).
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (20% individual presentation and class activities; 10% written assignment(s)); 70% final essay. / Wednesday 3-5
TB306, Tower 2
EN434.II / STUDIES IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY FICTION
James Joyce's Early Fiction
Dr. Irina Ruppo
This course will examine James Joyce’s first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and some of his short stories. We shall consider various conflicting approaches to the texts and develop new interpretations through class discussions and debates. Texts: James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; ‘Araby’; ‘The Dead’; ‘An Encounter’.
Assessment: 10% participation, 20% two short written assignments and 70% for final essay. / Friday 11-1
TB305, Tower 2
EN444.II / PAIN AND PLEASURE IN JACOBEAN THEATRE
Prof. Lionel Pilkington
Jacobean drama is well known for its often-spectacular stage explorations of sexual transgression and social punishment. This course considers four of the most famous of these plays, and examines the relationship between theatricality, social order, power and sexual desire. The main emphasis of the course will be on close textual analysis, and to that end a detailed knowledge of all four plays will be essential. As well as class presentations, there will be two short critical essays.
Texts: William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (Penguin);
John Webster,The Duchess of Malfi(Nick Hern Books);
Thomas Middleton and John Rowley’s The Changeling (NHB or New Mermaids); John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (NHB or Revels New Student Edition).
Assessment: 30% for continuous assessment (15% for a short [1000 word max] essay and 15% for general class participation including completion of a one page in-class analysis). 70% for final (2,000 word max) essay. / Thursday 9-11
TB304 Tower 2
EN448.II / STORIES TOLD AND RE-TOLD
Dr. Irina Ruppo
The course examines authors’ use and adaptation of folkloric and mythological material in their works. The course examines a variety of early modernist and contemporary texts alongside earlier materials alluded in or explored by those texts. Straddling the perceived divide between popular fiction and classic literary works, the course considers the writing of W. B. Yeats, minor authors of the Irish Revival, J.R.R. Tolkien, James Joyce, John Updike, and Douglas Adams. The course enables students to query the nature of literary production and reception across different time periods. It allows them to explore why authors choose to underpin their works by references to well known narratives, and, conversely, why authors choose to revive forgotten legends.
Assessment: 10%: class participation; 20%: two short assignments; 70%: final paper (2500 words). / Tuesday 1-3
Room 202, Block S
EN2100 / CREATIVE WRITING
Mr. Mike McCormack
Please note: This seminar is not available to students of the BA with Creative Writing
Where do we start when writing a piece of fiction – voice, image or character? How do we develop story lines with credible characters? What about endings - how do we recognise them and what is the difference between a good ending and a bad one. Are there experiments and structures we can use to help us along? How necessary is the redrafting process and what is to be gained by it? And finally, when our piece of fiction is finished where do we look to send it. Over ten weeks and by way of prompts, exercises and reading assignments we will explore all these different aspects of fiction writing. Assessment: 30% continuous assessment and 70% for final portfolio / Thursday 9-11
TB306, Tower 2
EN2101 / CREATIVE WRITING
Mr.Martin Keaveney
Please note: This seminar is not available to students of the BA with Creative Writing
This seminar will provide students with an arena for the cultivation of new material as well as offering practical skills in the basics of creative writing. We will discuss choice of medium, genre and explore techniques of process, development, revision and preparation. Students will be assessed on submissions of both their own creative writing and their critique and review of other participants’ submissions. The course will therefore be of benefit to those wishing to pursue a career in creative writing and also to those wishing to pursue more critical aspects of the craft, such as publishing, reviewing, and editing.
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment — written exercises and 70% final submission — creative writing portfolio. / Monday 2-4