Master of Arts - Literary Studies

Course details

Different modules will be taught in different semesters within an academic year. Not all modules listed will necessarily be offered in any given academic year. The Department reserves the right to re-schedule or not to offer certain modules.

The general pre-requisite for all level 5000 modules is admission to a graduate degree programme or the permission of the Department upon recommendation of the instructor.

EN5231 Asian and Other Modernities
Over the last two hundred years, writers in Asia have often struggled with the question of modernity. Initially, indigenous or indigenised modernity offered a means of resisting colonialism and of asserting cultural autonomy; latterly, pan-Asian art forms have been proposed as a means of marketing a distinctively Asian space within globalisation. The module examines a number of comparative case studies of "modern" transcultural literary, historical, and theoretical issues. We will consider how notions of modernity might be applied to our primary texts, and how in turn the texts may interrogate or challenge theoretical models and constructs. This module is targeted at M.A students.

EN5232 Ideological Approaches to Literature
An ideological approach to literature is one that reads not only the primary literature--it also reads the way we read literature. An incisive statement about the necessity of such critical self-consciousness is Fredric Jameson's "Metacommentary", and this essay will guide our reflections on the study of the interrelations between primary literature, criticism and reviews, and tertiary critical engagements with the issues that arise when readers become increasingly self-conscious about the values in play during any act of reading. This matter can be approached from a number of angles, and on its first run the course will concern American literary orientalism in the postwar period

EN5233 Postcolonial Poetry in English
The twentieth century witnessed the growth to maturity of a number of new literary traditions from the nations that arose all over the world after the demise of European colonialism. This module offers an extensive and intensive introduction to these traditions through the genre of poetry in English. The themes, issues, challenges and opportunities that link and differentiate these diverse traditions will be examined through a close study of seven key texts drawn from the new poetic traditions in English from the Caribbean, Africa, and Australasia. Target students: 5000 level; 6000 level.

EN5234 The Postcolonial Novel in English
This module centres on the critical reading of selected anglophone postcolonial novels along with the questions they raise. Issues to be addressed include the articulation of postcolonial identity, postcolonial resistance and revisionism, the representation of history, the relation between postcolonialism and postmodernism. Postcolonial novelists to be studied may include Chinua Achebe, J. M. Coetzee, Wilson Harris, Jamaica Kincaid, George Lamming, V. S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie. Some theoretical readings will be assigned though the emphasis will be on the close reading of primary texts. The module is designed especially for graduate students who want to read selected postcolonial novels in depth.

EN5235 Politics and Literature
EN5235 is a focused examination of the various senses of "political literature". One may say "all literature is ideological", but this course raises doubts that "everything is political" in a significant way. This course examines the differences between "ideology" and "politics" in relation to literature. The course considers works that challenge conventional distinctions such as that between "propaganda" and "literature". Students will test definitions of "the political" on a variety of texts.

EN5236 The Literature of the Asian Diaspora
This module invites students to think across cultures about the literature of Asian peoples in the English-speaking world. Examining literature produced by and about Asians living in Britain, Australia, North America, Africa, and the Caribbean, it probes the similarities and differences in the experience of migration as understood by different Asian groups, as well as by members of the same ethnicity inhabiting different regions. The course traces changes in mainstream attitudes towards Asian immigrants from racist demonisations to model minorities and their effect on literary production. Texts will be complemented by readings in Asian and Asian American Studies and postcolonial theory.

EN5237 Chinese American Literature
This module invites students to consider the literary, cultural, and political significance of Chinese American Literature in the canon we refer to as Asian American Literature. Starting with an analysis of the literary genres favoured by Chinese American authors, this module next proceeds to explore such controlling thematic concerns as the politics of canon formation; the migrant and minority experience, and race and national belonging. This module finally considers how the theoretical discourses of gender, postcolonialism, and diaspora can help propel readings of the Chinese American literary corpus in new and exciting directions.

EN5241 Literature and New Worlds: 1590-1750
From early modern England up into the eighteenth century, English literature registers distinctively a deep fascination with worlds both old and new: Egypt, Africa, China, and India are some examples. In reading critically how different authors in this historical timeline represent old and new worlds in their literary production, this module seeks to analyse the formation of cultural perceptions relating to such topics as (a) the emergence of a colonial and imperial consciousness; (b) the apprehension of cultural difference; (c) the crystallisation of national identity. It offers opportunity for considering the engagements of literature with certain momentous social, historical, and political realities, such as the slave trade and the activities of the British East India Company.

EN5242 Women Novelists
The objectives of this course are to invite students to reflect on and analyse texts by great women novelists. Topics covered include the choice of genre, the relation between narrative structure and psychological experience and their political implications, the nature of the dilemmas at the heart of each text, and the problems of defining and responding to what is specific to womens writing. For M.A.- level students with an interest in womens writing.

EN5243 The Birth of the Critic
The module examines the role of criticism in the crucial period that had seen it evolve into a social institution: the long eighteenth century. It goes beyond tracing the early history of a critic-function to explore its relation to the emerging public sphere of civil society in which the so-called 'reading revolution' had taken place. Selected writings on two key literary figures, Shakespeare and Milton, are examined for the underlying discursive framework granting a critic powers to examine taste and virtue, forge a literary canon, and locate state-culture connections.

EN5244 Shakespeare and Literary Theory
This module approaches Shakespeares plays by considering not only genre and theme, but also their relationship to the development of literary history, including critical theory. The Shakespearean corpus has led to a multitude of critical possibilities, such that the text has lent support for materialism or deconstruction, for patriarchy or feminism, for the secure clichs of the so-called Elizabethan world picture or for their subversion and dissolution. Given the open-endedness of these critical possibilities, what does engaging with Shakespeare reveal about the relationship between text and context, between literary production and particular historical conditions, and the very making of meaning itself?

EN5245 Gothic Properties
This module will train students to read nineteenth and twentieth-century British Literature texts, focusing on gothic novels and their treatment of authority, place and identity. Existing scholarship focuses on the fragmentary and proto-postmodern qualities of gothic narrative and the issue of sites, especially cities and manor houses. This module builds on such scholarship, connecting these perspectives to related themes of property, commodity culture, authority/policing, transnational flows, the body as a nexus of many of these flows, and the implications of these for identity in a modern age. The module will also make connections between these concerns and the larger issues of fissures and dislocations in identity and society in a transnational age.

EN5246 The Nineteenth Century Domestic Novel
This module will examine the genre of the Victorian domestic novel. It will consider both main stream works as well as those by writers who are less read today but who attracted wide readership in their time. As bestsellers, these works are arguably more representative of the common ethos and concerns and yield important insights into the cultural and literary aspects of the period. They also help put in clearer perspective the works of the major writers. Some familiarity with Victorian literature/fiction would be desirable.

EN5252 Movies, Spectatorship and Subjectivity
This course involves a critical interrogation of key theoretical approaches addressing the study of film spectatorship and the ways in which subjectivity is constructed. This module adopts a specialised emphasis on that tradition of film theory associated with a psychoanalytical-textual-apparatus model and offers graduate students an opportunity to engage in in-depth explorations of the key problems and issues associated with this branch of film theory. In examining the highly complex interaction between spectator and text, students will also gain a greater understanding of the ways in which issues such as gender, identity, and ideology intersect with the cinematic/visual text.

EN5253 Writing in the Aftermath
The module addresses issues of historical trauma and cultural memory; through a focus on how such memory is manifested in aesthetic (primarily literary) representation. The module assumes a dual approach to the study of selected texts, requiring attention to the topic of violence and memory on the one hand; and the ethics and politics of representation on the other. Literary texts will illuminate problems of narrative agency, responsibility and testimony in the aftermath of a violent past. The conceptual framework of discussions derives from Maurice Blanchot and his influence on post-structuralism, and from contemporary uses of psychoanalysis by literary theorists.

EN5660 Independent Study
Independent research plays an important role in graduate education. The Independent Study Module is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic in English Literature in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the module. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, programme of study, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. The Head's and/or Graduate Coordinator's approval of the written agreement is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% Continuous Assessment and must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.
Remark: (1) Word limit: 5000 - 6000 words. (2) Workload: Minimum 10 hours per week. The precise breakdown of contact hours, assignment and preparation is to be worked out between the lecturer and the student, subject to Departmental approval.

EN5882 Topics in Cultural Studies
Students will learn about the range of inquiry within the domain of Cultural Studies, gain an understanding of its history, promise, and drawbacks, and undertake a sustained interaction with a specific dimension of the field in an applied manner. Students will get an overview of Cultural Studies, major theorists, major antecedents, applications, limits, debates and potential areas of application, and develop a specific engagement with some aspect of the larger domain.

EN5883 Screen Culture in Southeast Asia
This interdisciplinary will acquaint students with various theoretical approaches to the moving image, and equip them to write critically about contemporary screen cultures of Southeast Asia. Readings will be from media theory, art history and critical theory, as much as film studies. The module encourages students to think beyond the conventions of cinema studies (national cinema, genre, etc), the rationale being that as screen culture spreads beyond industrial cinema, so too should theory and criticism. Films studied will privilege independent and experimental work, video/media art, animation and web based video, emphasising the diversification of moving image practices with video and digital media.

TS5101 Text and Performance
This module provides a broad-based critical and methodological foundation for advanced research in theatre and performance. Taking one example from each of three aspects of performance - a script, a live performance, and a media/cultural performance - the module trains students to examine and compare the critical positions and questions posed by a range of theoretical texts with different approaches, priorities and methodologies. Core topics are the mutually transformational modalities of textuality and performativity, live and mediated performance, and non-traditional critical and performance practices. Students are guided in formulating a research proposal and project, which forms the main coursework component.

TS5211 Classical Theories of Asian Theatre
This module examines the foundations, attitudes, and aesthetic beliefs expressed in the theoretical writings that underpin the three major theatrical traditions of India, China, and Japan. The Natyasastra, the theory of Theatre Unintentional, and the writings of Zeami are studied in relation to their actualisation in the conventions and vocabulary of Sanskrit theatre, Chinese opera, and Noh drama respectively, and their comparison draws points of relation between them that enable a more flexible and comprehensive understanding of shared principles and practices.

TS5212 Asian International Cinema
In recent years, the vitality and currency of Asian cinema has resulted in texts that can no longer be viewed as merely artefacts of a particular culture or nation. This module looks at how film industries in Asia have engaged with global cinema through various forms of negotiations that assert, compromise or consume national, cultural or conventional distinctions. We assess the implications of a conglomerate Asian cinema by examining the current trend of transnational Asian films, the translatability of conventions and adaptability of ideas within Asia itself as well as between Asia and dominant cinemas like Hollywood.

TS5232 Performance, History and Cultural Memory
How do societies use performance to mediate between the past and the present? This module addresses the question by considering the place of performance in the forging of history, the use of performance analysis as a means of gaining insights into historical events, and the function of performance as a process of remembering. Combining historical case studies and contemporary performances from local, regional and international contexts from colonial encounters and memorial rituals to trauma plays historiography is studied alongside the ways in which theatrical and other performances play a role in both reinforcing and challenging prevailing cultural memories.

TS5660 Independent Study
Independent research plays an important role in graduate education. The Independent Study Module is designed to enable the student to explore an approved topic in Theatre Studies in depth. The student should approach a lecturer to work out an agreed topic, readings, and assignments for the module. A formal, written agreement is to be drawn up, giving a clear account of the topic, programme of study, assignments, evaluation, and other pertinent details. The Head's and/or Graduate Coordinator's approval of the written agreement is required. Regular meetings and reports are expected. Evaluation is based on 100% Continuous Assessment and the balance of written and other components must be worked out between the student and the lecturer prior to seeking departmental approval.
Remark: (1) Word limit: 4000 - 6000 words, the lower limit being permissible only where the project involves a substantial amount of practical work, and is agreed with the supervisor. (2) Workload: Minimum 10 hours per week. The precise breakdown of contact hours, assignment and preparation is to be worked out between the lecturer and the student, subject to Departmental approval.