Welcome to Literature and Theory (AEN25S) at Dalarna University

This course will be taught entirely online, with a combination of real-time online seminars and seminar assignments. Real-time online seminars are based on group discussions and analyses of the set primary and secondary texts. Some secondary material will sometimes be made available on our learning platform, and Zoom will be used for digital meetings.

Seminars will take place on Thursdays between 8.30-10.30 (Swedish time), beginning in week 36, on Thursday 5th of September. A provisional course schedule is available in Modules. The Zoom room link is to be found in the course information module and here: https://du-se.zoom.us/j/61903989648

Please find below the reading list containing the novels and the theory handbook that we will be working with in the course. The publishing house is only recommended and you may therefore be able to use copies by other publishers.

Also, please note that Gregory Castle's book is available as an electronic book through Dalarna University library, which means that you do not need to acquire the paper copy. 

• Boylan, Clare. Beloved Stranger. Little Brown, 1999.
• Castle, Gregory. The Literary Theory Handbook. John Wiley & Sons, 2013. [ebook on Dalarna University’s library]
• Gurnah, Abdulrazak. By the Sea. Bloomsbury, 2002.
• Masters, Alexander. Stuart: A Life Backwards. Fourth State, 2005.
• McCaughrean, Geraldine. Not the End of the World. Bath: Galaxy, 2006.

Additional reading (e.g.: articles, extracts, etc.) and further course material will be made available on Canvas in the weeks before the course officially begins.

This course is intended primarily for students taking the One-Year Master’s Programme in English with Specialisation in Literature in English.

When you take this course, you will study the following:
 
A selection of primary texts from different epochs and geopolitical areas

The main features of some of the most representative schools of literary theory

 
You will improve your skills in these areas:

• discussing, in a nuanced manner, theories that have had a shaping effect on the academic study of literature
• reflecting upon and problematising the assumptions and ambitions of those theories
• describing a nuanced and careful critical reading of literary and theoretical texts in English, based on principles of literary and scientific analysis
• presenting coherent interpretations of literary works in English, based on modern theories within the field
• reflecting upon disciplinary debates over literary theory and the state of the field

The schedule is available in the course information module.

	Course Syllabus			Contact information
	Reading List			Carmen Zamorano Llena Course Coordinator and lecturer cza@du.se
				Billy Gray Lecturer bgr@du.se
				David Gray Lecturer dgy@du.se