Duration
30h Th
Number of credits
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
English language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
Despite Goethe's ideal of Weltliteratur -- the dream of a common world literature transcending national limits -- the notion of "world literature", which enjoys increasing critical currency at the present moment, still seems often unable to challenge the importance of the nation in understandings of specific texts and conceptions of literary study. It can be argued that this issue is particularly fraught for Australia, whose literature has traditionally been seen as the expression of a national culture attempting to struggle out of an imperial straightjacket, so that the nation appeared to be a natural horizon against which to deploy literary hermeneutic elaborations. The course will rehearse this situation through an examination of a short selection of classic to recent novels, each of which seeks to enlarge the scale of its own conceptualisation, and therefore to alter the sense of nationality attached to the work itself. After a brief theoretical introduction, in which the respective claims of post-colonialism and "worldism" will be considered and compared for the Australian context, some works of fiction (see below) will be examined from a transnational perspective.
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
A gain in political self-consciousness, perhaps.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
An interest in literature, and in the world.
A good grasp of English may help.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
Thinking, collectively and individually, within heuristic seminars.
Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning)
Face to faces, and the other way around.
Recommended or required readings
David Malouf, The Great World (1990; Vintage)
Richard Flanagan, Wanting (2008; Vintage)
Gail Jones, A Guide to Berlin (205; Harvill Secker)
Assessment methods and criteria
An oral examination will provide the students with an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to think by themselves about the texts considered in class, based on a personal selection of relevant critical material.
Work placement(s)
Not applicable.
Organizational remarks
The course will be organised in the first term (2017-2018), from 9 to 11am in room A2/4/15 (starting on 25 September 2017).
Contacts
Prof. Marc Delrez, marc.delrez@ulg.ac.be