University of Sydney Handbooks - 2014 Archive

Download full 2014 archive Page archived at: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:43:56 +1100

English

English

ENGL1007 Language, Texts and Time

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Nick Riemer Session: Semester 2 Classes: 2x1-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Assessment: 2x500wd assignments (30%), 1x2000wd essay (30%), 1x1.5-hr exam (40%)
This unit of study equips students with some general tools for the close analysis of literary language. Grammatical concepts will be introduced and applied to the description of prose, poetry and drama, and students will explore the changing relations between form and meaning in English from the earliest times up to the present. A number of key strands in contemporary language study will also be presented, including semiotic theory, rhetoric and discourse studies and theorizations of the relationship between texts and subjectivity.
ENGL1008 Australian Texts: International Contexts

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Marita Bullock Session: Semester 1 Classes: 2x1-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x1000wd tutorial task (20%), 1x1500wd essay (40%), 1x1.5hr exam (40%)
This unit explores how Australian authors write in, to and about the wider world. It will open up a range of questions: how international influences work in Australian writing; how Australian texts rewrite authoritative texts of other cultures; how Australian texts imagine other places; how careers, reputations, publication and reception take place within and beyond the nation. In addressing these questions, the unit will focus on issues of authority, identity, representation, translation, borders and authenticity.
ENGL1009 Reading English Texts

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Prof Barry Spurr Session: Semester 1 Classes: 2x1-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x1000wd close reading assignment (20%), 1x1500wd essay (40%), 1x1.5hr exam (30%), tutorial participation (10%)
Interpretation of texts is the central concern of this unit. Key questions will include: what is 'reading'? what is a 'text'? what might the aims of interpretation be? Topic areas will include an introduction to the history of reading, the role of grammar in interpretation, the importance of the medium of the text (from medieval manuscripts to electronic books) and the role of literary theory. Authors will range from Chaucer and Shakespeare to the present day.
ENGL1011 Introduction to Film Studies

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Melissa Hardie Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2-hr lecture/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Assessment: 1x800wd exercise (20%), 1x800wd exercise (20%), 1x800wd exercise (20%), 1x2000wd take-home exercise (30%), tutorial participation (10%)
How do form and style structure our experience of film? This unit provides a critical introduction to elements of film making and viewing, moving through an exploration of formal components of film to consider film aesthetics in relation to the history of film scholarship. We will consider films in a variety of cultural and historical contexts, from early cinema to youtube, and introduce a series of "case studies" to explore historical, cultural and material contexts of film production and consumption.
ENGL2603 Imagining America

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr David Kelly Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x1-hr lecture/week, 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: (12 junior credit points from English) or (6 junior credit points from English and AMST1001) or (AMST1001 and HSTY1076 or HSTY1023) Prohibitions: ENGL2003 Assessment: 1x500wd oral presentation (10%), 1x2000wd essay (50%), 1x1500wd take-home exercise (40%)
This course takes as its point of departure the notion of America as fashioned by diverse and even conflicting acts of imagination. Beginning with writers in the mid-19th century and working our way to more recent imaginings of filmmakers and songwriters, we will examine the various ways in which visions of America have been put in play in the national consciousness in prose, poetry, song and film, to construct and to challenge the 'imagined community' of the United States.
ENGL2605 Literary Theory: An Introduction

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Bruce Gardiner Session: Semester 1 Classes: 2x1-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: (12 junior credit points from English) or (6 junior credit points from English and AMST1001) Prohibitions: ENGL3962 Assessment: 1x750wd critical analysis assignment (17%), 1x1500wd assignment (33%), 1x2250wd essay (50%)
This unit approaches literary theory and criticism as such in three ways, synoptically, historically, and polemically. First, a generous sampling of kinds of theory and criticism establishes the ambit of the field. Second, a more concentrated sampling explores the history and importance of a particular period or mode of theory and criticism. Third, another such sampling evaluates the nature and significance of a matter of current theoretical and critical controversy.
ENGL2617 Postmodernism

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Assoc Prof Kate Lilley Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2-hr lecture/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: (12 junior credit points from English) or (6 junior credit points from English and AMST1001) or (AMST1001 and (HSTY1076 or HSTY1023) or (18 junior credit points including ENGL1011) Prohibitions: ENGL2017 Assessment: 1x1500wd essay (40%), 1x2000wd take-home exercise (40%), 1x500wd equivalent tutorial presentation (10%), tutorial participation (10%)
This unit will explore some of the most interesting and innovative theoretical, literary and multimedia texts of the last half century. Some of the topics to be explored include the relationship between modernism and postmodernism; movements, communities and subcultures; experimentalism and activism; small press publishing and independent cinema; politics, history and cultural value; genre, style and intertextuality; auteurism and the 'death of the author'.
ENGL2638 Literature and Cinema

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr David Kelly Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x1-hr lecture/week, 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: ((12 junior credit points from English) or (6 junior credit points from English and AMST1001)) or (18 junior credit points including ENGL1011) Prohibitions: ENGL2038 Assessment: 1x500wd oral presentation (10%), 1x2000wd essay (50%), 1x1500wd take-home exercise (40%)
This unit will examine issues arising from a comparative study of literature and cinema, including: the continuities and discontinuities between the two mediums; the cultural and historical contexts of literary and cinematic texts; authorship, auteurism and aesthetic authority; adaptation and intertextuality; the figurative styles of literature and cinema; narrative and narration in literature and cinema; genre study.
ENGL2651 Transatlantic Negotiations

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Peter Marks Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x1-hr lecture/week, 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: (12 Junior credit points from English) or (6 Junior credit points from English and AMST1001) Assessment: 1x2500wd essay (65%), 1x1500wd take-home exercise (35%)
This unit explores the cultural negotiations between Europe (especially Britain) and the United States over several centuries. Developing concepts about national literatures, the unit uses comparative theories and practices to assess transnational cultural negotiations. We consider historical changes to the geopolitical order of things, examining how literature and film reflected and contributed to collaborative and combative transnational relationships. Key topics include the decline of British cultural and political power, European influences, and the contested rise of the United States.
ENGL2657 Myths, Legends and Heroes

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Assoc Prof Daniel Anlezark Session: Semester 1 Classes: 2x1-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: (12 junior credit points from English) or (6 junior credit points from English and AMST1001) Assessment: 1x1000wd essay (15%), 1x1500wd essay (35%), 1x1.5hr exam (40%), tutorial participation (10%)
Students will study (in modern English translation) the literature of the peoples who lived in Britain in the Early Middle Ages -- Britons, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans. Lectures and tutorials will cover the literature, history, religion and language of these cultures, focusing on representations of the heroic ideal, as this is embodied in mythic, legendary and historical writing. Texts to be studied include Beowulf, The Wanderer, selections from the Edda, and early Arthurian material.
ENGL2607 Drama: Classical to Renaissance

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Huw Griffiths Session: Semester 2 Classes: 2x1-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: (12 Junior credit points from English) or (6 Junior credit points from English and AMST1001) or (12 junior credit points from Ancient History) Prohibitions: ENGL2007 Assessment: 1x1000wd essay (25%), 1x1500wd workshop account (30%), 1x1.5hr exam (35%), participation (10%)
This unit introduces students to the study of dramatic texts by examining plays from two significant periods in the history of western theatre: classical Athens and Renaissance England. Classes focus on the relationship between dramatic text and performance; the details of how specific scenes may have been realised on stage; the language of scripted drama; and the physical and social conditions of theatre from both periods. We examine two Greek plays in translation, and four plays by contemporaries of Shakespeare.
ENGL2611 Jane Austen, Then and Now

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Nicola Parsons Session: Semester 2,Summer Early Classes: 2x1-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: (12 junior credit points from English) or (6 junior credit points from English and AMST1001) Prohibitions: ENGL2011 Assessment: 1x1500wd research exercise (35%), 1x2500wd essay (50%), 1x500wd equivalent online discussion task (15%)
Jane Austen is an iconic figure, both within the academy and without. In the discipline of English, her novels consolidate generic traditions that are both forward and backward looking. This unit examines Austen's novels in their historical and critical context in order to understand the place of her works, then and now. We will analyse how these novels engage the literary, social and political debates of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. We will also assess the interpretative traditions her work inaugurated in subsequent centuries.
ENGL2650 Reading Poetry

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Prof Barry Spurr Session: Semester 2 Classes: 2x1-hr lectures/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week Prerequisites: (12 junior credit points from English) or (6 junior credit points from English and AMST1001) Prohibitions: ENGL2050 Assessment: 1x2500wd essay (55%), 1x2hr exam (45%)
A different range of poetry will be offered each year concentrating on an historical period, an individual poet, and a close study of a poetic form. Readings of individual poems will involve both intensive study of technical and linguistic characteristics, as well as of the broader historical, social, ideological and personal contexts and issues which they reflect. As well, there will be discussion of on-going literary-critical debate about poetry and its function.
ENGL3607 Modern Irish Literature

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Mark Byron Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x1-hr lecture/week, 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature Assessment: 1x500wd annotated bibliography (12%), 1x1500wd essay (38%), 1x2000wd take-home exercise (50%)
This unit of study charts the development of Irish literature from the late nineteenth century to the present day, in the form of drama, short fiction, novels, poetry, biography and autobiography. Prominent themes include: the emergence of the modern Irish nation through resistance, civil war, and independence from Britain; Northern Ireland and the Troubles; expatriation and exile; wit and verbal dexterity; the fate of specifically "Celtic" sensibilities; and the relation of writing to history (ancient, colonial, the Famine, Republicanism).
ENGL3611 Issues in the Semiotics of Language

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Nick Riemer Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature Prohibitions: ENGL3915 Assessment: 1x2000wd (35%), 1x4000wd essay (65%)
This unit examines some key historical and theoretical topics in the semiotics of language. We begin with an investigation into the structuralist legacy, concentrating on exegetical and theoretical questions raised by Saussurean "valeur" and "difference". We then discuss analyses of lexical polysemy and alternatives to the Saussurean paradigm provided in the Humboldtian and Soviet traditions and in Relevance Theory. The course ends by assessing the desirability and difficulties of accommodating emotion in theories of linguistic signification.
ENGL3616 Reading Contemporary America

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Melissa Hardie Session: Semester 1 Classes: 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: (18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature) or (ARHT2656 and 6 credit points from (ARHT2652, ARHT2653, ARHT2655, ARHT2567, ENGL2627, ENGL2638, ENGL3604, FILM2601, HSTY2608, ICLS2637 or MUSC2663)) Prohibitions: ENGL2635 Assessment: 1x1000wd presentation (20%), 1x1000wd critical reflection (20%), 1x4000wd research essay (60%)
In this unit we will investigate aesthetic production in the United States since 9/11. Students will explore the most interesting and engaging cultural work done in the US over the last decade, focusing on diverse communities beset by war, poverty, decline, debt, and crisis. We will look at literature, film, television, radio, photography and art. Our centrepiece is a sustained consideration of the television series The Wire.
ENGL3609 Mapping American Literature

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Sarah Gleeson-White Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x1-hr lecture/week, 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: (18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature) or (12 senior credit points of American Studies including AMST2601) Assessment: 1x1000wd annotated bibliography (30%), 1x2500wd essay (50%), 1x500wd equivalent seminar presentation (10%), seminar participation (10%)
In this unit, we will map the places and spaces-urban, suburban, regional-of American literature as these are represented in a variety of film and literary texts from the nineteenth through the twentieth centuries. Our study will also include consideration of specific locales-Chicago and Hollywood, for example-that have given rise to important literary movements and cultural forms, as well as consideration of the ideological work that certain regions, such as the South, perform in relation to the nation.
ENGL3615 Street Narratives

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Rebecca Johinke Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x1-hr lecture/week, 1x1-hr tutorial/week and occasional film screenings Prerequisites: (18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature) or (18 senior credit points from Digital Cultures) Assessment: 1x2500wd essay (40%), 1x1000wd tutorial exercise (20%), 1x2500wd take-home exercise (40%)
This unit will map the movement of the drivers, passengers, and pedestrians who patrol our streets, pages, and screens. It has a particular focus on the flneur. Starting with writers such as Poe, Dickens, and Baudelaire, students will reconfigure the streets as rhetorical spaces and consider how authors, artists and filmmakers use urban streetscapes as sites to construct representations of class, gender, race, sanity and sexuality. Students will reconsider concepts of authorship and interrogate different kinds of texts.
ENGL3633 Introduction to Old English

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Assoc Prof Daniel Anlezark Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x1-hr lecture/week, 2x1-hr tutorials/week Prerequisites: (18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature) or (18 senior credit points from Linguistics) or (18 senior credit points from Celtic Studies) Prohibitions: ENGL3621, ENGL3622, ENGL3631, ENGL3632 Assessment: 1x1000wd translation exercise (20%), 1x1500wd essay (40%), 1x1.5hr exam (40%)
Note: Students who have completed ENGL3621, ENGL3622, ENGL3631, ENGL3632 must consult the unit co-ordinator.
Old English was the language of England from the fifth century until the twelfth. This earliest phase of the English literary tradition evolved against a background of cultural encounters: as the Anglo-Saxons encountered the culture of Rome, as they adopted and adapted the Christian religion, and as they reflected on their origins on the European continent. This unit introduces students to the language spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons, and presents the opportunity to translate and read Old English texts.
ENGL3643 The Canterbury Tales

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Assoc Prof Daniel Anlezark Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: (18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature) or (18 senior credit points from Celtic Studies) Assessment: 1x1000wd editorial project (20%), 1x2000wd essay (30%), 1x3000wd essay (50%)
Chaucer's great work draws upon a range of narrative modes: chivalry, romance, beast fable, pathos, and low comedy. In jumping into these worlds, students will become familiar with Chaucer's language and with the means of its production and tansmission, from the early manuscripts written by his scribe Adam Pinkhurst, to the editions in which students usually encounter the Tales, to the digital transcriptions and images of the new millennium.
ENGL3655 The Literary in Theory

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Bruce Gardiner Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature Assessment: 1x2000wd seminar presentation of research proposal (30%), 1x4000wd research essay (70%)
This unit will introduce students to significant movements in modern and contemporary literary theory to think about what it means to speak of the literary. The unit of study begins by examining the question of "literariness" through its exposition and defence by a number of scholars. We will pursue the applications of their arguments through a selection of theoretical models, including queer and gender theory, psychoanalysis, and race theory, to consider the cultural and ideological work imaginative literature undertakes.
ENGL3657 The Brontes

Credit points: 6 Teacher/Coordinator: Assoc Prof Vanessa Smith Session: Semester 2 Classes: 1x2-hr seminar/week Prerequisites: 18 senior credit points from English or Australian Literature Assessment: 1x2000wd assignment (40%), 1x500wd essay proposal (10%), 1x3500wd essay (50%)
The novels of the Bronte Sisters are among the most enduringly popular Victorian texts, yet they have an ambiguous critical status. The perception that the Brontes are labile and cloistered writers, best interpreted psychoanalytically, raises questions about the relationship between biography and literature, and the ways in which notions of social and historical relevance play into judgments about literary value. We will think about canonical and popular literary status, biography and authorship, gender and writing, and Victorian society.
ENGL4101 English Honours A

Credit points: 12 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Huw Griffiths Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Classes: 3x2-hr seminars/week Prerequisites: Credit or above in 48 senior credit points from English including ENGL3655 Assessment: 1x15000wd thesis (40%) and 3x6000wd of written work (60%)
Note: Department permission required for enrolment
The Honours program in English consists of a thesis written under the supervision of one, or more, members of academic staff and three seminars, selected from a range of options, that meet once a week for two hours. Students would usually do two seminar options in their first semester, and one in their second semester. One of the first semester options is assessed,
in part, through participation in the English department's honours conference. For more information, contact the English Department Honours Coordinator.
ENGL4102 English Honours B

Credit points: 12 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Huw Griffiths Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Corequisites: ENGL4101
Refer to ENGL4101
ENGL4103 English Honours C

Credit points: 12 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Huw Griffiths Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Corequisites: ENGL4102
Refer to ENGL4101
ENGL4104 English Honours D

Credit points: 12 Teacher/Coordinator: Dr Huw Griffiths Session: Semester 1,Semester 2 Corequisites: ENGL4103
Refer to ENGL4101