This module is discontinued in the selected year. The information shown below is for the academic year that the module was last running in, prior to the year selected.

2014/15 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL3291 Yours Sincerely

20 creditsClass Size: 10

School of English

Module manager: Dr Jane Taylor

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2014/15

Pre-requisite qualifications

Grade B at ‘A’ Level English Language or Literature (or equivalent) or an achieved mark of 56 or above in a Level 1 module in English (or its non-UK equivalent).

Please note: This module is restricted to Level 2 and 3 students. Enrolment priority will be given to Level 2 students for a restricted period (as detailed in the School’s Module Handbook).

This module is approved as a discovery module

Module summary

As human cultures shift and mutate, different art forms and various techniques of representation emerge or disappear. We will be considering the place of the stage in relation to other arts forms, in order to think about modernity and its anxieties about 'claims to truth'. Can we ever know any more than that which is on the surface? Why do we hope, as modern subjects, to be able to identify an 'inner' claim, in relation to an 'outer' performance? This module will raise some questions central to various arts, about the Self, and notions of "Sincerity". The significance of 'the confession' in recent ideas of the self will form part of our discussions, as will the history of our anxiety about paper money (which somehow has value, simply because of what is printed on its surface). We will read some key texts from the Renaissance through to the Eighteenth Century, and will also consider the visual art traditions. Some exploration of key philosophical texts informing our context will also be considered.

Objectives

We will consider the history of Sincerity and the ways in which it became established as a natural "good" within the West, a shift that becomes evident in a range of dramatic and literary texts. A wide range of factors feed into this, that include theological influences, aesthetic questions, political ambitions, literary and theatrical experiments, as well as the idea of money and the question of value (in restricted economic terms as well as with reference to broader conceptions of moral, spiritual and cultural practices). We will in this course be engaging with the History of an Idea as well as the history of an artistic practice. We will consider changes in attitudes and tastes, as the rise of Protestantism signals the decline of an aristocratic culture. We will also explore the significance of boasting traditions, orality, and the performance of power.

Learning outcomes
A key objective of the course is to foreground and to draw into conscious focus the attitudes and habits about the staging of the self associated with western modernity. How is it that there is such a shift in the performance of value between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries? Students will gain some instruments for interpreting the signals about the fluctuating forces of the performance of affect from the Renaissance to the Restoration, and then to the age of sentiment and the Romantics. We will look across disciplines to explore the impact of the shift from theatre to the novel as dominant forms; we will also consider some visual traditions, such as portraiture. The course will provide theoretical and philosophical tools for students interested in autobiography, stage history, social theories of value, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. We will interpret the theatre as one site amongst many through which the performance of the self is staged.
Key knowledge outcomes are as follows:
1: students will have developed critical awareness of attitudes to and habits of staging the self in western and period-specific contexts
2: students will be able to effectively analyse elements of Renaissance to Restoration performance
3: students will have developed an inter-disciplinary focus and inter-disciplinary critical skills in analysis of theatrical, literary and visual texts
4: students will have developed theoretical and philosophical analyses cross-disciplinary discourses

Syllabus

The English Renaissance is an era marked by its theatricality. This is manifest not only within the sphere of the arts, with the great theatrical experiments of Shakespeare and Marlowe. Political power is also a matter of theatre, as we know from the examples of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, monarchs who ruled through the instrument of their own massive staged presences. It is in some wasy inevitable that during the Reformation, the theatre itself would begin to raise questions about the representational claims of a staged self. We begin then, by thinking about the staging of identity in the Renaissance.
We will then consider the Restoration and the shift in performance styles, as an aristocratic ethos returns to dominate the English stage. We then look at the image of aristocratic culture in France on the eve of the Revolution, and begin to understand the significance of the Sincere autobiographical self of the Romantic era.
We will also watch a screening of the film, "Dangerous Liaisons", a work that examines the rise of scepticism and the failure of sentiment in the eighteenth century, and will discuss self-portraiture and the Counter-Reformation in art

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lecture	5	1.00	5.00
Seminar	10	1.00	10.00
Private study hours			185.00
Total Contact hours			15.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Private study

Teaching will be through weekly seminars (10 x 1 hour) plus up to 5 additional hours (content to be determined by the module tutor). The 5 additional hours may include lecture, plenary sessions, film showings, or the return of unassessed/assessed essays.

Private Study: Reading, seminar preparation, essay writing.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Students will write one piece of 1500 words in which they describe a formative encounter with the idea of sincerity and its claims (20% of the mark). This can take the form of an intellectual meditation, or a creative piece, but it should demonstrate the student's engagement with the key idea of this course, Sincerity. Students will also write a scholarly essay of 3000 words which analyses a literary or visual text. That text may or may not be one of the texts discussed in class (80% of the mark).

Attendance at seminars.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Assignment	1500 words	20.00
Essay	3000 words	80.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 25/03/2015

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