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2017/18 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL3560 James Joyce's "Ulysses"

20 creditsClass Size: 30

School of English

Module manager: Dr Richard Brown
Email: r.h.brown@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2017/18

Pre-requisite qualifications

Please note: this module is restricted to Level 3 students on BA programmes with English and visiting students.

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Objectives

This module is primarily aimed at students who want to read or re-read Joyce's Ulysses which many find difficult, daunting or even offensive but which has nevertheless been such an important presence in the intellectual life of the modern world.

Many strategies and perspectives will be needed to help us with this task but we will, however, try to maintain a focus on some of the many ways in which the text draws upon, finds contexts within and radically redefines the subsequent character and boundaries of English literature.

Learning outcomes
Students will have developed:
- the ability to use written and oral communication effectively;
- the capacity to analyse and critically examine diverse forms of discourse;
- the ability to manage quantities of complex information in a structured and systematic way;
- the capacity for independent thought and judgement;
- critical reasoning;
- research skills, including the retrieval of information, the organisation of material and the evaluation of its importance;
- IT skills;
- efficient time management and organisation skills;
- the ability to learn independently.

Skills outcomes
- Skills for effective communication, oral and written.
- Capacity to analyse and critically examine diverse forms of discourse.
- Ability to acquire quantities of complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way.
- Capacity for independent thought and judgement.
- Critical reasoning.
- Research skills, including information retrieval skills, the organisation of material, and the evaluation of its importance.
- IT skills.
- Time management and organisational skills.
- Independent learning.


Syllabus

This is a module which gives us the opportunity to explore James Joyce's Ulysses in the depth and detail it demands and to engage with some new critical and theoretical debates about it in the twenty-first century on themes like the body in urban space, sex and gender, literary and popular cultures, narrative, modernity and the everyday. A selection of episodes is taken as the main structure to allow us space for the adventure of reading and these episodes are tied thematically to areas of interest in contemporary critical thought that provide the main directions for your written work. Ulysses is the most discussed literary text from the last century, defining its modernity and ours. It's challenging but also down-to-earth, comic, wikipedic, obscene, Irish and cosmopolitan. It's fun to read and discuss. It stretched the medium of prose fiction in new ways to remarkable intellectual and artistic effects that no subsequent novelist has matched and which theorists of literature are still challenged to define. Subject to feasibility and demand a guided day trip to Dublin's Ulysses locations will be arranged.

Intro - How to read Ulysses and why -
Episodes 1-6 - Breakfasts - Bohemian and bourgeois - Morning and mourning
'Aeolus' - poetry and the political in the daily newspaper
'Scylla and Charybdis' - theorising Shakespeare
'Lestrygonians', and 'Wandering Rocks' - walking and the city
'Sirens' and 'Nausicaa' - gender, sensation and sensationalism
'Cyclops' and 'Oxen' - parody and pastiche
'Circe' and 'Ithaca' - unhinging and returning to the real
'Penelope' - language, memory, and the erotic body

Teaching methods

Delivery typeNumberLength hoursStudent hours
Meetings51.005.00
Seminar101.0010.00
Private study hours185.00
Total Contact hours15.00
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 lectures, plenary sessions, film showings, or the return of unassessed/assessed essays.

Private Study: Seminar preparation, reading, essay writing.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

- Seminar contribution.
- Unassessed essay of 1700 words (submitted during Week 7). This does not form part of the assessment for this module, but is a requirement and MUST be submitted. Students who fail to submit the unassessed essay will be awarded a maximum mark of 40 for the module (a bare Pass).

Methods of assessment


Coursework
Assessment typeNotes% of formal assessment
EssayThis module will be assessed by one essay of 4000 words (including quotations and footnotes). One unassessed essay of 1700 words is also required. This does not form part of the assessment for this module, but is a requirement and MUST be submitted. Students who fail to submit the unassessed essay will be awarded a maximum mark of 40 for the module (a bare Pass).100.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)100.00

One unassessed essay of 1700 words is required. This does not form part of the assessment for this module, but is a requirement and MUST be submitted. Students who fail to submit the unassessed essay will be awarded a maximum mark of 40 for the module (a bare Pass).

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 26/04/2017

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