2008/09 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL3335 Stories of the Eye: Literature and Visual Representation

20 creditsClass Size: 30

School of English

Module manager: Dr Simon Swift
Email: s.swift@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2008/09

This module is not approved as an Elective

Objectives

To develop a critical understanding of the ways in which literature, since the Romantic period, has sought to represent other art forms, and in particular the visual arts, and thus to encourage an interdisciplinary understanding of modern literature.

To examine the idea of the spectator through an engagement with such acts of representation.

To facilitate an evaluation of the relationship between narrative and acts of looking in the literary texts under discussion, and to consider how this relationship allows writers to comment on concepts of time, identity, youth, power and eroticism.

To engage with a variety of literary texts written over a two-hundred year period, in order to enable students to consider to what extent they can be considered as a corpus through their shared intellectual concern with the gaze.

To enhance students' ability to use literary analysis as a means to understanding and engaging with wider social and theoretical issues connected with vision and the visual.

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

The aim of this module will be to consider the different ways in which writers since the Romantic period have sought to represent other art forms in their writing, in particular painting, the plastic arts, music and photography. The module will focus upon the idea of the spectator, and the depiction of acts of looking in its chosen texts, and we will often read these texts alongside the images and sounds that they refer to. In doing so we will examine the ways in which literature can construct particular ways of seeing, and what such constructions can tell us about changing ideas of personal identity, time, authority, youth and eroticism. Heavily inflected through aesthetic theory, the module will move towards a consideration of how these issues are manifested in avant-garde literature and film in the early Twentieth Century, before finishing up with a consideration of crises of witnessing and memory in the Twenty First.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Meetings	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 lectures, plenary sessions, film showings, or the return of unassessed/assessed essays.

Private Study: Reading, seminar preparation and essay writing.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Contribution to seminars

1 x 1700 word unassessed essay (submitted during Week 7 of the semester)

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	4000 words	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: 24/04/2008

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