2023/24 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL32111 Gender, Culture and Politics: Readings of Jane Austen

20 creditsClass Size: 24

School of English

Module manager: Dr Richard De Ritter
Email: r.deritter@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2023/24

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Objectives

On completion of this module, students should have an understanding of the cultural contexts of Jane Austen's fiction.

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

Though Jane Austen is no longer thought of as a writer who is indifferent to the political concerns of her time, it can be easy for modern readers to miss the ways in which her novels engage very particularly with urgent contemporary debates. This module will give students the opportunity to study Jane Austen’s works in terms of those debates. The first drafts of Austen’s early fiction were written during the revolutionary decade of the 1790s; they were revised and completed, and her later novels written, during the Regency period and the Napoleonic Wars, when issues of class, gender, and national identity were fiercely contested, and the relationship between the private sphere of the family and the public sphere of politics and nation underwent significant redefinition. In order to explore the cultural and political meanings of her fiction, we shall read Austen’s novels alongside other material from these turbulent decades. We shall also look at a rather different version of Austen: that produced by our own culture through the medium of film.

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Film Screenings	1	1.00	1.00
Lectures	4	1.00	4.00
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

Seminar preparation, reading, essay writing.

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

- Seminar contribution.
- Feedback on unassessed essay

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	3000 words (including quotations and footnotes). One unassessed essay of 1000 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 1000 words is required which will be returned individually. 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: 28/04/2023 14:39:49

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