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2016/17 Undergraduate Module Catalogue
ENGL32150 Planes, Trains and Automobiles: US Narratives of Air, Rail, Road and Water
20 creditsClass Size: 10
School of English
Module manager: Professor Bridget Bennett
Email: B.K.G.Bennett@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2016/17
This module is not approved as a discovery module
Objectives
To explore the ways in which US narratives from the nineteenth century to the present have focused on - and represented - travel by air, rail, road and water.Learning outcomes
How to read and interpret literary texts. How to make connections between disparate texts and to build and sustain comparisons and contexts. To develop the ability to make and demonstrate the validity of assured critical claims about the cultural functions of texts.
Syllabus
This module focuses on a number of texts in which the powerful impact of travel by rail, road, water and air forms a crucial part of narratives about industrial and urban development, the histories of protagonists, the development of texts themselves and the shaping of US cultural forms. You will study a number of celebrated and award-winning texts, each of which is shaped by the way that travel by air, rail, road or water forms a central element of the novel's plot and its mode of narrative. These include Frank Norris's epic account of the impact of the railroad on the opening up of California; Willa Cather's poetic novel of the lives of immigrants and the settling of the Mid-West; John Steinbeck's realist depiction of the impact of the Depression on "Okies"; Cormac McCarthy's representation of the post-apocalyptic landscape of the US; Herman Melville's tale (posthumously published) of the doomed Handsome Sailor; E Annie Proulx's Pulitzer Prize award-winning novel of rebuilding a life; Mark Twain's comic portrayal of an unlikely friendship on the Mississippi and Jason Reitman's film about compulsive air travel and empty corporate lives. We will start the course with Colum McCann's elegant novel of 2013, which uses fact and fiction to link the transatlantic travels of the African American writer and activist Frederick Douglass, the flight pioneers Adcock and Brown, and the US politician Senator George Mitchell. The historical groundedness of each of these texts will be part of the way we interpret them, drawing on contemporary contexts to explore their concerns. We will discover that in each of them the idea of travel - by rail, road, air or water - is connected to change and to development, and that though this is often positive and full of potential, it can also be profoundly negative and problematic.
Teaching methods
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
| Film Screenings | 1 | 2.00 | 2.00 |
| Meetings | 1 | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Seminar | 10 | 1.00 | 10.00 |
| Lectures | 2 | 1.00 | 2.00 |
| 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. There will be one lecture prior to the submission of the unassessed work and one at a later point in the semester. Students will be expected to discuss their unassessed work in person at a meeting with the tutor, in order to help them develop their ideas. This, along with film screenings, will make up the 5 additional hours.Private Study: Seminar preparation, reading, essay writing.
Opportunities for Formative Feedback
- Contribution to seminars- Feedback on seminar presentations
- Feedback on essay plan
- Essay workshop
Methods of assessment
Coursework
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
| Essay | 4,000 word essay. In addition students will be expected to give two seminar presentations over the course of the semester and submit a 700 word unassessed essay plan which will be the basis of their assessed work. All students will be expected to contribute to developing a collectively-authored scholarly bibliography of secondary reading, using an appropriate stylesheet. Whilst these unassessed elements do not form part of the assessment for this module, they are a requirement and MUST be submitted. Students who fail to give at least one seminar presentation/submit the unassessed essay plan/contribute to developing a scholarly bibliography will be awarded a maximum mark of 40 for the module (a bare Pass). Students will also participate in an essay workshop in Week 11. | 100.00 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100.00 | |
In addition students will be expected to give two seminar presentations over the course of the semester and submit a 700 word unassessed essay plan which will be the basis of their assessed work. All students will be expected to contribute to developing a collectively-authored scholarly bibliography of secondary reading, using an appropriate stylesheet. Whilst these unassessed elements do not form part of the assessment for this module, they are a requirement and MUST be submitted. Students who fail to give at least one seminar presentation/submit the unassessed essay plan/contribute to developing a scholarly bibliography will be awarded a maximum mark of 40 for the module (a bare Pass). Students will also participate in an essay workshop in Week 11.
Reading list
The reading list is available from the Library websiteLast updated: 04/04/2016
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