UCL CENTRE FOR INTERCULTURAL STUDIES Session 2007 – 2008
Practice and Methodology – CLITG003 COURSE PROGRAMME
COURSE TIMES VENUE COURSE CONVENER Friday, 10.00 am to 1.00 pm Room 114, Foster Court, University College London Dr Adrian Stevens (Department of Dutch) 33 – 35 Torrington Place, Room 2.1 Ext. 33118, direct line (020) 7679 3118 - Email: adrian.stevens@ucl.ac.uk Ms Els Braeken (Department of Dutch) 33 – 35 Torrington Place, Room 2.2 Ext. 33113, direct line (020) 7679 3113 - Email: e.braeken@ucl.ac.uk This course aims to introduce students to Comparative Literature through the discussion of a range of different authors, literary genres and themes. The course is divided into four parts. The first three units will reflect on the historical development of some major literary genres: lyric poetry, the novel and tragedy. The final section explores the relationship between holocaust literature, testimony and ethics. Some classes will be followed by seminars and small-group workshops. Attendance is voluntary. Times and contents will be announced by the course lecturers or the course convener. REPORTS The course is assessed by means of two 5.000 reports, which should reflect both the content of the course lectures and the students‘ individual research interests. Each report must refer to at least one of the primary texts listed below. You are strongly encouraged to discuss these texts in relation to one or more literary works of your own choice. More detailed information and practical instructions will be provided by the course convener.
ADMINSTRATOR
AIMS
STRUCTURE
1
TERM I
INTRODUCTION
5 October 07 Comparative Literature: History, Methodology, Practice Florian Mussgnug
This class introduces students to the course through a discussion of some key concerns in Comparative Literature. A brief overview of the discipline‘s historical development will take us from Goethe‘s idea of Weltliteratur to some recent debates about literature and globalisation. In the second part of the session, we will consider how different historical visions of literature may influence our understanding and practice of Comparative Literature. There will also be time for a brief discussion of the structure and aims of the course. Primary Reading A selection of articles will be distributed in advance. Further Reading Apter, Emily, The Translation Zone. A New Comparative Literature, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005. Bassnett, Susan, Comparative Literature. A Critical Introduction, Oxford, Blackwell, 1993. Bernheimer, Charles (ed.), Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Casanova, Pascale, La république mondiale des lettres, Paris, Édition du Seuil, 1999. Guillén, Claudio, The Challenge of Comparative Literature, transl. by C. Franzen, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1993. Koelb, Clayton and Susan Noakes (eds.), Comparative Perspective on Literature: Approaches to Theory and Practice, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1988. Kushner, Eva, The Living Prism. Itineraries in Comparative Literature, Montreal, McGill-Queen‘s University Press, 2001. Miller, J. Hillis, On Literature, London, Routledge, 2002. Prendergast, Christopher (ed.), Debating World Literature, London, Verso, 2004. Saussy, Haun (ed), Comparative Literature in an Age of Globalization, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, Death of a Discipline, New York, Columbia University Press, 2003. Weininger, Robert (ed), Comparative Literature at a Crossroads?, Special Issue of Comparative Critical Studies, 3.1-2, 2006.
REPRESENTING THE CITY
12 October 07 Poetry and the City: From Romanticism to Poetic Realism Tim Mathews and Adrian Stevens 19 October 07 Poetry and the City: Modernism and the Avant-garde Tim Mathews and Adrian Stevens 26 October 07 Poetry and the City: Modernism and the Avant-garde Tim Mathews and Adrian Stevens
2
These sessions will examine the importance of the city from romanticism to poetic realism and in the modernist aesthetic. Issues discussed will include: The relation of individual to cultural memory (Medievalism, Nature, the Urban) The relation of memory to the imagination, and to the unconscious The relation of artistic form to ideological revolt
There will also be discussion of relevant developments in twentieth-century painting. Primary Reading A selection of poems will be distributed by the course lecturers. These will include works by: William Wordsworth Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Wallace Stevens Charles Baudelaire T.S. Eliot Guillaume Apollinaire Further Reading Peter Bürger, Theory of the avant-garde, foreword by Jochen Schulte-Sasse, translation from the German by Michael Shaw. Edward Timms and David Kelley (eds), Unreal city: urban experience in modern European literature and art. Jana Howlett and Rod Mengham (eds), The violent muse: violence and the artistic imagination in Europe, 1910-1939. Barbara Johnson (eds), The critical difference: essays in the contemporary rhetoric of reading. Please see also the further reading list for Apollinaire, Baudelaire and T.S Eliot below.
REPRESENTING THE CITY
Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools, edited by Garnet Rees. Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools, translated by Ann Hyde Greet, with a foreword by Warren Ramsey. Guillaume Apollinaire, Calligrammes: poems of peace and war (1913-1916), translated by Ann Hyde Greet; with an introduction by S. I. Lockerbie and a commentary by Anne Hyde Greet and S. I. Lockerbie. Guillaume Apollinaire, Selected poems; translated with an introduction by Oliver Bernard, expanded, bilingual edition. Guillaume Apollinaire, Apollinaire on art: essays and reviews, 1902-1918, edited by LeRoy C. Breunig. Timothy Mathews, Reading Apollinaire: theories of poetic language. The cubist painters: aesthetic meditations, 1913; translated from the French by Lionel Abel. Adrian Hicken, Apollinaire, cubism and orphism.
3
Charles Baudelaire Charles Baudelaire, Flowers of evil and other works / Les fleurs du mal et oeuvres choisies; edited and translated by Wallace Fowlie; with a critical introduction, notes, and glossary by the editor. Charles Baudelaire, Anywhere out of the world: prose poems; selected by Geoffrey Godbert. John E. Jackson, Baudelaire. Bernard Howells, Baudelaire: Individualism, dandyism and the philosophy of history. Henri Peyre (ed), Baudelaire: a collection of critical essays. J. A. Hiddleston, Baudelaire and the art of memory. Eugene W. Holland, Baudelaire and schizoanalysis: the socio-poetics of modernism. Richard D. E. Burton, Baudelaire and the Second Republic: writing and revolution. Rosemary Lloyd (ed), The Cambridge companion to Baudelaire. Arthur Symons, Charles Baudelaire: a study.
T.S. Eliot T.S. Eliot, The waste land, and other poems. T.S. Eliot, The waste land, edited and with an introduction by Harold Bloom. John Harwood, Eliot to Derrida : the poverty of interpretation. F.R. Leavis, The living principle: “English” as a discipline of thought. Jewel Spears Brooker and Joseph Bentley, Reading The waste land: modernism and the limits of interpretation. Lawrence Rainey, Revisiting The waste land. Harold Bloom (ed), T.S. Eliot.
REPRESENTING THE CITY
2 November 07 History, ruin and the city Walter Benjamin, The Arcades (selections) and Cees Nooteboom, All Souls Day Jane Fenoulhet and Tim Mathews
How does realism respond to history? What is the relation of fiction to historical authenticity? What is the relation general ly between a text and a document? How do we in the present re-present suffering in the past? Can the past be redeemed from its appropriation and asphyxiation in the present? Such questions will be discussed by a reading of Nooteboom's digressive novel of witness, grief and loss. It will be nourished by a parallel reading of one of the key texts of Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, in which as a Marxist historian Benjamin asks himself many of those questions. And the narrator of All Souls Day is a documentary film-maker who dreams of making a film about - Walter Benjamin. Primary Reading Cees Nooteboom, All souls’ day; translated from the Dutch by Susan Massotty. Walter Benjamin, Illuminations; translated by Harry Zohn; edited and with an introduction by Hannah Arendt. Further Reading Laura Marcus and Lynda Nead (eds), The actuality of Walter Benjamin Howard Caygill, Walter Benjamin: the colour of experience
LITERATURE, TESTIMONY, ETHICS
16 November 07 Holocaust Literature and Second Generation Writing Tsila Ratner 4
23 November 07 David Grossman, See Under: Love Tsila Ratner
We will look at David Grossman‘s novel as a post modernist writing of the Holocaust. See Under: Love is not a literary expression of a Holocaust survivor or a memoir. David Grossman is not a survivor or a son of survivors, yet his novel epitomizes what we refer to as 'second generation writing'. This position of the writer as well as the structure of his novel raise significant issues concerning the representation of the Holocaust in literature, such as: 1. Questions of legitimacy and authenticity of the narrative: who is allowed to tell and what; how authentic should a Holocaust narrative be; what does authentic mean in this context? 2. What is the significance of the different genres used in the novel and how do they relate to each other? 3. Who is the narrator of the novel? 4. Questions regarding boundaries of propriety of Holocaust representation - what are they? How does the novel deconstruct these boundaries? Could this deconstruction be assimilated into the commemoration narratives of the Holocaust? 5. Should magical realism be considered ‘proper‘ in the context of Holocaust narrative? Primary Reading David Grossman, See under: Love, transl. by Betsy Rosenberg, Jonathan Cape, 1990. Further Reading Part I M.S. Bergman & M.E. Jucovy (eds.), 1982, Generations of the Holocaust, New York: Basic Books. Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, 1980, By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Yael Feldman, 1992, ―Whose Story Is It Anyway: Ideology and Psychology in the Representation of the Shoah in Israeli Literature‖, in Probing the Limits of Representation, p. 235. Shoshana Felman & Dori Laub, 1992, Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis and History, New York: Routledge. Saul Friedlander, 1988, ―Historical Writing and the Memory of the Holocaust‖ in Berel Lang (ed.) Writing and the Holocaust, New York: Holmes & Meier, pp. 66 — (ed.), 1992, Probing the Limits of Representation, London and Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Geoffrey Hartman, 1994, Holocaust Remembrance: The Shapes of Memory, Blackwell: Cambridge Massachusetts and Oxford. Irving Howe, 1988, ―Writing and the Holocaust‖, in Writing and the Holocaust, p. 175. Lawrence Langer, 1975, The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination, New Haven: Yale University Press.
LITERATURE, TESTIMONY, ETHICS
30 November 07 Georges Perec, W or the Memory of Childhood Andrew Leak
Primary Reading Georges Perec, W or the Memory of Childhood, transl. by David Bellos, Collins Harvill, 1989 (Georges Perec, W ou le souvenir d'enfance, Denoël, 1975) Secondary Reading David Bellos, Georges Perec: a life in words, Harvill, 1993 Catherine Dana, Fictions pour mémoire: Camus, Perec et l'écriture de la Shoah, L'Harmattan, 1998 Manet van Montfrans, Georges Perec ou la contrainte du réel, Rodopi, 1999 Anne Roche, Anne Roche présente 'W ou le souvenir d'enfance' de Georges Perec, Gallimard, 1997
5
NARRATIVE FICTION AND REALITY
7 December 07 Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton and Frederick Engels' Condition of the Working Classes in England Jann Matlock 14 DECEMBER 07 Honoré de Balzac, Cousin Bette Jann Matlock
These two classes will consider the relationship between the novel and social/political writings contemporary to it. In the first week, we'll look at Frederick Engels' Condition of the Working Classes in England in conjunction with Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton. In the second week, we'll look at medical and sociological texts relating to women's conditions in relation to Honoré de Balzac's Cousine Bette. We'll think especially about the relationship between new historicism and new cultural history as we consider new ways of thinking about the imbrication of literary and cultural texts in their historical time. Primary Reading Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton. Honoré de Balzac, Cousine Bette Frederick Engels, Condition of the Working Classes in England (all available in Penguin editions) Further Reading Cohen, Margaret and Christopher Prendergast (eds), Spectacles of Realism, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1996 (especially essays by Cohen, Goldstein, Higonnet, Matlock, Schwartz). Cohen, Margaret, The Sentimental Education of the Novel, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2002. Corbin, Alain, Histoire du Corps: De la Revolution a la grande Guerre, Paris, Seuil, 2005. Gallagher, Catherine, The Reformation of the English Novel, Berkeley, University of California Press. Greenblatt, Stephen and Catherine Gallagher, Practicing New Historicism, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2001. Marcus, Sharon, Apartment Stories: City and Home in Nineteenth-century Paris and London, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000. Matlock, Jann, Scenes of Seduction: Prostitution, Hysteria, and Reading Difference in Nineteenth-Century France, New York, Columbia University Press, 1994. Poovey, Mary, Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1989. Making a Social Body, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995. Samuels, Maurice, The Spectacular past: Popular History and the Novel in 19th-century France, Cornell UP, 2004.
6
TERM II
POSTCOLONIAL FICTION 11 January 08 Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude Stephen Hart
Primary Reading Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, trans. Gregory Rabassa (London: Picador, 1978). Further Reading Bell-Villada, Gene H. (ed.), Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (Oxford: OUP, 2002). Bloom, Harold (ed.), Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Modern Critical Views Series (New York: Chelsea, 2003). Bloom, Harold (ed.), Gabriel García Márquez, Modern Critical Views Series (New York: Chelsea, 2007). Hart, Stephen, ‗Magical Realism in Gabriel García Márquez‘s Cien años de soledad‘, Inti, 16-17 (1982-83), 37-52. Minta, Stephen, Gabriel García Márquez Writer of Colombia (London: Jonathan Cape, 1987). Woods, Michael, Gabriel García Márquez One Hundred Years of Solitude (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990). One hundred years of solitude-comp lit.doc
18 January 08 Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children Stephen Hart
Primary Reading Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (London: Vintage, 1995). Further Reading Bowers, Maggie Ann, Magical Realism (London: Routledge, 2004). Brennan, Timothy, Salman Rushdie and the Third World (New York: St Martins, 1989). Faris, Wendy, Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2004). Rushdie, Salman, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991 (New York: Penguin, 1992). Zamora, Lois Parkinson, and Wendy Faris (eds), Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995). Midnight’s children-comp lit.doc
25 January 08 Blindness in European fiction Stephen Hart and Tim Mathews
7
Primary Reading Samarago, José, Blindness, trans. Giovanni Pontiero (London: Picador, 1999). Further Reading Samarago, José, ‗How Characters Became the Masters and the Author Their Apprentice‘, Nobel Lecture December 7, 1998 (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1998/lecture-e.html) Bloom, Harold (ed.), José Samarago, Modern Critical Views Series (New York: Chelsea, 2005). Frier, David, ‗Ascent and Consent: Hierarchy and Popular Emancipation in the Novels of José Saramago‘, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 71 (1994), 125-38. Henn, David, ‗History and the Fantastic in José Saramago‘s Fiction‘, in A Companion to Magical Realism, eds Stephen Hart and Wen-chin Ouyang (London: Tamesis, 2005), pp. 103-13. Reis, Carlos, Diálogos com José Samarago (Lisbon: Caminho, 1998). Saramago-comp lit.doc
VARIETIES OF TRAGEDY
1 February 08 Shakespeare, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra René Weis
Primary Reading King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra Further Reading Aristotle, Poetics Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy Sophocles: The Theban plays (particularly Oedipus Rex) R A Foakes (ed) King Lear (Arden 3) Stanley Wells (ed) King Lear (Oxford) Michael Warren (ed) , William Shakespeare: The Parallel King Lear 1608-1623 Rene Weis (ed), King Lear: A Parallel Text Edition Frank Kermode, introductions to The Riverside Shakespeare (the tragedy essays) Frank Kermode, Shakespeare's Language Stanley Wells, Shakespeare for all Time Antony and Cleopatra (New Penguin, ed Emrys Jones, intro Rene Weis) Janet Adelman, The Common Liar (on Antony and Cleopatra)
8 February 08 Corneille, Le Cid, Horace Jane Gilbert 22 February 08 Jean Racine, Britannicus, Phaedra Jane Gilbert
8
Of all the European tragedies perhaps the closest to ancient Greek is the neo-classical tragedy of seventeenth-century France. Austere yet passionate, these plays address a wide range of issues which not only concern the aristocratic and popular audiences of the time but which also speak powerfully to us today. In the first week we shall study two works by Pierre Corneille which dramatize the struggle between different political ideologies and paint a vivid – and not uncritical – picture of the new order of absolute monarchy. In the second week we shall study works by Jean Racine, dating from his early, middle and later periods. Britannicus echoes Corneille‘s interest in monarchic power in the figure of Nero, whose growing tyranny is the play‘s principal subject. Racine‘s concern, however, is rather with human nature in a fallen world. Phaedra, one of the greatest tragedies ever written and a masterpiece of world literature, moves the action from Roman history to Greek myth, touching the sublime. Racine‘s last work, Athaliah, is an Old Testament tale of blood and vengeance, originally privately performed in a girls‘ school. We shall study the themes and aesthetics of these plays, linking them to their time and to more recent concerns. Reading: Jean Racine, Britannicus, Phaedra, Athaliah, trans. C. H. Sisson, Oxford World's Classics (any edition) Pierre Corneille, Horace, Le Cid (any edition) Further Reading: Hammond, N., Creative Tensions: An Introduction to Seventeenth-Centuy French Literature (London, 1997) (a very useful overall introduction; includes two chapters on drama, and helpful further bibliography) Barnwell, H. T., The Tragic Drama of Corneille and Racine (Oxford, 1982) Brody, J., French Classicism: A Critical Miscellany (Englewood Cliffs, 1966) (handy collection of documents) Burke, P., The Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven, 1992) (on political image-making) D. Clarke, Pierre Corneille (Cambridge, 1992) Hollier, D., A New History of French Literature (Cambridge, MA, 1989) (not the conventional literary history; a collection of mainly excellent short essays by major critics; for dipping into, with the help of the index) Maclean, I., Woman Triumphant: Feminism in French Literature, 1610-1652 (attitudes towards women, in the first half of the century) Parish, R., Racine: The Limits of Tragedy (Seattle, 1993) Phillips, H., Church and Culture in Seventeenth-Century France (Cambridge, 1997) (useful for Jansenism, a central theme in Racine‘s plays) Steiner, G., The Death of Tragedy (1961) (chapters on neoclassical France; remains provocative and interesting)
29 February 08 Chikamatsu and Japanese Tragedy Drew Gerstle
It has been common (e.g. George Steiner) to say that real Tragedy has been an exclusively Western genre, beginning from the Greek tradition through European history. Japan has an unusually rich tradition of drama, with several living traditions well known in the world such as Noh, Kabuki and Bunraku Puppet Theatre. This class will focus on one playwright CHIKAMATSU Monzaemon (1653-1725), who wrote more than a hundred plays for Kabuki and Bunraku, in order to consider whether Japanese drama has ‗Tragedy‘ comparable to the European tradition.
9
Primary Readings: Gerstle, C. Andrew, 'Text as Performance: Tragedy in Japanese Drama', Recovering the Orient: Artists, Scholars, Appropriations, ed. A. Gerstle and A. Milner, Harwood Academic Press, 1994. Chikamatsu Monzaemon, ‗Love Suicides at Amijima‘, trans. in Donald Keene, Major Plays of Chikamatsu, (Columbia University Press, 1961)
The Heike and the Island of Women', trans., C. Andrew Gerstle, in Haruo Shirane, ed., Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1868, (Columbia University Press, 2002), pp. 301-313. Secondary Readings: Brazell, Karen, ed. Traditional Japanese Theatre: An Anthology. New York: Columbia UP, 1998. Gerstle, C. Andrew, Circles of Fantasy: Convention in the Plays of Chikamatsu. Cambridge, Mass: Council on East Asian Studies, 1986, especially chapter on ‗Love Suicide Plays‘. Gerstle, C. Andrew, 'Hero as Murderer in Chikamatsu', Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 51: 3, Autumn 1996, pp. 317-356. Gerstle, C. Andrew. Chikamatsu: Five Late Plays. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. Keene, Donald, Major Plays of Chikamatsu, (Columbia University Press, 1961) Shirane, Haruo ed., Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology 1600-1868, (Columbia University Press, 2002).
7 March 08 Ibsen and Bourgeois Tragedy Marie Wells
Ibsenian tragedy - the conflict between nineteenth-century liberalism and determinism, Nietzsche and Freud - is it more than the eternal conflicts of Greek tragedy but with new names? What is new about Ibsenian tragedy and how does it develop the concept in the plays to be discussed? Primary Reading Henrik Ibsen, Ghosts and Hedda Gabler Secondary Reading Arestad, S., ―Ibsen's Concept of Tragedy‖, Publications of the Modern Languages Association, Vol 74, 1959, 285-297. Bradley, A.C., Oxford Lectures on Poetry, 1959, see esp. the chapter ―'Hegel‘s Theory of Tragedy‖. L. Michel L., and R. Sewall (eds), Tragedy: Modern Essays in Criticism, Prentice- Hall, 1963. *Robinson, M., ―Ibsen and the Possibility of Tragedy‖, Scandinavica, Vol 20 No 2, 1981, 171-182. Sæther, Astrid (ed), Ibsen, Tragedy and the Tragic, Ibsen Conference in Athens 2002, Centre for Ibsen Studies, University of Oslo 2003. *Steiner, George, The Death of Tragedy, 1961. *Williams, Raymond, Modern Tragedy, Hogarth Press, London, 1966. *Van Laan, T., ―Openings for Tragedy in Ibsen's "Social Problem Plays‖', in V. Ystad (ed) Ibsen at the Centre for Advanced Study, Scandinavian University Press, 1997, pp. 227-247. Ystad, V., ―Tragedy in Ibsen's Art‖, in B. Hemmer and V. Ystad (eds), Contemporary Approaches to Ibsen, Vol 6, 1988, pp 69-80.
10
14 March 08 Tragicomedy Marie Wells
Tragicomedy has been called’ the only type of drama that can cope with present reality in a satisfactory manner’. An attempt will be made to define some of the characteristics of tragicomedy by looking at two plays, one by Ibsen and one by Chekhov.
Primary Reading Ibsen: The Wild Duck and Chekhov The Three Sisters Secondary Reading Tragicomedy: General Criticism Guthke, Karl., Modern Tragicomedy: An Investigation into the Nature of the Genre, Random Hirst, D., Tragicomedy, Methuen (Critical Idiom Series), 1984 Hoy, C, The Hyacinth Room. An Investigation into the Nature of Comedy, Tragedy and Tragicomedy, Knopf, 1964 Styan, A,J., The Dark Comedy: The Development of Modern Comic Tragedy, CUP, 1968 Ibsen and Tragicomedy Foster, V. A., ‗Ibsen‘s Tragicomedy:The Wild Duck’, Modern Drama, Vol 38, No 1995, 287-297. House, 1966*
11
ASSESSMENT CRITERA
All assessed work is marked by two Internal Examiners and made available to an External Examiner. Marks are not finalised until the meeting of the Board of Examiners. The Pass mark for all MA papers and essays is 50%. Distinction requires 70% or more. Coursework and examination scripts are awarded letter marks as follows: A (76-85%) Outstanding, shows total command of the material, bold original thinking, critical awareness, effective overall organisation, and pertinent and persuasive use of examples. Ideas are clearly articulated, concisely and engagingly phrased. Its structure is well conceived and transparent. It show evidence of extensive and critical use of secondary literature, with an eye for complexity and nuance. It includes a full, accurate and properly laid out bibliography. Well-organised use of most of the major points, with pertinent examples. The work demonstrates thorough knowledge of the subject-matter, with evidence of independent critical thinking and wide secondary reading. The structure is well conceived and transparent. Written with care and precision. Full, accurate and properly laid out bibliography. A sensible and reasonable essay which covers major points, clearly expressed. Satisfactory broad knowledge. Some creative thinking, perceptive observations and a coherent methodology. Structure basically coherent. Good, controlled phrasing. Bibliography acceptable. The piece of work is relevant, shows signs of understanding, but nevertheless a rather thin or incomplete grasp of the material. There is little independent thought, ideas are not always well expressed, and the structure is deficient at some levels. The bibliography is rather thin, or inconsistent, or incomplete. Patchy understanding of the material, poor expression and/or structure, incoherent argument. Does not address the question or the title. Little evidence of secondary reading. Embryonic bibliography only. The work shows little or nothing of relevance, hardly any grasp of the material, poor phrasing, rambling and incoherent argument. No visible sign of any effort having been made. No proper bibliography.
A- (70-75%)
B (60-69%)
C (50-59%)
D (40-49%)
E (40% -)
DEADLINES Monday 17 March 2007 Practice and Methodology Report 1 (5,000 words)
Wednesday 23 April 2008
Practice and Methodology Report 2 (5,000 words)
Late submission of assessed work . Deadlines are absolute and must be strictly observed. For the take-home papers and the dissertation a mark of ‗Absent‘ will be recorded if you fail to hand in your work by the due date (see Regulation 15.3.7 of the College Regulations for Students). This effectively means you may not be awarded a degree if you miss a deadline, as you will have to re-enter the examination on the next normal occasion, i.e. the following year. Failure to submit assessed coursework (essays and reports) by the deadline specified incurs a penalty of a 10% reduction of the mark for each week the work is late, unless an extension has been granted in writing. Lame excuses (‗the printer broke down‘, ‗I overslept‘, ‗the dog chewed my disk‘) are not acceptable. The same 10% reduction applies to work submitted later than a specified extension date. Extension of deadlines Deadlines will be extended in exceptional circumstances only and require written evidence (e.g. a medical certificate). Requests should be addressed in writing (email is acceptable), and well before the deadline expires, to Professor Theo Hermans. Length. Assessed work exceeding the word limit by a significant margin may be penalised. Plagiarism. With each piece of assessed work you submit you will be asked to sign a statement confirming that the work is your own and that you understand UCL‘s rules on plagiarism. UCL uses the sophisticated JISC plagiarism detection service to investigate suspected plagiarism.
12
ADVICE ON COURSEWORK AND ESSAYS
The main aim of a report is to demonstrate your ability to handle a relatively complex issue with confidence, and to exercise critical thinking. In most cases you can do this by arguing a case, setting out a personal viewpoint, adducing evidence and countering possible objections, showing your grasp of the material in the process. Begin by carefully reading the title you have chosen to write about: examine its scope and consider its implications and presuppositions. If necessary, define the meaning of key words in it. As you develop your argument make sure you do not merely restate existing views without formulating your own reasoned opinion of them. It is perfectly acceptable to use the first person singular in an essay (‗I think...‘, ‗I wish to argue...‘, etc.). Your report should be transparently structured. The simplest structure is that of beginning, middle and end. The introduction states what you will be doing (definition of terms, main texts referred to, approach to be taken, line of argument to be developed), the middle part contains the argument (divided into stages, and illustrated with references and examples), and the conclusion rounds off the report by summing up the main findings. Note however that if you employ this same structure over and over again, your reports will become rather predictable, so be imaginative and pay attention to presentation.
STYLE SHEET FOR WRITTEN WORK
All written work should be properly presented, i.e. accurately typed (11 or 12-point) and neatly laid out on A4 paper, using one side only, with one-and-a-half spacing between lines, adequate margins and consecutive page numbering, and with clear titles and subdivisions. Proof-read your final version for errors of fact, grammar, spelling, punctuation and typing. It is in your interest to keep a back-up copy of all work handed in. Provide a separate title page (giving your name, programme of study, academic year, essay title, submission date). Quotations of more than three lines should be indented; only shorter quotations require quotation marks. References to primary and secondary sources should be accurate and complete. Titles of books or journals are italicised or underlined (not put between quotation marks!). References may take the conventional form of footnotes or endnotes (e.g. Susan Bassnett, Comparative Literature. A Critical Introduction, Oxford, 1993, p. 10) or be inserted into the main text by using the author-date system (e.g. Bassnett 1993, p. 10). All reports must be accompanied by a full and accurate bibliography listing both primary and secondary sources in alphabetical order. Clearly separate the bibliography from the main body of the text, and set it out as follows: For books you give: author‘s name, full title [italic or underlined], place of publication, year. For journal articles: author‘s name, ‗article title‘ [in quotation marks], journal title [italic or underlined], volume number and year, issue number, page numbers. For contributions to books: author‘s name, ‗chapter title‘ [in quotation marks], in book title [italic or underlined] (edited by x), place and year of publication, page numbers.
Examples of entries in a bibliography: Brown, Marshall (ed.). The Uses of Literary History. Durham/London, 1995. Even-Zohar, Itamar. ‗Laws of Literary Interference‘, Poetics Today 11 (1990), 1, p. 45-52. Miner, Earl. Comparative Poetics. Princeton (NJ), 1990. Perloff, Marjorie. ‗Empiricism Once More‘, in The Uses of Literary History (ed. Marshall Brown), Durham/London, 1995, p. 51-62. Make sure assessed work is submitted on or before the due date. Build in a sufficient margin to guard against the unexpected. Missing a deadline can have dire consequences (see above). If you still feel uncertain about what is expected of an essay at MA level, or about the conventions of essay writing at British universities, you should raise the matter with your Personal Tutor.
13