Fiction in English: Nobel Prize Winners since 1950

Academic year: 2010-2011 Course code module FLWTLE0070 Semester: 2nd semester Credits: 4 Study load (hours) 112 Theory (hours): 30,00 Practice/Exercises(hours): Other (hours): Part-time program: 1/2 Instructor(s) Bart Eeckhout Pim Verhulst Language of instruction: English Semester exam information: exam in the 2nd semester Contract restriction information: exam contract not possible 1. Prerequisites *Algemene competenties A sufficient knowledge of English to read English literary prose at an advanced level and understand it when spoken at a relatively high level of difficulty. *Sequentiality None 2. Objectives (expected learning outcomes) An understanding of how the modern canon of literature in English operates and how international writers come to be awarded the most prestigious literary prize in the world. Close reading skills informed by an awareness of narratological theories, context, and ideology. The ability to write a short essay about a literary text. 3. Course content This course introduces eight English-speaking Nobel Prize winners who have received the prize since the middle of the twentieth century. The emphasis is on authors who made their careers on the basis of their prose: the all-American writers Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck, the Jewish American Saul Bellow, the African American Toni Morrison, the South-Africans Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee, and the British writers William Golding and Doris Lessing. Their work evokes different national cultures and periods, as well as a variety of themes and fictional genres. For purposes of analysis, we will fall back on the narratological apparatus taught in the course "Literary Genres" during the first semester. In addition to the lectures, there will be a few small writing exercises, taught by a different lecturer, in which you are being prepared for the kind of academic paper writing you are expected to engage in on a regular basis as of the second year. These exercises will culminate in a brief final paper that counts toward the exam (hence the double exam format indicated below: "open book" for the writing exercise, "closed book" for the written exam). 4. Teaching method Direct contact: Lectures Skills training Personal work: Assignments - individual Supervised self-study 5. Assessment method Exam: Written, without oral presentation Closed book Open book Open questions Continuous assessment: Exercises 6. Compulsory reading – study material - Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea - John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men - William Golding, Lord of the Flies - Saul Bellow, Seize the Day - J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace - A small reader with stories by Gordimer, Morrison, and Lessing will be made available. Please note that the only reliable editions of these works are available at De Groene Waterman (a bookstore in the Wolstraat), where you are also getting a student discount. Editions bought elsewhere threaten to be totally useless in class. 7. Recommended reading - study material Not available. 8. Tutoring The writing assistant responsible for the supervision of the writing exercises will offer individual feedback to the various exercises. For problems relating to the course itself, please contact your professor at Bart.Eeckhout@ua.ac.be. laatste aanpassing: last update: 07/02/2011 17:23 bart.eeckhout