SemesterSpring Semester, 2020
DepartmentMA Program of English, First Year Ph.D. Program in English Literature, First Year MA Program of English, Second Year Ph.D. Program in English Literature, Second Year
Course NameContemporary British Novels
InstructorCHEN YIN-I
Credit3.0
Course TypeElective
Prerequisite
Course Objective
Course Description
Course Schedule

Week 1: Orientation



Week 2: Read 1 and 2 before class; read 3 in class.



               1. A Concise Companion to Contemporary British Fiction



                2. Introduction. Contemporary British Fiction. Nick Bentley



                3. Patricia Waugh. “Postmodern Fiction and the Rise of Critical Theory”. A Companion to the British and Irish  Novel 1945-2000. Brian W. Shaffer, ed.

 



Week 3: Peter Ackroyd. Hawksmoor. “The Capitol of Darkness: Gothic Spatialities in the London of Peter Ackroy’d   Hawksmoor”

Week 4. Peter Ackroyd. Hawksmoor. Walking and Writing the City: Visions of London in the Works of Peter Ackroyd and Iain Sinclair”

              Read in class: “The Contemporary London Gothic and the Limits of the ‘Spectral Turn’”527-536, 542



             

Week 5: Atonement;Coda in Narrative in Atonement


 



Week 6: Atonement;Trauma and War

 



Week 7: Atonement;Deeper Darkness in Atonement

 



Week 8: Fingersmith; I know everything. I know nothing”: (Re)Reading Fingersmith’s Deceptive Doubles.



Week 9: Fingersmith; “Queer and Verdant”: The Textual Politics of Sarah Waters’s Neo-Victorian Novels



“Masquerade in Fingersmith



Week 10: The Black Album; “Brit Bomber: The Fundamentalist Trope in Black Album”



 



Week 11: The Black Album; “Prince of Darkness Meets Priestess of Porn”



“Tropicalizing London: British Fiction and the Discipline of Postcolonialism”



 



Week 12: Brick Lane. “The Feminization of Globalization”



2. “Migration and the Politics of Narrative Form in Brick Lane



Week 13: Brick Lane; “Monica Ali: Brick Lane



“From Brick Lane to Bradford”



Week 14: Never Let Me Go; “Inhuman Aesthetics in Never Let Me Go



 



Week 15: Never Let Me Go;“Cloning and Heterosexuality”



 



Week 16: Never Let Me Go; Literature online. “Giving Form to Life”



 



 



                       Week 17: Proposal presentation



 



 


Teaching Methods
Teaching Assistant
Requirement/Grading

Final report  60%



Presentation 20%



Weekly questions and performance  20%


Textbook & Reference

To be handed out in class.


Urls about Course
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