Teaching code

4S002926

Teacher

Chiara Battisti

Coordinatore

Chiara Battisti

Credits

9

Language

English

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-LIN/10 - ENGLISH LITERATURE

Period

I semestre (Lingue e letterature straniere) dal Sep 26, 2022 al Dec 23, 2022.

Lessons timetable Moodle Seminars

Learning objectives

The course, held in English, aims at introducing the students to English literature (from the Victorian to the contemporary period), with specific reference to a selection of canonical texts, and at presenting methodological approaches for the analysis of literary texts and genres. The course aims at providing a good knowledge of British literature (articulated in historical context, texts, genres, literary trends and authors) and the skills for a critical analysis and argumentation on different kinds of texts in their historical and cultural context. At the end of the course, students will be able to: -Analyse the literary texts of the programme in their historical and cultural context; - Apply an aware critical approach to literary texts and present an argumentation which shows knowledge of literary conventions -Express the acquired literary and critical competence in English clearly and coherently.

Prerequisites and basic notions

The certification of "saperi minimi" is necessary to take the final exam

Program

Madwomen in the Attic: novels, graphic novels and digital mapping

The aim of the course is to provide a critical-methodological introduction to the study of English literature and culture during the 19th, 20th and 21st century with a specific focus on female writing and the relevance and the persistence in permutated forms of the image of the “madwoman in the attic.”
In line with the specificity of the curriculum, part of the course will be devoted to graphic narratives and to a digital humanities approach (digital literary mapping).

A) Primary Texts:

- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, 1847.
- Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, 1925.
- Dana Walrath, Aliceheimer’s: Alzheimer’s through the Looking Glass, 2013.

B) Critical Texts:

-- Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, (1979). Chapters:
1) The Queen’s Looking Glass: Female Creativity, Male Images of Women, and the Metaphor of Literary Paternity
2. Infection in the Sentence: The Woman Writer and the Anxiety of Authorship
10. A Dialogue of Self and Soul: Plain Jane’s Progress
15. The Aesthetics of Renunciation.
--Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art, HarperCollins, 1993.
--Louis Sass, “Schizophrenia, Modernism, and the ‘Creative Imagination’: On Creativity and Psychopathology” Creativity Research Journal, 13. 1, 2001: 55-74.
--Barbara Piatti, “Mapping Fiction. The Theories, Tools and Potentials of Literary Cartography in David Cooper, Christopher Donaldson and Patricia Murrieta-Flores, Literary Mapping in the Digital Age, London and New York, Routledge, 2016, 88-101.
--Sathyaraj Venkatesan, Raghavi Ravi Kasthuri, “‘Magic and Laughter’: Graphic Medicine, Recasting Alzheimer Narratives and Dana Walrath’s Aliceheimer’s: Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies 44.1 March 2018: 61-84.

C) History of literature: Paul Poplawski, English Literature in Context, Cambridge University Press, 2017, (Chapters: 5-7)

Bibliography

Didactic methods

Students who attend the course: the course will be held in English through lectures and will also include parts for reflection and discussion on the part of the students upon the topics under consideration. Slides related to the topics of the course and used during the lessons will be uploaded to Moodle and are part of the programme.
Students who do not attend the course are required to contact Prof. Battisti. They can access Moodle and the uploaded slides which are part of the programme.
All students can ask for further references or about the topics of the course during the receiving hours (as indicated on the webpage).

Learning assessment procedures

The lessons will be in English. The exam will be an oral discussion in English on the topic of the course and the texts in the program (parts A,B,C).

Evaluation criteria

The oral exam will verify:
1. knowledge of the topics addressed during the course
2. argumentative and critical analysis skills

Criteria for the composition of the final grade

The exam is not divided into parts and therefore the final grade will be determined by the oral exam

Exam language

Inglese