Unit of Study ENG00401 - Issues and Themes in Contemporary Writing (2017)

Unit description

Introduces students to a number of contemporary written texts. Major issues and themes are identified and a number of critical methods are exploited. Particular attention is paid to those issues and themes which can be seen as having special relevance to postcolonial societies. There is an emphasis on Australian writing.

Unit content

Module 1: Critiquing contemporary writing practices

Topic 1 Defining aesthetics: Realism, modernity and postcolonial interventions
Topic 2 Other histories
Topic 3 Beyond postcolonial

Module 2: Writing Australia

Topic 4 Australian literary belongings
Topic 5 Away from the centre: Multicultural Australia
Topic 6 Faking identities: Australia's cultural cringing
Topic 7 Literary dreaming: Indigenous writings

Module 3: Gender, sexuality and difference

Topic 8 Gendered writing
Topic 9 Writing facts: Dealing with fictions
Topic 10 Intertextual pluralities: Queering Virginia Woolf

Module 4: Local realisations: Global implications

Topic 11 Beyond postmodernity