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However you think about the outsider - as artist, as outlaw or anarchist, as hero or scapegoat, as criminal or critic - it is clear that this figure is a constant in the study of literature. In this course we shall investigate the way the figure of the outsider has been represented in the traditions of American and New Zealand literature. Furthermore, we will bring to bear on this figure three key critical contexts: romanticism, modernism and post-colonialism.
However you think about the outsider – as artist, as outlaw or anarchist, as hero or scapegoat, as criminal or critic – it is clear that this figure is a constant in the study of literature. Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost, Shakespeare’s Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, the exilic wanderers of the Romantic tradition all remind us of the enduring power of a conceit that continues today in our fascination with superheroes and teenaged supernaturals. In all cases the outsider is that figure who can never settle or be settled, who finds themselves between states, forms, conventions and laws, either embodying or initiating some form of transformation. In accounting for such figures we are often required to re-evaluate ideas about justice and morality, truth and representation, similarity and difference, privilege and power; in short, the figure of the outsider offers us a way to think critically about the ways in which a culture conceives of individuality and, in turn, how the individual can be said to reflect the culture’s imagining of identity and nation.In this course we shall investigate the way the figure of the outsider has been represented in the traditions of American and New Zealand literature and popular culture.Course Content• Mark Twain – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn• Katherine Mansfield – Short Stories (‘The Woman at the Store’, ‘Ole Underwood’, ‘The Doll’s House’, ‘The Garden Party’)• Janet Frame – Owls Do Cry• Jonathan Levine - Warm Bodies (film), (based on the novel by Isaac Marion)• Pasifka Poetry Supplement: Hone Tuwhare; Tusiata Avia; Karlo Mila; Fleur Adcock; Hinemoana Baker; Sia Figiel.• Toni Morrison – Sula• Ronald Hugh Morrieson – The Scarecrow• Dexter (TV Series) and Serial Killer Culture• Batman: The Dark Knight (film)
Development of critical reading skills Understanding of key historical and critical contexts crucial to the study of literature and culture Critical introduction to some of the key texts in the fields of American and New Zealand literature Development of written rhetorical skills through essay writing An appreciation of the value of the study of literature and culture
Nicholas Wright
Paul Millar and Erin Harrington
Frame, Janet; Owls do Cry ;
Morrieson, R. H; The Scarecrow ;
Morrison, Toni; Sula ;
Twain, Mark; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ;
Domestic fee $670.00
International fee $2,850.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
For further information see Humanities .