ENGL302-18S2 (C) Semester Two 2018

Rebels, Devils and Cannibals: Literature and the Origins of Modernity

30 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 16 July 2018
End Date: Sunday, 18 November 2018
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 27 July 2018
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 12 October 2018

Description

Examining a range of literary texts in English from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, ENGL202/302 focuses on how the chosen works represent and are shaped by the first glimmerings of modern forms of culture and consciousness.

A scholar makes a pact with a demon to acquire boundless knowledge; a misshapen creature is enslaved by a powerful magician; a university student tries to figure out the ethics of killing his uncle; a passionate husband is driven to murderous rage by the suspicion his wife is unfaithful; a charismatic slave decides to revolt against his captors; the lone inhabitant of a desert island finds a footprint in the sand that is not his own.

These scenarios are emblematic of a society undergoing the radical changes associated with the period we call the Early Modern. From the fifteenth century onwards, European societies were confronted by the discovery of new lands and peoples, and by internal upheavals in formerly stable social structures and patterns of belief. Meanwhile, scholars and philosophers were producing unprecedented shifts in traditional conceptions of the world, as well as questioning received ideas of what it meant to be human.

Examining a range of literary texts in English from the late sixteenth to the early eighteenth centuries, ENGL202/302 focuses on how the chosen works represent and are shaped by the first glimmerings of modern forms of culture and consciousness. The main themes around which the course is structured are: the emergence of the modern sense of self; the history of the object; power, violence and rebellion; changing ideas of sex, gender and race; travel, discovery and colonisation.

This course can be used towards an English major or minor. BA students who major in English would normally take at least two 100-level 15 point ENGL courses (which must include at least one of the following: ENGL117, ENGL102 or ENGL103), at least three 200-level 15 point ENGL courses, and at least two 300-level 30 point ENGL courses. Please see the BA regulations  or a student advisor for more information.

Prerequisites

Either 15 points of ENGL at 200 level with a B pass, or
30 points of ENGL at 200 level, or
any 45 points at 200 level from the Arts Schedule

Restrictions

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Philip Armstrong

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Essay 1 30% 3000 words
Essay 2 30% 3000 words
Take-Home Test 40%

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts
• Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (Oxford World’s Classics)
• William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Oxford World’s Classics)
• William Shakespeare, Othello (Oxford World’s Classics)
• William Shakespeare, The Tempest (Oxford World’s Classics)
• Aphra Behn, Oroonoko  (Penguin Classics)
• Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (Oxford World’s Classics)

(Image: "Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Caliban" by Charles Buchel, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International.)

Course links

Library portal

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,493.00

International fee $6,075.00

* 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.

Minimum enrolments

This course will not be offered if fewer than 25 people apply to enrol.

For further information see Humanities .

All ENGL302 Occurrences

  • ENGL302-18S2 (C) Semester Two 2018