The honours programme comprises of four taught courses (two compulsory courses and two electives) and a Research Essay. Consult the Honours Essay Guidelines and Topic Sheet document for details. For information on Honours electives, please click here.
ELL4061F: LITERATURE & LANGUAGE STUDIES 1 – Reading Contemporary Theory
Course Convenors: Professor John Higgins, Dr Sandra Young & Dr Cóilín ParsonsSchedule:
Friday, Period 2&3, 09:00-10:45 or
Friday, Period 4&5, 11:00-12:45
Venue: A116
Reading Contemporary Theory will introduce students to key topics in contemporary literary theory through the in-depth analysis of a range of essays by a selection of the most significant figures in the field. The course is divided to part one and part two, follow the details below.
ELL4061F - Part One: Theory in Practice: Reading 9/11
Lecturers: Professor John Higgins, email: John.Higgins@uct.ac.za
Course Outline:
If you can read and understand one article that uses contemporary theory, there is a good chance you can read and understand any such article. If you have read and understood one article that uses contemporary theory, there is a good chance you will be able to read and enjoy others.
This seminar is based in the tension between these two statements regarding what it means to read contemporary theory, or what it means to regard contemporary theory as read.
It focuses on some recent accounts of 9/11 as a way of seeking to grasp what the best of contemporary theory has to offer for our ways of reading both events and texts, both word and world.
The guiding thread of the seminar is provided by the first and last chapters of David Simpson’s study, 9/11: The Culture of Commemoration (2006).
Our reading of these will be grounded in attention to several texts used or discussed by Simpson, and notably the following:
- Giorgio Agamben 2002 Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive (Zone) In library: 940.5318AGAM
- Gil Anidjar 2003 The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy (Stanford UP) In library; 940.04924
- Jean Baudrillard 2002 The Spirit of Terrorism and Requiem for the Twin Towers (Verso)In library: H194.9 BAUD
- Giovanni Borradori (ed) 2003 Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago UP) In library: 303.625HABE
- Judith Butler 2004 Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (Verso). In library: 303.625 BUTL
- Jacques Derrida 1994 Spectres of Marx (Routledge)In library: 335.4 DERR
- Michael Ignatieff 2004 The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (Princeton UP). In library: 172.4 IGNA
- Edward W. Said 2004 Humanism and Democratic Criticism (Columbia UP). In library: H144 SAID
- Slavoj Zizek 2002 Welcome to the Desert of the Real (Verso); also available as a section of the Afterword (‘Lenin’s Choice’ in Zizek 2002 Revolution at the Gates: Zizek on Lenin, The 1917 Writings (Verso) pp. 229-49. In library: 973.931 ZIZE
ELL4061F - Part Two: Theory in Action: Reading Hamlet
Lectures: Dr Cóilín Parsons, email: coilin.parsons@uct.ac.za and
Dr Sandy Young, email: sandra.young@uct.ac.za
Course Outline:
This module is focused on close and repeated reading of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Building on your experience of careful reading in the first term, we will concentrate on multiple critical approaches to the interpretation of Hamlet (materialist, historicist, psychoanalytic, feminist, post-colonial) as we consider how theory might be marshalled to enrich and potentially trouble the study of literature.
The module is designed as an introduction to a number of critical approaches to the interpretation of literature, in preparation for writing your Honours long essay and the more in-depth theoretical analyses of the Honours electives.
Required text: any scholarly edition of Hamlet. Please read the play at least twice before the beginning of term.
All other readings will be provided on Vula.
ELL4062F LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE STUDIES 2 – Debates in African Literature
Lectures: Associate Professor Harry Garuba, email: Harry.Garuba@uct.ac.za
Schedule:
Monday, Period 2&3, 09:00-10:45 or
Monday, Period 4&5, 11:00-12:45
Venue: Centre for African Studies
Debates in African Literature offers an intellectual history of literature, both within South Africa and beyond our borders. What it hopes to achieve is both an historical, chronological sense, as well as an understanding of some of the major debates and issues within the field. Out of this understanding, African literary theory emerges and methodologies for studying African writing may become self-conscious fine-tuned.
This course offers an intellectual history of literature, both within South Africa and beyond our borders. What it hopes to achieve is an historical, chronological sense, as well as an understanding of some of the major debates and issues within the field. Out of this understanding, African literary theory emerges and methodologies for studying African writing may become self-conscious and fine-tuned.
Assessment:
Two essays each of between 3,500 to 5000 words and each counting 50% of the total mark. One essay should be on the South African section and the other on the other parts of Africa covered in the course.
Prescribed Text:
A booklet with prescribed readings for each seminar will be given to students at the outset of the course. A course reader will also be provided.
ELL4001H HONOURS RESEARCH PROJECT
A research paper of 15 000 words on an approved topic in the field of English Studies is required and must be submitted before 25 October 2011. The dissertation may be done in the area of Creative Writing in consultation with the Head of Department.
Please ensure that you complete the Honours Essay Topic Form; it will be posted onto the Honours Vula Site. You must submit this form before the end of March 2011. Your supervisor will need to sign the form.
The Research Project counts 20% of the final mark.