A Learning Diary which comments upon 6 posts from the student’s contributions to the discussion forum, 1500 words (post word count not included). [Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3 ] (20%)

A 5,000 word essay (80%) – this is the final piece. [Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4 ]

This module will offer students the chance to study three major fields – gender studies, postcolonial studies and ecocriticism – in the context of a late twentieth- and early twenty-first century critique and deconstruction of the paradigms of Modernity. The module will consider postmodernity as a crucial phase of this deconstruction, but move beyond this to show cultural, creative and critical directions reaching toward new formations which step beyond postmodern discourse. The topics covered on this module are necessarily broad as, taken together, they present a critique of the tenets of Western-European Modernity, as well as a development beyond the concern with surface, self-ironizing, pastiche and fragmentation that preoccupied much postmodern literature. The successful student on this module will be able to work critically to show the essentially interrelated nature of these varied themes. The higher-level critical and cognitive skills which this module will develop in the MA student will form a rich grounding for their longer research project.

The module will encompass the work of writer – predominantly contemporary novelists – from the late 20th century and into the 21st century such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Rana Dasgupta, Sarah Hall, David Mitchell, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy and Jon McGreggor. These texts are Essential.

The creative writing exercises are designed so that students can explore several essential narrative techniques. Workshops for creative writers will cover key module themes such as the construction of gender, nature writing, representing global voices and non-European narratives.

1. Demonstrate a systematic understanding of knowledge which is at the forefront of contemporary literature and associated critical/theoretical fields.
Knowledge understanding
Learning
Reflection

2. Demonstrate a critical awareness and evaluation of current research, advanced scholarship, contemporary problems and/or new insights, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of contemporary literary studies.
Analysis
Knowledge Understanding
Learning
Enquiry

3. Communicate your conclusions clearly in the form of both a written essay and online forum contributions OR produce a piece of creative prose fiction/poetry which demonstrates applied knowledge of the new modes of writing studied on the module
Communication
Analysis
Problem Solving
Application

4. Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding and critical evaluation of the key aspects of contemporary literary studies, showing how areas of this inform your own research or advanced scholarship and, where appropriate, propose new ways of reading contemporary texts.
Enquiry
Knowledge Understanding
Learning
Problem Solving

The module will be delivered entirely online, by a combination of lecture script, assigned critical reading and weekly video/podcasts.

Library and IT facilities, especially the printed journals collection and JSTOR archive, the MLA database, the Oxford Online Reference Collection, Blackboard.

Recommended and Background
Adiseshiah, Siân and Rupert Hildyard (ed. and introd.) (2013) Twenty-First Century Fiction: What Happens Now. New York: Palgrave Macmillan

Buell, Lawrence (2005) The Future of Environmental Criticism: Environmental Crisis and the Literary Imagination Massachusetts: Blackwell.

Deloughrey, E & G. B. Handley eds (2011) Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment. Oxford:Oxford U.P.

Friedman, S.S. (2015), Planetary Modernisms : Provocations on Modernity Across Time, Columbia University Press, La Vergne.

Funk, Wolfgang (2015) The Literature of Reconstruction: Authentic Fiction in the New Millennium. London: Bloomsbury.

Green, Jeremy (2005) Late Postmodernism: American fiction at the millennium. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Holland, M. (2014) Succeeding Postmodernism: language and humanism in contemporary American literature, New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Huggan, Graham and Helen Tiffin (2009) Postcolonial Ecocriticism London: Routledge.

Lutz, H. (2011), Framing intersectionality: debates on a multi-faceted concept in gender studies, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Marzec, Robert P. (2007) An Ecological and Postcolonial Study of Literature: From Daniel Defoe to Salman Rushdie. Palgrave.

Mies, M. (2014), Ecofeminism, 2nd edn, Zed Books.

Mills, S. (2013), Gender and Colonial space, Manchester University Press, US.

Rosendale, Steven (2002) The Greening of Literary Scholarship: Literature, Theory and the Environment. Iowa: Iowa U.P.

Rudrum, D. & Stavris, N. (2015), Supplanting the Postmodern: an anthology of writings on the arts and culture of the early 21st century, London: Bloomsbury.

Stierstorfer, Klaus (2003) Beyond Postmodernism: Reassessments in Literature, Theory and Culture. Berlin: de Gruyter.