Postgraduate Course: Theory and Practice in Transatlantic Comparisons (CLLC11007)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | Common Courses (School of Lit, Lang and Cult) |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course introduces the theory and practice of making comparisons in nineteenth-century British and American literature. It considers the genesis of cultural comparison in Scottish Englightenment historiography and Romantic nationalism, and investigates Anglo-American rivalries and thematic and stylistic divergences through close study of paired transatlantic texts. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | Purchase of essential texts as required. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Students will:
1. Encounter a range of significant nineteenth-century American prose in relation to contemporary writing by British and European authors.
2. Establish the self-conciously comparative nature of American writing in the nineteenth century and the rivalrous nature of Anglo-American literary reception.
3. Develop understanding of the history, theories and practice of comparative literary studies, from its beginnings in eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment writing and European Romantic nationalism through its institutionalisation during the nineteenth century.
4. Develop understanding and ability to compare texts, on thematic and stylistic grounds, from a series of tightly focused readings.
5. Develop critical perspectives on methodologies of comparative literary study through an awareness of recent theoretical and practical approaches. |
Assessment Information
| 1 essay of 4000 words. |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Week 2: Transatlantic Studies: Exception or Inclusion
Professor Susan Manning
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: A Reader, 'Introduction'
Additional texts: Dimock, Wai Chee, Deep Time: American Literature and World History, American Literary History, 13.4 (2001): 755-75 Watson, Tim, Is the Post in Postcolonial Studies the US in American Studies?
Week 3: Forms of Comparison 1
Dr Andrew Taylor
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: A Reader, 75-111
Additional texts: Bassnett, Susan, How Comparative Literature Came into Being and Comparative Identities in the Postcolonial World, Comparative Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993)
Week 4: Nation Theory
Dr David Farrier
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: a Reader, 17-74
Additional texts: Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1991) Bhabha, Homi (ed.), Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990)
Week 5: Nation and Cosmopolitanism
Dr Andrew Taylor
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: a Reader, 17-74
Additional texts: Sections from Appiah, Kwame Anthony, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (London: Allen Lane, 2006) Brennan, Timothy, At Home in the World: Cosmopolitanism Now (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997)
Week 6: Imperialism and the Postcolonial
Dr David Farrier
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: a Reader, 121-166
Additional texts: Césaire, Aimé, Notebook of a Return to my Native Land (Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 1995)
Week 7: Atlanticism
Dr Keith Hughes
*Fanon, Franz, Black Skin, White Masks, (London: Pluto press, 1986) OReilly, William, Genealogies of Atlantic History, Atlantic Studies 1.1.(2004) Gilroy, Paul, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass:Harvard University Press, 1993) Piot, Charles, Atlantic Aporias: Africa and Gilroy's Black Atlantic,The South Atlantic Quarterly 100.1 (2001)
Week 8: Travel Theory, Travelling Theory and Transatlantic Travellers as Theorists
Dr Simon Cooke
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: a Reader, 281-238
Additional texts: Theodor Adorno, Words from Abroad, in Notes to literature, ed. Rolf Tiedemann; trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991) Mary Louise Pratt, Planetarity, in Intercultural Dialogue, ed. Rosemary Bechler (London: British Council, 2004), pp. 11-31
Week 9: Forms of Comparison II: Comparatism and American Studies
Dr Keith Hughes
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: a Reader, 75-111
Additional texts: Chow, Rey, The Old/New Question of Comparison in Literary Studies: A Post-European Perspective, Ramazani, Jahan, A Transnational Poetics, American Literary History 18.2 (2006): 332-59
Week 10: Translation
Dr Sharon Deane-Cox
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: a Reader, 167-214
Additional texts: Post-colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, ed. by Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi (London: Routledge, 1999), Introduction and chapters 1, 3 and 4. Niranjana, Tejaswini, Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), Chapters 1 and 2
Week 11: Style and Genre
Professor Susan Manning
*Transatlantic Literary Studies: a Reader, 215-280
Additional texts: Dimock, Wai Chee, Genre as World System: Epic and Novel on Four Continents¿, Narrative 14.1 (2006): 85-101 |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | TaPiT |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Fiona Mackintosh
Tel: (0131 6)50 8303
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Natalie Carthy
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: |
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