Teaching Responsibility

LJMU Schools involved in Delivery:

Humanities and Social Science

Learning Methods

Lecture

Seminar

Workshop

Module Offerings

5125ENGL-JAN-MTP

Aims

1. To introduce students to the diversity of auto/biographical writing 2. To equip students with the critical vocabulary and analytical tools to explore and analyse modern life-writing 3. To understand key critical topics relating to life-writing, including the relations of subjectivity and form; the intersections of gender, race, class and embodiment; the role of memory and nostalgia; narrative strategies of confession and secrecy. 4. To explore these questions in an interdisciplinary context with reference to a wide range of literary, cultural and visual texts.

Learning Outcomes

1.
Analyse and evaluate a diverse range of auto/biographical narratives using an appropriate critical vocabulary
2.
Apply skills of close reading and theoretical/contextual analysis in order to interpret a broad and diverse range of life-writing
3.
Demonstrate an awareness of narrative structures and the complexities of representing biographical material

Module Content

Outline Syllabus:An example of a syllabus of core texts would be: Virginia Woolf, selections from Moments of Being Jackie Kay, Red Dust Road Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation Jenny Diski, Skating to Antarctica Asif Kapadia, dir., Amy (documentary film)
Module Overview:
The aim of this module is to introduce you to the diversity of auto/biographical writing. It will equip you with the critical vocabulary and analytical tools to explore and analyse modern life-writing. You will understand key critical topics relating to life-writing, including the relations of subjectivity and form; the intersections of gender, race, class and embodiment; the role of memory and nostalgia; narrative strategies of confession and secrecy.
Additional Information:This second year course introduces students to a diverse range of auto/biographical narratives, including memoirs, oral history, a psychoanalytical case-study, a graphic novel, a biographical film, personal essays, and a novel-in-verse. Focusing on the formal and generic qualities of a variety of innovative modes of life writing, the course engages thematically with the strategies of disclosure and secrecy.

Assessments

Essay

Reflection