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.
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.