Discipline of English,
National University of Ireland,
Galway
2BA
Course Outline
Booklet
2015 – 2016
Head of Second Year:
Dr. Lindsay Reid, Room 515, Third
Floor, Tower 1
Second Year Semester 1, 2015-2016
Students are required to take:
EN264
And ENG214
Plus ONE seminar course
LECTURE COURSES (SEMESTER 1)
EN264 STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
Chaucer wrote his famous Canterbury Tales in the 1370s and 1380s and this last great work of his is one of the most
exciting and varied in the English language. Obscenity and profanity jostle with piety as twenty-three characters tell tales of
fornication, magic, war, love, philosophy, religious devotion and virtue.
The fourteenth-century alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a striking example of the genre of medieval
Arthurian romance. Chivalric worth, testing, temptation, religious devotion, games and nature are among the themes which
permeate this tale of one knight’s quest to uphold the honour and integrity of the Round Table.
In this course you will read two great works of the fourteenth century:
 Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (author’s name unknown)
Venue:
Monday 5-6 O’Flaherty Theatre and Tuesday 3-4 Kirwan Theatre
Lecturers:
Dr. Dermot Burns and Dr. Clíodhna Carney
Texts:
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: Fifteen Tales and the General Prologue, ed.
Glending Olson, 2nd edition (New York and London: W. W. Norton, 2005).
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, W. R. J. Barron, ed., revised edition (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1998)
Assessment:
Essay (40%)
End-of-Semester Examination (60%)
ENG214 IRISH LITERATURE IN ENGLISH BEFORE 1900
On this team-taught lecture course we encounter a varied group of writers working over several centuries in different genres
and styles, not all of whom considered themselves Irish, but all of whom had a strong connection to the island. It examines
questions of genre, form, canonicity, performance, identity, authorship and publishing history as they are variously
articulated by this group of authors. The course observes the beginnings of the formation of a self-consciously Irish
literature in English, considering individual writers from a number of thematic, generic, and stylistic perspectives, while
also exploring the influence of literary networks and textual cultures on shaping a national literature. Lectures engage with
the work of a range of authors, including Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Thomas Moore, Dion Boucicault,
Bram Stoker, and Oscar Wilde, and trace the tributaries which led to the articulation of national literary canons at the turn of
the twentieth century.
Venue:
Thursday 3-4 Kirwan Theatre and Friday 3-4 Kirwan Theatre
Lecturers:
Prof. Sean Ryder, Prof. Lionel Pilkington, Dr. Justin Tonra, and Dr. Richard Pearson
Texts:
A provisional selection of texts for the course includes:
Oliver Goldsmith. She Stoops to Conquer. (New Mermaids).
Richard Brinsley Sheridan. School for Scandal. (New Mermaids).
Dion Boucicault. Selected Plays of Dion Boucicault. (Colin Smythe).
Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray. (Oxford World’s Classics).
A Course Book including essential poetry, prose, and selected criticism will also be
available from PrintThat.
Assessment:
Essay (40%)
End-of-Semester Examination (60%)
Second Year Semester 2, 2015-2016
Students are required to choose between:
ENG203 or ENG202
And
ENG204 or EN2123
Plus ONE seminar course
ENG203 GENRE STUDIES
This course will involve the study of literary genres and how these relate to and emerge out of the cultural contexts that
formed them. The course will focus on a series of literary texts representative of particular generic forms, for example, the
realist novel, science fiction, political writing, imperial romance, historical fiction, children's fiction, utopian writing, travel
writing. We will study generic narratives, myths and characters alongside cultural themes and contexts and evolving media
formats.
Venue:
Thursday 12-1 IT250 IT Building, 1st Floor and Thursday 3-4 Kirwan Theatre
Lecturers:
Dr. Andrew O’Baoill and Dr. Richard Pearson
Texts:
(not in running order):
George Eliot, Silas Marner (OUP)
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Norton)
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (Norton)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (Broadview)
Nellie Bly - 10 Days in a Mad House
Upton Sinclair - The Jungle
Jules Verne - Around the World in Eighty Days
Final text tbc
Assessment:
Essay (40%)
End-of-Semester Examination (60%)
ENG202 18TH CENTURY STUDIES
This course aims to introduce students to the literature and culture of eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland. The Victorians
loathed and disowned their eighteenth-century predecessors, denouncing their literature as disgusting, immoral, and horribly
impolite. This assessment is not entirely unfair. Yet eighteenth-century authors were deeply concerned with politeness, with
debating the meaning and role of literature and art-forms, and exploring the morality of human nature and society itself.
This course seeks to uncover some of paradoxes of eighteenth-century writing in order to recover the richness of its literary
heritage. It will look at the expansion of print culture, with the 'rise of the novel' as a dominant literary form, the
modulations of satire, the flowering of 'sentimental' literature and its more carnal dimensions. Themes covered will include
financial crisis, the tension between money and morality, and the slipperiness of gender and sexuality. While seeking to
historicise the period, the course will also raise parallels with modern culture and explore what resonances the literature of
the period might have for contemporary readers.
Venue:
Wednesday 10-11 Aras Ui Chathail Lecture Theatre and Thursday 3-4 Darcy Thompson Theatre
Lecturers:
Dr. Rebecca Barr
Assessment:
Essay (40%)
End-of-Semester Examination (60%)
ENG204 STUDIES IN EARLY MODERN LITERATURE
This course seeks to familiarise students with the rich variety of early modern drama and poetry. To this end, we will
consider the work of well-known authors such as William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, alongside that of their
less-familiar contemporaries, including Elizabeth Cary and Aemilia Lanyer. The course is arranged thematically, rather
than in a text-based way, into two sections. Section A focuses on religious and political contexts that inform early modern
literature. During the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, England was ruled by several monarchs, experienced
religious reformation and conflict, faced a succession crisis and lived in threat of foreign invasion. We will be exploring
how these historical circumstances informed literary representations of kingship and court politics, and articulations of faith
and belief. Having addressed some political and religious contexts for interpretation of early modern literature, Section B
moves to consider identities (of gender, race and sexuality). This section of the course will address ideas such as gender
transgression, desire, female speech, selfhood, and difference as they are manifested in drama and poetry by male and
female writers.
Venue:
Monday 5-6 O’Flaherty Theatre and Tuesday 3-4 O’Flaherty Theatre
Lecturers:
Dr. Victoria Brownlee
Texts:
Christopher Marlowe, Edward II
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
William Shakespeare, Othello
William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam
Course Reader
Assessment:
Essay (40%)
End-of-Semester Examination (60%)
EN2123 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE
This lecture course examines a range of sixteenth and seventeenth British literature written by Shakespeare and his early
modern contemporaries. Section A of EN2123 will run on Mondays and Tuesdays from weeks 1 to 6, and Section B will
run on Mondays and Tuesdays from weeks 7 to 12 of the semester.
Section A:
Topic TBD.
Section B:
Section B of ‘Studies in Renaissance Literature’ deals with Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its confluences. We will begin by
raising broad questions about what ‘Shakespeare’ means and why we continue to study his works today. Our first few
lectures will investigate the varied resonances of ‘Shakespeare’ across time and cultures. The remainder of this section will
then be dedicated to an intensive investigation of the work for which Shakespeare is best remembered in contemporary
society: Hamlet. Not only will we apply a variety of modern critical lenses (including feminist and Freudian theory) to this
Renaissance play, but we will also give some consideration to how Hamlet has been received and adapted by later authors
such as Iris Murdoch or Laura Bohannan.
Venue: Monday 5-6 AM250 Colm O’hEocha Theatre and Tuesday 3-4 IT250 IT Building
Lecturers:
Dr. Lindsay Reid and TBD
Texts:
Section A:
TBD
Section B:
A course reader, available from PrintThat
William Shakespeare, Hamlet (Norton edition), available from the university bookshop
Assessment:
Essay (40%)
End-of-Semester Examination (60%)
LIST OF 2BA SEMINARS (SEMESTERS 1 and 2)
Choose ONE each semester
STUDENTS MUST TAKE A DIFFERENT SEMINAR COURSE EACH SEMESTER. STUDENTS MAY NOT
TAKE TWO SEMINARS WITH THE SAME COURSE TITLE EVEN IF THE COURSE CODE IS DIFFERENT.
Code
EN278.I/
EN278.II
Seminar Title
MILTON’S POETRY
Dr. Victoria Brownlee
Semester
available
1 and 2
This course focuses on John Milton’s biblical epic Paradise Lost,
which tells the story of Adam and Eve, their fall from Eden, and the
conflict between Satan and God. The seminar’s primary aim is to
facilitate a close reading of Milton’s poem while also referring to
seminal critical interpretations. We will explore the poem’s treatment
of character and motivation, good and evil, free will, gender, politics,
marriage, and literary epic. For the purposes of comparison, we will
consider extracts from the King James Bible, and explore how the
political, theological, and philosophical contexts of the seventeenth
century inform Milton’s reading of the biblical narrative of Genesis.
Venue
Monday 11-1
AMB-G043 Seminar
Room, Arts
Millennium
(Semester 1)
Monday 11-1
Room 302 Tower 1
(Semester 2)
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (one oral presentation
(10%), and one written assignment (20%)); 70% final essay.
EN280.I/
EN280.II
TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE NOVEL
The Novel and the Ethical Effects of Reading
Ms. Kathleen Pacious
1 and 2
Monday 9-11
TB306 Tower 2
1 and 2
Tuesday 9-11
TB306 Tower 2
(Semester 1)
The crossover of literature and ethics is an exciting and recent field in
literary studies. This seminar pays particular attention to the capacity
of novels to persuade, influence, and affect their readers. We will
explore topics that include aesthetics vs ethics, empathising with
“bad” characters, the connection between novel-reading and
empathy, fictionality vs reality, the relationship between reader and
author, the role of affect in literary studies, and how to “measure”
readerly engagement and ethical influence. Eschewing the idea that
ethics only focuses on moral issues, we will draw on narrative theory
as we engage in close reading of four novels from 1818-1989,
drawing on historical and contemporary ethical theories.
The novels include: Jane Austen’s Persuasion (1818), Elizabeth
Gaskell’s North and South (1855), E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End
(1910), and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day (1989).
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (10% in-class assignments,
20% mid-term essay), 70% final essay.
EN2112/
EN2100
CREATIVE WRITING
"Patrols of the Imagination"
Ms. Siobhan Kane
This course will provide a context and framework to nourish and
enhance students' interest and ability in creative writing, with a
mixture of weekly writing exercises and critical readings of notable
writers, with a particular focus on the short story, referencing some of
the genre's greatest exponents, such as; Edgar Allen Poe, Flannery O'
Connor, Raymond Carver, Roald Dahl, James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut,
Alice Munro, William Carlos Williams, Annie Proulx, Kate Chopin,
and Ray Bradbury. The course will also touch on a diverse range of
novels, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and encourage weekly class
discussions around the culture and processes of creative writing.
EN2114/
EN2102
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (a combination of weekly
written exercises and critical reviewing,) and 70% final submission a creative writing project of the student’s choice i.e. a chapter of a
novel, some short stories, poems, play, or non-fiction.
RENAISSANCE DRAMA
Ms. Kirry O’Brien
1 and 2
Tuesday 9-11
Room 302 Tower 1
1 and 2
Thursday 1-3
TB306 Tower 2
1 and 2
Tuesday 9-11
Q1, Huston School
of Film and Media
(Block Q, Earls Isla
nd)
This course explores four plays, two by William Shakespeare and
two by his predecessor Christopher Marlowe. We will examine the
development of theatrical drama during this era, and invigilate many
of the concerns of the day that were addressed by said theatre:
Kingship, power, race, gender etc.
Texts: Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Edward II.
William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Henry IV.
Assessment: 15% for the class presentation write up, 15% for a midterm minor essay and 70% for the final essay.
EN2115/
EN2103
RENAISSANCE DRAMA
Dr. Dermot Burns
This course examines the treatment of love in three of Shakespeare’s
plays: Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure.
The method of study will involve close textual analysis and
consideration of a variety of critical approaches to the plays.
Texts: William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night and
Measure for Measure.
Assessment: two short essays (15% each) - 30%, one final in-class
essay 70%.
EN299.I/
EN299.II
FILM AND SHAKESPEARE
Dr. Lindsay Reid
What happens when a Renaissance-era stage play is adapted for the
contemporary screen? Why have successive generations of
filmmakers so often sought to reinterpret Shakespeare’s works? What
does the plethora of modern film adaptations say about the
‘Shakespeare Industry’? This seminar is designed for students
interested in exploring Shakespeare's dramatic art alongside
cinematic adaptations of his plays. We will study one tragedy and
one comedy from Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of
the Shrew, respectively) as a means to understanding the
interpretative choices made by filmmakers who have reworked these
two texts. Feature-length films under our consideration will include
Romeo and Juliet (1968), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and 10 Things
I Hate About You (1999), among others.
Assessment: 15% group presentation, 15% film review, and 70%
final essay
EN2116/
EN2106
SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDIES
Ms. Kirry O’Brien
1 and 2
Tuesday 11-1
TB306 Tower 2
1 and 2
Wednesday 9-11
TB306 Tower 2
1 and 2
Monday 3-5
TB306 Tower 2
This seminar will examine, in detail, some examples of
Shakespearean Comedy. Shakespeare’s comedies end in marriage:
however, many trials and obstacles have to be overcome along the
way. We shall explore the complex issues raised on the journey
towards a so-called happy ending. Recommended (not obligatory)
text: RSC William Shakespeare Complete Works ed. Jonathan Bate
and Eric Rasmussen.
Plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night,
Measure For Measure.
Assessment: 15% for the class presentation write up, 15% for a minor
essay and 70% for the final essay.
EN2117/
EN2107
SHAKESPEAREAN COMEDIES
Ms. Kirry O’Brien
This seminar will examine, in detail, some examples of
Shakespearean Comedy. Shakespeare’s comedies end in marriage:
however, many trials and obstacles have to be overcome along the
way. We shall explore the complex issues raised on the journey
towards a so-called happy ending. Recommended (not obligatory)
text: RSC William Shakespeare Complete Works ed. Jonathan Bate
and Eric Rasmussen.
Plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night,
Measure For Measure.
Assessment: 15% for the class presentation write up, 15% for a minor
essay and 70% for the final essay.
EN441.I/
EN441.II
PLAYS, PLAYERS AND PLAYHOUSES
Victorian Farce and Melodrama
Prof. Richard Pearson
This seminar explores the popular forms of theatre that dominated the
nineteenth century: farce and melodrama. We will examine a number
of texts within each genre to identify their central characteristics, and
then consider how these plays were situated in the theatrical and
cultural contexts of the day. We will look at the playwrights, theatres,
managers and actors who wrote, staged and performed some of the
most popular examples of the forms. Above all, we will explore the
question of why these forms became so dominant in the nineteenthcentury London theatre.
Texts include a series of One-Act farces: J.M. Morton, Box and Cox
and Grimshaw, Bagshaw and Bradshaw; William Brough,
Apartments; Mark Lemon, The Ladies’ Club; J.S. Coyne, How to
Settle Accounts with your Laundress; and a series of Melodramas:
Dion Boucicault, The Colleen Bawn and Jessie Brown; or, The Relief
of Lucknow; Charles Dickens & Wilkie Collins, The Frozen Deep;
Colin Hazlewood, The Chevalier of the Maison Rouge; or, The Days
of Terror!; Tom Taylor, The Ticket-of-Leave Man; H.M. Milner,
Mazeppa.
NOTE – YOU WILL NEED TO BRING A TABLET, LAPTOP
OR E-READER TO THESE CLASSES, AS ALL TEXTS ARE
ONLINE.
Assessment: Portfolio (30%); final essay (70%).
EN444.I/
EN444.II
PAIN AND PLEASURE IN JACOBEAN THEATRE
Prof. Lionel Pilkington
1 and 2
Jacobean drama is well known for its often-spectacular stage
explorations of sexual transgression and social punishment. This
course considers four of the most famous of these plays, and
examines the relationship between theatricality, social order, power
and sexual desire. The main emphasis of the course will be on close
textual analysis, and to that end a detailed knowledge of all four plays
will be essential. As well as class presentations, there will be two
short critical essays.
Semester 1
Thursday 9-11
Room 302 Tower 1
Semester 2
Thursday 9-11
Room 302 Tower 1
Texts: William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (Penguin);
Anon The Revenger’s Tragedy (New Mermaids or Methuen);
Thomas Middleton and John Rowley’s The Changeling (NHB or
New Mermaids); John Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (NHB or
Revels New Student Edition).
Assessment: 30% for continuous assessment (15% for a short [1000
word max] essay and 15% for general class participation including
completion of a one page in-class analysis). 70% for final (2,000
word max) essay.
ENG201.I/
ENG201.II
EXPLORING THE CREATIVE ARTS
Ms. Mary McPartlan
This ten-week course aims to offer students of literature and theatre
an opportunity to experience other relevant art forms, thereby gaining
a valuable broader context for their chosen field of study.
Thus,traditional Irish music, old style and contemporary song and
dance, one contemporary Irish Film, one contemporary Irish Play and
a TG4 documentary will be included, with a view to developing a
critical understanding of the creative arts, and the varied forms of
cultural expression. The Arts in Action programme will be a
compulsory element of study with attendance at three of the
workshop- lunchtime performances, follow up class discussion and
written reviews.
Valuable resourceTexts:
- Carson, Ciarán, The Pocket Guide to Irish Traditional Music;
- Breathnach, Breandán. Folk Music and Dances of Ireland;
- Hast, Dorothea and Scott, Stanley. Music in Ireland: Experiencing
Music, Expressing Culture;
- Brennan, Helen. The Story of Irish Dance;
- White, Harry, and Barra Boydell, eds. The Encyclopdia of Music in
Ireland. 1st ed. Vol. 1&2;
- Mulrooney, Deirdre. Irish Moves: An Illustrated History of Dance
and Physical Theatre in Ireland.
Assessment: 30% Continuous assessment and 70% end of term essay
of 2,000 words.
1 and 2
Wednesday 11- 1
Large Acoustics
Room, Aras na Mac
Leinn.
ENG205.I/
ENG205.II
OLD ENGLISH I – INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE AND
READING
Francisco Rozano Garcia
1 and 2
Monday 1-3
TB306 Tower 2
1 and 2
Thursday 9-11
TB306 Tower 2
1 and 2
Tuesday 11-1
Room 302, Tower 1
(Semester 1)
Old English is an exciting and beautiful language. Apart from being
an invaluable object of study to those with an interest in etymology, it
is the vehicle for some of the most challenging and captivating
literature you will ever read. This course will provide you with a
thorough introduction to learning to read Old English without painful
memorisation! We’ll think about many important theoretical issues
related to engagement with the language and its texts, and we’ll
explore the culture of the Anglo-Saxon people.
Texts: Robert Hasenfratz and Thomas Jambeck’s Reading Old
English.
Assessment: Weekly assignments 30% (five assigned, best three
chosen); Essays 70% (two short essays assigned, worth 35% each).
ENG207.I/
ENG207.II
19TH CENTURY WRITING: SCARY LONDON
Anna Gasperini
Victorian London was the natural environment of some of the
scariest monsters of literature in the English language. This course
focuses on representations of the Victorian city in serialized popular
fiction, cheap literature written specifically for lower-class readers.
Using a critical approach based on new historicism and spatial
theory, the course analyses the monstrous characters and spaces of
literature from the perspective of Victorian London’s geography,
class structure, and such infrastructures as markets, workhouses,
hospitals, and cemeteries. Finally, the course examines how the space
and characters of Victorian London survived, through adaptation and
reinvention, in contemporary fantasy fiction.
Main texts: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist 1837 (Oxford edition);
G.W.M. Reynolds, The Mysteries of London 1846-52; James
Malcolm Rymer, Sweeney Todd (1846-7); Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
(1996).
Assessment: 30% Continuous Assessment (20% Short Writing
Assignment + 10% Class Presentation) , 70% Final Essay
ENG208.I/
ENG208.II
TWENTIETH CENTURY STUDIES
Dr. David Clare
This seminar will examine the children’s fiction of Belfast writer
C.S. Lewis, alongside Irish children’s literature that either influenced
his work or that has much in common with it. Lewis was heavily
influenced by the literature of his native country – particularly Irish
works of fantasy by Swift and Stephens. Like Wilde and Edgeworth,
he attempted to infuse his work with spiritual and moral teachings
while never losing sight of the need to tell a good story. Writers who
came after Lewis, such as Lavin, have tried to emulate his success at
introducing supernatural happenings into the prosaic lives of ordinary
children. The anti-colonial themes in the work of Lewis and the other
writers will also be discussed.
Texts: Jonathan Swift – Parts I & II of Gulliver’s Travels; Maria
Edgeworth – Eton Montem, “The Orphans”, and “The White
Pigeon”; Oscar Wilde – “The Selfish Giant” and “The Happy
Monday 2-4
IT204 IT Building
(Semester 2)
Prince”; James Stephens – The Crock of Gold; C.S. Lewis – The
Magician’s Nephew, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and The
Voyage of the Dawn-Treader; Mary Lavin – A Likely Story [All but
the Lewis and the Lavin will be included in a Course Handbook].
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (class participation, one
oral presentation and one, brief written assignment); 70% final essay.
ENG223.I/
ENG223.II
SPECIAL THEME
Dr. Sorcha Gunne
1 and 2
Wednesday 3-5
Room 302 Tower 1
1 and 2
Monday 9-11
Room 302, Tower 1
Bodies and Ireland
This module will explore representations and registrations of the
body in a selection of Irish and related writing and film from the late
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It will consider both the
specificities of the Irish socio-historical context and the
corresponding conditions of global modernity. As such, it will
examine the tensions, negotiations and new articulations that can be
read through the lens of both Irish social history and transnational
configurations of bodies, particularly women’s bodies. The module
has been arranged into 4 interconnected units of intellectual debate.
By way of introduction, we begin by considering the female
embodiment of Ireland in discourses of nationalism. We will then
think about the embodiment of Ireland through the literary trope of
the body in the bog. We next turn to the topic of food and hunger
before concluding with two units that will explore the policing of
women’s bodies in various manifestations.
Reading list includes:
Seamus Heaney, North (1975, selections from)
Aislinn Hunter, Stay (2002)
Marita Conlon-McKenna, Under the Hawthorn Tree (1990)
Eavan Boland, Domestic Violence (2007, selections from)
Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night (1996)
Emer Martin, Baby Zero (2007)
Eimear McBride, A Girl is a Half-formed Thing (2013)
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment, 70% final essay
EN298.I/
EN298.II
Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene
Dr. Clíodhna Carney
Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1590s) is one those very rare
works of art into which a whole culture seems to have been poured.
There is everything in it: love, sex, evil, religion, theories of
government, philosophy, violence, slavery, perversion. And above
all, brilliant poetry. Spenser was looking in two directions: back to
the literature of Virgil, and forwards through the political and
religious change of his own time into a hypothetical future world.
Our class will involve a close reading of Books 1 and 2, and students
can bring all sorts of other interests to bear on our discussions:
history, science, philosophy, political science, mythology, classics.
Text: Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ed. A. C. Hamilton, rev.
ed. (Longman, 2007).
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (4 short written
assignments: 20% (i.e. 4 x 5%); one panel discussion: 5%, one
debate: 5%) and one long end-of-term essay: 70%.
EN2113/
EN2101
Creative Writing
Siobhan Kane
1 and 2
This course will provide a context and framework to nourish and
enhance students' interest and ability in creative writing, with a
mixture of weekly writing exercises and critical readings of notable
writers, with a particular focus on the short story, referencing some of
the genre's greatest exponents, such as; Edgar Allen Poe, Flannery O'
Connor, Raymond Carver, Roald Dahl, James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut,
Alice Munro, William Carlos Williams, Annie Proulx, Kate Chopin,
and Ray Bradbury. The course will also touch on a diverse range of
novels, creative nonfiction, and poetry, and encourage weekly class
discussions around the culture and processes of creative writing.
Tuesday 1-3
Room 505, English
Dept
Tuesday 1-3,
TB306, Tower 2
Semester 2
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (a combination of weekly
written exercises and critical reviewing,) and 70% final submission a creative writing project of the students choice ie. a chapter of a
novel, some short stories, poems, play, or non-fiction.
EN2119/
EN2120
Media Studies
Bernadette O’Sullivan
1 and 2
Friday 11-1
TB306, Tower 2
(Semester 1)
1 and 2
Wednesday 5-7
TB306, Tower 2
This Seminar series is an introduction to journalism. Students who
engage fully with all aspects of the seminar will begin to develop the
knowledge, practical skills and confidence to find their journalistic
voice: to generate ideas and research and develop a portfolio of
journalistic material. Students will select and attend two newsworthy
events on campus, in the city, or in their own locality and submit
follow-up work.
Assessment: Portfolio of journalistic work: 30% continuous
assessment and 70% for final portfolio of articles.
EN2121/
EN2122
Media Industries A
Andrew O’Baoill
How do issues of ownership, funding, and organisation shape our
media environment? This course will provide an introduction to study
of media industries, through a critical political economic lens. We
will examine a variety of models, including commercial, political
economic and alternative; identify the institutional pressures shaping
media texts; and discuss the role of a number of interventions aimed
at disrupting 'business as usual' in the mass media
ENG213.I/
ENG213.II
Assessment: 30% Continuous Assessment and 70% Final Assessment
Film Studies
Dr Fiona Bateman
This seminar is an introduction to studying film in an academic
context. During the semester students will develop new ways of
watching and thinking about films; they will learn how to ‘read’ a
film. Issues including genre, intertextuality, narrative and narration
will be discussed in class. The films (texts) which students will view
and analyse for the course are all Irish, chosen because they share
certain thematic characteristics but differ in significant ways.
The films are: Flight of the Doves (1971), Into the West (1992),
Mickybo and Me (2006) and Kisses (2008). As we will be focussing
on Irish films, this seminar will also address representations of
Ireland and Irishness on screen.
Assessment: 3 short assignments (10% each) and 1 essay (70%).
1 and 2
Thursday 9-11,
B1 Huston School of
Film & Media
(Semester 1)
Friday 12-2,
Q1 Huston School of
Film & Media
(Semester 2)
ENG222.I/
ENG222.II
Special Author: Jane Austen
Muireann O’Cinneide
1 and 2
Wednesday 3-5
TB306 Tower 2
1 and 2
Monday 1-3
CA002 Cairnes
Building
(Semester 1)
This seminar explores a selection of the writings of Jane Austen
(1775-1817). Austen’s current status as one of the best-loved and
most critically-admired novelists in English literature can obscure the
formative influences and cultural contexts of her work. This module
begins with some of Austen’s earliest work, tracing a transition in
narrative voice from parody to satire to a distinctive ironic mode. It
then traces the refinement of this mode into a powerful tool of ethical
commentary through examining two of Austen’s most complex and
often-misunderstood mature novels. We will also examine the
present-day cultural production of Austen as author through
twentieth-century cinematic adaptations and literary pastiches.
Main Texts: “Love and Freindship” (~1790); “Lady Susan” (~1794);
Northanger Abbey (1818); Mansfield Park (1814); Emma (1815).
Oxford University Press editions (where possible), esp. the 2008
edition for NA.
ENG217.I/
ENG217.II
Assessment: 30% continuous assessment (15% class presentation;
10% written assignment(s); 5% in-class participation); 70% final
essay.
MEDIA STUDIES
Exploring Journalism
Mrs. Bernadette O’Sullivan
This Seminar series is an introduction to journalism. Students who
engage fully with all aspects of the seminar will begin to develop the
knowledge, practical skills and confidence to find their journalistic
voice: to generate ideas and research and develop a portfolio of
journalistic material. Students will select and attend two newsworthy
events on campus, in the city, or in their own locality and submit
follow-up work.
Assessment: Portfolio of journalistic work: 30% continuous
assessment and 70% for final portfolio of articles.
Monday 1-3
AM112 Arts
Millennium Building
(Semester 2)