26 th June 2015
This is an outline list of English courses for the session 2015-16. Every effort is made to ensure that the contents are accurate. No guarantee is given that modules may not be altered, cancelled, replaced, augmented or otherwise amended at any time.
Before deciding which courses you are going to choose you will also need a timetable, reading list and fuller details of course arrangements which will be available from the school in August.
PLEASE NOTE THAT IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF EACH INDIVIDUAL
STUDENT TO DISCOVER AND FULFIL THE EXACT REQUIREMENTS OF THE
COURSE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM.
 Students take 50 credits as follows:
EN3009 (20 credits) plus three modules (15 credits) from Semester 1 and three modules (15 credits) from Semester 2.
 Students must include in their selection at least one lecture or seminar course from the range of Old English, Middle English and Renaissance courses. (These are designated with the letters OMR on departmental course lists.)
 Students may substitute one module from Semester 1 with one module from
LL3001, LL3002.

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 Students take 40 credits as follows:
EN3006, EN3007 or EN3008 (10 credits) plus three modules (15 credits) from
Semester 1 and three modules (15 credits) from Semester 2.
 Students must include in their selection at least one lecture or seminar course from the range of Old English, Middle English and Renaissance courses. (These are designated with the letters OMR on departmental course lists.)
 Students may substitute one module from Semester 1 with one module from
LL3001, LL3002.
 Students take 30 credits as follows:
EN3006, EN3007 or EN3008 (10 credits) plus two modules (10 credits) from
Semester 1 and two modules (10 credits) from Semester 2.
 Students must include in their selection at least one lecture or seminar course from the range of Old English, Middle English and Renaissance courses. (These are designated with the letters OMR on departmental course lists.)
 Students may substitute one module from Semester 1 with one module from
LL3001, LL3002.
 Students take 20 credits as follows:
Two modules (10 credits) from Semester 1 plus two modules
(10credits) from Semester 2.
 Students may not take EN3006, EN3007, EN3008, EN3009, LL3001, LL3002.
 Students take 10 credits as follows:
 One module (5 credits) from Semester 1 plus one module (5 credits) from
Semester 2.
 Students may not take EN3006, EN3007, EN3008, EN3009, LL3001, LL3002.

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EN3015 OF MONSTERS AND MEN: OLD AND EARLY ENGLISH LITERATURE:
( O M R )
5 Credits, Semester 1. (TB)
Early Medieval literature reveals that horror is by no means a modern phenomenon. This course analyses the heroes, monsters and monstrous human behaviour of early medieval texts (such as Beowulf) as cultural constructions which reveal a society’s values and fears.
It places texts that examine humour and horror within cultural and theoretical contexts that challenge the critical status quo, and invites students to explore features of the medieval corpus too often hidden (literally and figuratively) from the light of day. We will take anthropological constructs of the liminal – those outside of a society yet central to its sense of identity – and the theoretical concept of the abject, and consider how these constructs might be used to illuminate medieval concepts of self and other, us and them, acceptable and alien.
At the edges of a world engulfed in fears, we find another culture in which heroes play with puns, students celebrate smut and monks revel in a world of women and wine. By examining a range of texts from both the prose and poetic corpus, we will analyse the role and function of the hero and ‘the other’, and ask where authors draw the line between the monster and the man.
Knowledge of Old English is not a pre-requisite for this course.
Set texts:
Students are strongly recommended to acquire:
Fulk, R. D., ed., The Beowulf Manuscript. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010
[includes Judith, The Wonders of the East, The Letter of Alexander and The Passion of St
Christopher, alongside Beowulf itself]
Scudder, Bernard, ed. The Saga of Grettir the Strong. London: Penguin, 2005.
Treharne, E. M., ed., Old and Middle English c.890-c.1400: An Anthology. 3 rd edition.
Oxford: Blackwell, 2009 [includes ‘The Battle of Maldon’, ‘The Life of St Margaret’, and a selection of Old English riddles.]
Other short texts will be provided in offprint form.

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EN3037 EUROPEAN CINEMA: (GY/BM)
5 Credits, Semester 1.
The module examines two major film movements in European cinema up to the present.
Representative films from each movement are examined in detail with particular reference being made to the roles played by the director, editor and cinematographer in the formation of film style and meaning. The selected film movements will be placed within socio-historical, cinematic, political and theoretical contexts. Film movements studied will be German Expressionism (1919-25) and Movements in Scandinavian
Cinema
.
A full list of texts and further reading will be distributed at the start of the course.
EN3048 TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE: (AG,LJ)
5 Credits, Semester 2.
This module explores a selection of 20 th Century American writing with reference to historical background and contexts, race and gender, from the 1920s to 2000.
Harlem Renaissance: African American writing from the 1920s.*
Larsen, Nella, Passing [1929]. Penguin Classics, 2003.
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury [1929]. Vintage Classics, 1995.
Dreiser, Theodore. “Old Rogaum and his Theresa” *
London, Jack. “To Build a Fire” *
O'Brien, Tim. In the Lake of the Woods. Flamingo, 1995.
Morrison, Toni . Song of Solomon (1977). Vintage, 1998.
* these texts will be made available in photocopy form
EN3051 CRITICAL THEORY: TWENTIETH-CENTURY THEORIES OF
LITERATURE (AG/GA)
5 Credits, Semester 2
This module introduces students to a range of twentieth-century theories of literature and culture. It discusses theoretical perspectives on literature and culture, selected from among the following: Marxist, structuralist, feminist, narratology, psychoanalytic/trauma, deconstructionist and post-structuralist.
Set Texts: these will be made available in offprint form from the School office.

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EN3065 ROMANCE: MEDIEVAL TO RENAISSANCE (KR/ )
5 Credits, (OMR) Semester 1.
Stories of Arthur and his knights, of exile and of return (sometimes even from death), crises of identity and love, perilous encounters with otherworldly beings: these are some of the recurring concerns of romance, a genre which, in the Middle Ages and
Renaissance, served its audiences with exemplary and sensationalist narratives in startlingly varied, and often sophisticated ways. This module will explore the diversified nature of English romance writing from this period, through close thematic study of some the most important examples, in both anonymous and authored.
3065.1 Medieval Romance
Sir Gowther, ed. E. LEaskaya and E. Salisbury. Kalamazoo: TEAMS, 1995.
Available online at http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/laskaya-and-salisburymiddle-english -breton-lays-sir-gowther-introduction.
Sir Amadace, ed. E. Foster. Kalamazoo: TEAMS, 2007. Available online at http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/foster-sir-amadace-introduction .
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In Sir Gawain and The Green
Knight, Pearl, Clanness, Patience, ed. J. J. Anderson. London: Everyman,
1996.
Students may also use the translation, by Simon Armitage, of Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight, in The Norton Anthology of English Literature (9 th ed.) vol. 1.
Edmund Spenser. The Faerie Queene, ed. A.C. Hamilton, 2nd edition. London:
Longman, 2006.
Sir Philip Sidney. The Old Arcadia, ed. Katherine Duncan-Jones. Oxford: World’s
Classics, 1985.
EN3072 ROMANTIC LITERATURE (COG/GA)
5 Credits, Semester 1.
This module will develop students’ understanding and experience of literature in English from the Romantic period (1770-1830). It covers a selection of literary texts from the Romantic period. Students are exposed to conflicting definitions of Romanticism and encouraged to critically analyse the selected texts in the light of these theoretical descriptions. Special emphasis is placed on the role of poetry and prose fiction, and on the gendered nature of writing in the period.
Wu, Duncan. Romanticism: An Anthology. 4th Edition. Oxford: Blackwell,
2012.
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. Ed. Susan Fraiman. London: W. W. Norton
& Co., 2004.
Wollstonecraft, Mary and Mary Shelley. Mary, Maria, or The Wrongs of
Woman and Matilda. Ed. Janet Todd. London: Penguin, 1993.

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EN3073 VICTORIAN LITERATURE (HL/MO’C)
5 Credits, Semester 2
This module introduces students to literature in English from the Victorian period. The set texts are analysed in the context of relevant social, economic and political transformations in Victorian society. Emphasis is placed on genre, the representation of urban and rural spaces, class and gender division, and questions of Nation and
Empire.
Kipling, Rudyard, Kim. London: Penguin, 2011.
Conan Doyle, Arthur, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. London: Penguin,
2011.
Gaskell, Elizabeth, Mary Barton. Ed. Thomas Recchio. London: W.W.
Norton and Co., 2008.
Hardy, Thomas, Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Ed. Scott Elledge. London: W.W.
Norton and Co., 1991.
Additional material will be made available in the form of a Course Booklet, to be purchased from the School office.
EN3075 CONTEMPORARY IRISH WRITING (EW/AD)
5 Credits. Semester 1.
This module gives the opportunity to explore a range of contemporary Irish writing.
We study texts in three genres (drama, poetry, fiction) from the 1960s to the present.
The module is taught in three segments: contemporary Irish poetry, contemporary
Irish fiction and contemporary Irish theatre.
Contemporary Irish Poetry
The opening one-third of the module outlines the main themes developed, and the differing formal tactics adopted, by Irish poets over the last forty years. It will focus on a small number of poets, chosen from among the following: Thomas Kinsella, Seamus
Heaney, Eavan Boland, Derek Mahon, Medbh McGuckian, Paul Muldoon, Catherine
Walsh.
Required Reading
The set poems will be provided in a booklet which will be available from the School of English office.

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Contemporary Irish Fiction (EW)
In this segment we study three novels, one from the 1960s and two from the 2000s, attending both to theme and form. First comes McGahern’s early masterpiece, with its searching exploration, through a woman protagonist’s viewpoint, of rural Irish culture and values just before the major social changes of the 1960s. Keane and Tóibín’s writings address both those alterations and underlying questions of Irish identity and society in modernity, and the three texts exhibit significant differences in the handling of fictional form. The focus will be comparative, and module participants will be required to cover two of the texts.
Required Reading
McGahern, John. Amongst Women. 1990. London: Faber, 2007.
Tóibín, Colm. The Empty Family. London: Penguin, 2011.
Keane, Molly, Good Behaviour London: Virago,2006.
Contemporary Irish Theatre (EW)
Required Reading
Murphy, Tom. ‘ The Gigli Concert’. Methuen 9780413659309.
Translations by Brian Friel. Faber & Faber 9780571117420.
EN3076 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE AND CULTURE (AG/HL)
5 Credits, Semester 2.
This module introduces students to a selection of post-1980s British, American and postcolonial literary works. The course will examine these works in relation to such topics as innovations in narrative form, empire and the decline of empire, and transformations in racial, gender and class politics. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between contemporary literature and history.
Literary Texts:
Rushdie, Salman. Midnight’s Children. London: Vintage, 2013.
Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. London: Penguin, 2001.
McEwan, Ian. Atonement. London: Vintage, 2002.
Roth, Philip. The Plot against America. London: Vintage, 2005.

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EN3077 THE IRISH LITERARY REVIVAL & IRISH MODERNISM
(AD/EW/MOC)
5 Credits, Semester 1
This course will give students a foundation in Irish writing and film, Irish cultural history and Irish literary criticism in the modernist period. It will explore a range of texts drawn from various forms (fiction, poetry, drama and/or film) from the late nineteenth century up to the 1960s.
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 1916. London:
Penguin Classics, 2000.
Bowen, Elizabeth. The Last September. 1929. London: Vintage, 1998. Beckett,
Samuel. Murphy. 1938. London: Faber, 2008.
Drama Modern and Contemporary Irish Drama (Second Edition)/ Ed John
P. Harrington W. W. Norton & Company; 2nd edition, 2008.
W.B. Yeats, Yeats’s Poetry, Drama, and Prose. Ed. James Pethica. New York:
Norton, 2000.
EN3078 CONTEMPORARY THEATRE (AE/JG/MO’C)
5 Credits, Semester 2.
To introduce students to plays at the crossroads of modernism and postmodernism which initiated and developed contemporary forms of drama and theatre since the post-WW2 period.
The module offers and analysis of plays by British, Irish and North American authors who are responsible for the renaissance of drama and transformation of its language and forms from the 1950s onwards. The double revolution of content and aesthetics, as led simultaneously by John Osborne and Beckett in the late
1950s, led to further experiments and developments in political drama and in the shape and construction of theatre works. Most of the dramatists under scrutiny are still writing and using a multitude of theatrical and literary idioms to examine and reflect upon their and our environment.
The module will locate selected plays in the cultural contexts of British, Irish and American societies from the 1960s and into the very contemporary period. It will explore the variations to be found in aesthetic modes and possible common moral and political values, as well as looking at the relationship between form and meaning.
Through the most contemporary plays studies, we will examine the role of voice, image, sound, bodies, film and digital media in theatre and performance, including an examination of liveness and performativity, through critical texts and performance examples.
Wesker, Arnold. The Kitchen
Beckett, Samuel. Krapp’s Last Tape
Murphy, Tom. Whistle in the Dark
Carr, Marina. Portia Coughlan
Parks, Suzan-Lori. Topdog/Underdog
Tucker Green, Debbie. Stoning Mary

26 th June 2015
EN3107 STUDIES IN SHAKESPEARE (ES/ )
5 Credits, Semester 2. (OMR)
Murdered or ineffectual rulers, otherworldly entities, children in the oppressive shadow of their fathers, strange new worlds, and diseased societies struggling, sometimes in vain, for a new birth and beginning: these are some of the threads making up the rich tapestry of selected plays spanning Shakespeare’s writing career.
Our analysis and appreciation of the plays will employ close study of their context, handling of generic traditions, dramatic potential and audience expectations, and the content of ideas and themes embodied within these acted worlds. The chosen texts showcase both the innovations made by Shakespeare and how he worked within inherited dramatic traditions.
Plays studied:
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Measure for Measure
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Timon of Athens
Set text: William Shakespeare, The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al.
2nd ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2005.
EN3108 MODERNISM (LJ/AD)
5 Credits, Semester 2.
To introduce students to a range of modernist texts. This module considers experimental literature from the early to mid-twentieth century.
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems. New York: Dover
Thrift Editions, 1998.
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2010.
D.H. Lawrence and H.D., selected poems.*
Ezra Pound. Selected Poems, 1908-1969. London: Faber and Faber, 1977.
Mina Loy, selected writings.*
Virginia Woolf. Mrs Dalloway. Ware: Wordsworth Classics, 1996
*These texts will be available in photocopied form.

26 th June 2015
LL3001: Postmodern and Contemporary European Cinema [5 Credits] Co- ordinator: Laura Rascaroli (Film and Screen Media - School of Languages,
Literatures and Cultures); Tel. 490 2471;
Email: l.rascaroli@ucc.ie
Moving beyond the traditional approach to the study of European film as a set of distinct national cinemas, this module proposes a continental and transnational view of contemporary European film. Through the analysis of a choice of films made from
1970 to date, it covers topics such as the postmodern city, history and nostalgia, travel and emigration, postmodern and transnational identities, the evolution of film genres, style and ideology, the local and the global.
LL3002: Travel Writing [5 Credits]
Course Co-ordinator: Dr Silvia Ross (Department of Italian)
Lecturers: Dr Patrick Crowley (French), Dr Silvia Ross (Italian); Dr Martin
Veiga (Spanish)
This module examines the theory and practice of travel writing. Students will read a set of texts (in English and in English translation) that range from literature of the nineteenth century to contemporary writing. We will be looking at writers who have travelled to such places as Italy, Spain, North Africa and the Middle East, among others.
We will consider issues such as the nature of the genre, the relationship between writing and travelling, and the conceptualization of foreign cultures .