The Bounty Saga and British Romanticism

This subject is not offered in 2009.

Usually admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth year honours in English.

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject will examine a range of texts which have grown up around the topic of the Bounty mutiny. Students will examine poetry, prose and film in order to gain a deeper understanding of why we keep on re-telling this story. Students are asked to develop an understanding of this eighteenth-century story from its contemporary reception in the Romantic period through to the present time. They will consider changes and developments in the narrative as it evolved in the public sphere, paying particular attention to the story's various shapes and forms. Through reading and discussing a number of scholarly articles, students will be introduced to a range of responses to the texts under consideration, including work by race, gender, class, postcolonial and cross-cultural theorists. Students will examine some classic works of Romantic literature as well as some key texts in Enlightenment philosophy about travel and encounter with the other. They will also read a host of less well-known works, including political polemic, court transcripts, newspaper articles and current controversies surrounding the Pitcairn islanders. Students successfully completing this subject will have developed their knowledge and understanding of this popular story whilst refining their interpretive and research skills to gain a broader knowledge of current critical debates surrounding race, gender, and class.

• have confronted and explored the two dominant interpretations of the mutiny, as an act of treachery or justified rebellion against despotism;
• have examined various eighteenth-century conversations about ‘nature’, ‘culture’ and ‘other cultures’;
• have explored utopian fantasies about luxurious island paradises, such as Otaheite (Tahiti), a place synonymous with sexual freedom;
• have explored the experiment of Pitcairn Island as a complex negotiation of different cultures and value systems, Polynesian and British;
• have tested whether or not the Pantisocratic scheme of Coleridge and Southey can take on a Pacific as well as a transatlantic dimension;
• be able to discuss and write about eighteenth and nineteenth-century texts and twentieth-century film in a sophisticated manner;
• have acquired a transportable set of interpretive skills;
• have developed their capacity for independent research;
• have developed their capacity for critical thinking and analysis;
• have developed their ability to communicate in writing.

A 2000 word essay, 50% (due mid-semester), and a 3000 word essay, 50% (due at the end of the semester). Attendance at 80% of tutorials, a class presentation, and participation in class discussion are required to pass the subject.

• The Isle of Pines (1668) in Three Early Modern Utopias (Henry Neville), (Oxford World's Classics)

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

• have acquired skills in research through competent use of library, and other (including online) information sources; through the successful definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research; intelligent and effective communication of knowledge and ideas: through essay preparation, planning and writing as well as tutorial discussion; through effective dissemination of ideas from recommended reading and other relevant information sources; through clear definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research; through confidence to express ideas in public forums; time management and planning: through the successful organization of workloads; through disciplined self-direction and the ability to meet deadlines.

• have acquired skills in critical thinking and analysis: through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the questioning of accepted wisdom and the ability to shape and strengthen persuasive judgments and arguments; through attention to detail in reading material; and through openness to new ideas and the development of critical self-awareness;

• have acquired skills through theoretical thinking: through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through a productive engagement with relevant methodologies and paradigms in literary studies and the broader humanities;

• have acquired skills in creative thinking: through essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the innovative conceptualising of problems and an appreciation of the role of creativity in critical analysis;

• have acquired skills in social, ethical and cultural understanding: through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the social contextualization of arguments and judgments; through adaptations of knowledge to new situations and openness to new ideas; through the development of critical self-awareness in relation to an understanding of other cultures and practices;

• have acquired skills in intelligent and effective communication of knowledge and ideas: through essay preparation, planning and writing as well as tutorial discussion; through effective dissemination of ideas from recommended reading and other relevant information sources; through clear definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research; through confidence to express ideas in public forums;

• have acquired skills in time management and planning: through the successful organization of workloads; through disciplined self-direction and the ability to meet deadlines.