Literary Self-Fashioning

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2008:

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 introduces students to the ways in which individual and social identities are fashioned in literary texts. It will work with three different historical periods and three different literary genres in order to investigate how specific social and cultural contexts inform the development of new genres and new modes of subjectivity. Working at the intersections of text, genre and culture, we will examine changing models of self and society from the early modern period to the late nineteenth century in England. Shakespearean and Jacobean tragedy develops highly influential modern forms of subjectivity, which see the individual emerge from social distinctions of status and gender and through new forms of representation. The Romantic lyric is designed to produce a revolutionary individuality from the poetically renewed resources of a common language. The mid-nineteenth century realist novel perfects both a new form of writing and a new mode of subjectivity out of the materials of its dramatic and poetic predecessors. Along with historical and generic concepts, we will also examine the constitutive role of ideas of power, performance and textuality in the processes of self-fashioning. Students who successfully complete this subject will have a detailed understanding of the themes and forms of a range of key texts, and a methodological introduction to further work in English Literary Studies.

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Environments
• Bachelor of Music
• Bachelor of Science
• Bachelor of Engineering

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

• acquire skills in the following areas: research: through competent use of library, and other (including online) information sources; through the successful definition of areas of inquiry and methods of research;

• 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;

• 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;

• 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;

• social, ethical and cultural understanding: through use of recommended reading, essay writing and tutorial discussion; through the social contextualisation 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;

• 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.

Students who have completed 106-109 Shakespeare's Theatre are not eligible to enrol in this subject.