EN3AF-American Fiction: Chopin to Carver

Module Provider: English
Number of credits: 20 [10ECTS credits]
Terms in which taught: Autumn
Module Convenor: Dr PJ Righelato
Pre-requisites: English Part 1
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Module version for: 2008/9

Email: p.j.righelato@reading.ac.uk

Aims:
This module is designed to provide students with knowledge and understanding of selected modern American fiction. The aims are to promote the skills of narrative and textual analysis and to develop critical awareness of the literary representation of issues relating to American culture.

Assessable learning outcomes:
By the end of the module students will be expected to:
• analyse distinctive features of the short fiction and novels selected for study
• discuss the texts in relation to American culture and society
• engage critically with ideas presented in seminars and secondary materials
• construct and express coherent critical arguments in writing.

Additional outcomes:
Each module is designed to encourage you to develop skills of oral communication and effective participation in group work. Additionally, you will be encouraged to enhance your IT competence through the use of relevant web resources and library databases, and through the word-processing of assessed coursework.

Outline content:
Texts for study currently include William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!, Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and the short stories of Kate Chopin, Ernest Hemingway, and Raymond Carver. Chopin, Faulkner and Frazier are Southern writers, and the module will focus on their construction of narrative voices in representing the South, its culture, people and landscape, on issues of race, sexuality, and gender, and the effect of the defeat in the American Civil War. F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were contemporaries and rivals. The module will explore their critique of the American Dream and their experimentation with gender portrayal and narrative modes. The stories of Raymond Carver offer an opportunity to continue the study of short fiction, drawing on understanding developed in relation to Chopin and Hemingway. ‘Carver country’ is the urban shopping malls, diners, of blue-collar workers, but also the interior spaces in which different social groups contend with the pressures of American society.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:
Students will receive preliminary information about the modules they will be taking in the preceding term. There will be 9 meetings of two hours per week. The exact method of teaching will vary from seminar to seminar, but most modules are taught largely through two-hour seminars involving group discussion. Some modules may include occasional lectures. You may be asked to give brief seminar papers or oral reports. You are entitled to half an hour of tutorial feedback on your non-assessed essay.

Contact hours:

	Autumn	Spring	Summer
Lectures
Tutorials/seminars	18.5
Practicals
Other contact (eg study visits)
Total hours	18.5
Number of essays or assignments	2
Other (eg major seminar paper)

Assessment:
Coursework
You will be asked to write one non-assessed piece of coursework of 1,500 words and to submit one or two assessed pieces of coursework up to a maximum of 2,500 words.

Penalties for late submission
Ten marks (out of 100 on the normal University scale) will be deducted from a piece of work submitted up to one calendar week after the original deadline or any formally agreed extension of that deadline. Once this period has elapsed, a mark of zero will be recorded.

Examinations
There will be a two-hour examination paper.

Each component will account for 50% of the mark of the module.

Requirement for a pass
an average of 40%.

Reassessment arrangements
Re-examination in September. Coursework will be carried forward if it bears a confirmed mark of 40% or more. Otherwise it must be resubmitted by 1 September.