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Critical Readings: The Great Works (ENGL90002)

Graduate courseworkPoints: 6.25On Campus (Parkville)

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Overview

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Semester 1
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This subject is designed to introduce graduate students to a sequence of essential texts, both primary and secondary. Each of the set readings will be a work that is considered ‘seminal’ in literary studies and texts will range from novels, poems and plays, to critical essays. This course will offer a broad historical range and will combine theoretical approaches with careful close reading. It is designed to offer breadth to students and to help them become familiar with works that are frequently referenced in literary writing. Primary texts to be considered will include The Prince, Candide, Culture and Anarchy, Middlemarch, The Inferno. Critical works to be discussed will encompass Raymond Williams, The Country and the City, Freud, ‘On Dreams’, Barthes, ‘The Death of the Author’, critical writings by George Eliot and Harriet Martineau, along with Auerbach’s Mimesis.

Intended learning outcomes

On successful completion of this subject, students should have:



  • enhanced knowledge of the topic or area of scholarship taught in the module;
  • an ability to reflect upon their own research work in relation to the content of the module; and
  • enhanced engagement with leading-edge research in Arts today.

Generic skills

The subjects will contribute, through teaching and discussion with academic staff and peers, to developing the skills and capacities identified in the University-defined Graduate Attributes for the PhD, in particular:

  • the capacity to contextualise research within an international corpus of specialist knowledge;
  • an advanced ability to evaluate and synthesise research-based and scholarly literature; and
  • an advanced understanding of key disciplinary and multi-disciplinary norms and perspectives relevant to the field.

Last updated: 3 November 2022