University of St Andrews

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 9

Semester: 1

Planned timetable: Lecture: Wednesday 12 noon Seminar: Wednesday 1pm

This module conducts a survey of twenty-first century end-of-the-world fiction. Working across literature, television, film, graphic novel, theatre and video games, students will study stories that imagine the collapse of human (and non-human) life, and what these texts communicate about the fears and precarities of our time. Alongside primary texts, students will explore critical models designed to analyse these precarities. Examples may include eco-criticism, posthumanism, accelerationism, activism, vegetal philosophy, terrorism and war studies, genre studies and literatures of the Anthropocene. Historical precedents will also be included, but this is an explicitly contemporary course, designed to consider humanity’s unsettling proximity to the end-of-the-world and the role that our stories are playing in helping us to come to terms with this.

Relationship to other modules

Pre-requisite(s): Before taking this module you must pass EN2003 and pass EN2004

Anti-requisite(s): You cannot take this module if you take CO4036

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact: 1 x 1-hour lecture and 1 x 1-hour seminar, and 2 optional consultative hours per week.

Scheduled learning hours: 20

Guided independent study hours: 264

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: 100% Coursework


Re-assessment: 100% Exam

Personnel

Module coordinator: Dr J S F Haddow
Module teaching staff: Dr Sam Haddow
Module coordinator email jsfh@st-andrews.ac.uk

Intended learning outcomes

• Demonstrate an enhanced understanding of key works and literary conventions of twenty-first century end-of-the-world fiction.
• Apply core ideas from a range of critical models that explore twenty-first century end-of-the-world fiction.
• Locate historical and contextual precedents for twenty-first century end-of-the-world fiction.
• Work across literary and cultural forms in conducting their analyses.
• Demonstrate oral skills via group discussion.
• Demonstrate writing skills tested by means of written assessments.