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EN4373   Material Culture in Victorian and Modernist Fiction

Academic year(s): 2024-2025

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 30

ECTS credits : 15

Level : SCQF level 10

Semester: 2

Availability restrictions: Not automatically available to General Degree students

Planned timetable: 2.00 pm - 4.00 pm Fri

This module will use material culture studies as a lens through which to consider the continuities and ruptures between Victorian and modernist attitudes towards material culture and the ways in which attitudes towards the material informed the stylistic choices of fiction writers in these periods. Victorian novelists typically filled their works with detailed descriptions of physical environments and objects in order to create the 'solidity of specification' characteristic of realist fiction; modernist writers rejected this method as 'materialist' and sought alternatives to the solidity of the triple-decker novels of the Victorians. However, this module will question such easy distinctions and consider both differences and continuities between Victorian and modernist writers' fascination with and suspicion of things (Group C)

Relationship to other modules

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

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

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

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: 2-hour Written Examination = 50%, Coursework = 50%


Re-assessment: exam = 100%

Personnel

Module coordinator: Dr C M Alt
Module teaching staff: Dr Christina Alt (CMA7)

Intended learning outcomes

  • Demonstrate a detailed knowledge and critical appreciation of key works of Victorian and modernist fiction
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the range of interpretive approaches making up the field of material culture studies and the capacity to apply these approaches in appropriate ways
  • Demonstrate skills in the critical reading and evaluation of primary texts and relevant secondary material
  • Demonstrate skills in library and online research
  • Demonstrate oral skills, tested via group discussion
  • Demonstrate written skills, tested by means of essays and end-of-semester examinations