University of St Andrews

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: Monday 11.00-13.00

The aim of this module is to introduce some of the most interesting and innovative work in contemporary fiction, and to give you the knowledge and the tools to read it, judge it, and write about it with pleasure and with critical insight. You'll be asked to think rigorously about the idea of the 'contemporary', and how that term might relate to other literary and cultural categories. Spanning the last twenty years or so, the set texts don't attempt any sort of representative cross-section of fiction of the period; rather than seeking such a survey, we will concentrate on how certain writers have used fictional form to think about what is old and what is new: what is current, or anachronistic, or ahead of its time. (To think, that is, about the structure of contemporaneity itself.) (Group E)

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 lecture and 1 seminar, and 2 optional consultative hours.

Scheduled learning hours: 22

Guided independent study hours: 278

Assessment pattern

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


Re-assessment: exam = 100%

Personnel

Module coordinator: Dr J J Purdon
Module teaching staff: Dr James Purdon (JJP5)

Intended learning outcomes

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of the set texts
• Identify and explore key themes and concerns in contemporary fiction
• Close read literary texts paying attention to language, rhetoric, form and structure
• Demonstrate theoretical literacy, that is, a working knowledge of the critical and theoretical context of contemporary fiction and its academic study
• Examine texts within their political, historical and social context
• Show evidence of wider fictional, critical and theoretical reading