ENGL551 Victorian Literature and Culture

Updated: 05 February 2013

Unit Information
Additional Information

Credit Points

Offering

Responsible Campus	Teaching Period	Mode of Study
Armidale	Trimester 1	Off Campus
Armidale	Trimester 1	On Campus

Intensive School(s)

None

Supervised Exam

There is no UNE Supervised Examination.

Pre-requisites

candidature in a postgraduate award

Co-requisites

None

Restrictions

ENGL351 or ENGL451

Notes

None

Combined Units

ENGL351 - Victorian Literature and Culture

Coordinator(s)

Jennifer McDonell (jmcdonel@une.edu.au)

Unit Description

The unit introduces students to the Victorian period and examines a selection of Victorian texts and images in relation to social, religious, political, economic and other contexts. It will begin with an interrogation of notions of 'Victorianism', and proceed to examine such areas of debate as religious faith and doubt, gender and nation, empire and race, the Victorian 'invention' of childhood, post-Darwinian fears about the species divisions, especially about what constitutes the 'human'.

Prescribed Material
Mandatory

Shrink Wrapped Package(s):

Note: Students are expected to purchase prescribed material. Please note that textbook requirements may vary from one teaching period to the next.

Kim and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde SWP: ISBN: 9780470818947

Kipling, R. and Stevenson, R.L., John Wiley and Sons 2003

Note: Package includes: Kipling, R., Kim (ISBN 9780393966503) and Stevenson, R.L., Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (ISBN 9780393974652)

Text refers to: Trimester 1 , On and Off Campus

Text(s):

Note: Students are expected to purchase prescribed material. Please note that textbook requirements may vary from one teaching period to the next.

Jane Eyre: ISBN: 9780141441146

Bronte, C., Penguin 2006

Text refers to: Trimester 1 , On and Off Campus
Middlemarch: ISBN: 9780141439549

Eliot, G., Penguin 2003

Text refers to: Trimester 1 , On and Off Campus
The Island of Dr Moreau: ISBN: 9781551113272

Wells, H.G., Broadview Press 1st ed. 2009

Text refers to: Trimester 1 , On and Off Campus
Victorian Poetry: An Annotated Anthology: ISBN: 9780631234364

O'Gorman, F. (ed), Blackwell 2004

Text refers to: Trimester 1 , On and Off Campus

Disclaimer

Unit information may be subject to change prior to commencement of the teaching period.

Assessment

Title	Weight	No. Words
Assignment 1: Online Test 1	10%
Relates to Learning Outcomes (LO) and Graduate Attributes (GA)
LO: 1, 2, 4 GA: 1, 6
Assignment 2: Written Essay	50%	3500
Relates to Learning Outcomes (LO) and Graduate Attributes (GA)
LO: 1, 2, 3, 4 GA: 1-3, 6
Take Home Exam	40%	2000
Relates to Learning Outcomes (LO) and Graduate Attributes (GA)
LO: 1, 2, 3, 4 GA: 1-3, 6

Learning Outcomes (LO)

Upon completion of this unit, students will be able to:

identify and discuss key topics of debate within the field of Victorian literature and culture studies;
demonstrate an advanced understanding of the strategies and mechanisms by which literary texts engage with their cultural contexts;
discuss and describe the work of authors of the Victorian period; and
analyse, research and evaluate Victorian literary texts using relevant primary and secondary resources, and demonstrate a high level of competence in critically evaluating such research tools.

Graduate Attributes (GA)

	Attribute	Taught	Assessed	Practised
1	Knowledge of a Discipline This unit introduces students to a range of texts and areas of debate within the discipline of Victorian literary and cultural studies. Knowledge is assessed through students' performance in the set assessment tasks.
2	Communication Skills Oral communication skills will be assessed and practised in seminars (for on-campus students in weekly seminars). Written communication skills will be assessed as part of the essay assessment task and the take home examination.
3	Global Perspectives Global perspective and inter-cultural competence will be taught, assessed and practised through all the learning activities of the unit, including advisory materials, seminars and in the assessment task. The content of the unit deals with nineteenth-century Britain, including its colonialist and imperialist relationship to India and Australia.
4	Information Literacy While these attributes are not specifically taught or assessed as part of the syllabus students will make use of electronic information resources in order to research individual topics and to complete the written assessment task. References to electronic resources will be given in advisory materials and it is assumed the students will use basic research and retrieval skills to pursue these.
5	Life-Long Learning Lifelong learning will be taught and practised by encouraging students to read culture in an informed and critical way especially in the context of the seminar, lecture, the use of advisory materials and in the assessment tasks.
6	Problem Solving In the advisory materials, seminar topics, essay and exam questions students will be asked to critically and creatively think through issues that arise from their study of specific texts (prescribed texts and additional readings). Furthermore they will be required to relate these texts to debates that were important for the Victorians; thus problem solving is integral to the way the unit will be taught, assessed and practised.
7	Social Responsibility The content of the unit is largely concerned with social and political issues central to the Victorian period. In a practical sense the ethics of responsibility and respect for others will be integral to the students' effective and constructive participation in the lectures and seminar discussions that comprise the face-to-face teaching component of the unit, as well as the online discussions.
8	Team Work On-campus students have an opportunity to practise team work in seminars, and this attribute is also practised in the interaction on the Discussion Boards.

Global UNE Links:

Course and Unit Catalogue 2013

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