FIRST YEAR

  • Introduction to Poetry (LLE101)

For students who speak English fluently and write competently. Students will experience a wide variety of poetry, past and present, local and international, including non-English poems and popular forms such as rap and rock. The main aims of this module are to hone skills in analytical thought, in close textual analysis, and to demonstrate the relationship between literature and modern life.

  • Introduction to Drama (LLE102)

For students who speak English fluently and write competently. The module includes the analysis of drama texts as well as theatre techniques and practices from ancient Greek tragedy, through the Renaissance to present-day South African work. The main aims of this module are to hone skills in analytical thought, in close textual analysis, and to demonstrate the relationship between dramatic representation and modern life.

  • Introduction to Narrative Fiction (LLE103)

For students who speak English fluently and write competently. The module includes the analysis of contemporary short stories and novels. The main aims of this module are to hone skills in analytical thought, in close textual analysis, and to demonstrate the relationship between narrative fiction and modern life.

  • Introduction to African Literature (LLE104)

For students who speak English fluently and write competently. An examination of African Literature, using the theoretical work of Franz Fanon to analyse literary texts across genres produced in Africa and the African diaspora. The main aims of this module are to hone skills in analytical thought, in close textual analysis, and to demonstrate the relationship between African literary preoccupations and modern life in Africa.

  • Children’s Literature* (LLE105)

A course developed particularly for Education students who are required to do first year English. These students may replace either LLE103 or LLE104 with this module. Students who intend going on to English at second year level must take LLE101 to LLE104, but may take LE105 as an optional extra.

 

Students wishing to proceed to 2nd year English studies and beyond, need to complete four modules at the 1st year level.

 

SECOND YEAR

  • The English Renaissance and Literature (LLE201)

Second year students begin to specialise in particular areas of literary scholarship. This sharpens their analytical, research and writing skills, equipping them for a wide variety of employment possibilities.

The module offers an examination of literary texts which demonstrate the particular social and political concerns of the English Renaissance as a crucial era in the development of English literature.

Prerequisites: LLE101, LLE102, LLE103, LLE104

  • Popular Literature and Subversion (LLE202)

This module examines popular texts, fiction and poetry from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries and from various geographical locations, that are deemed to be oppositional, ambivalent and interrogatory in order to subvert and overturn stable perceptions of conventional ideology and codes of behaviour. The texts in this module deploy a variety of critical strategies both literary and theoretical to insert an alternative point of view. They contest the legitimacy of power structures in private and public spaces, in cultural and socio-political spheres as well as in their textual representation.

Prerequisites: LLE101, LLE102, LLE103, LLE104

  • Romanticism and After (LLE203)

An examination of literary shifts from Enlightenment to Victorian sensibilities, showing the pivotal nature of the Romantic period. Against the backdrop of revolutionary Europe, many Romantic and later nineteenth century writers were preoccupied with the destabilisation of rigid social structures.

Prerequisites: LLE101, LLE102, LLE103, LLE104

  • Literature of Africa and its Diaspora (LLLE204)

This course will approach Anglophone “African” literature as a literature of global reach and impact. It will not merely examine the writings of Africans in Africa, but also those of Africans of the diaspora i.e. African-Americans and/or Caribbean-Africans. Part of the endeavour in this course will be to define and clarify the elements of similarity and difference, which may be seen to operate between the texts brought together here as “African”.

Prerequisites: LLE101, LLE102, LLE103, LLE104

  • Creative Writing: The Personal Essay and Drama (LE205)

Selected students whose first year record indicates potential for creative work. A theoretical and practical exploration of creative writing across genres. Continuous assessment of portfolio work.

Prerequisites: A portfolio of creative writing

  • Creative Writing: Poetry and Short Fiction (LE206)

Selected students whose first year record indicates potential for creative work. A theoretical and practical exploration of creative writing across genres. Continuous assessment of portfolio work.

Prerequisites: A portfolio of creative writing

THIRD YEAR

  • Modernism and Literature (LLE302)

Third year literature studies lead to an advanced knowledge of modern social and political concerns as represented in literary texts. All the primary texts studied are from the 20th and 21st centuries. The courses will hone students’ literary critical and writing skills and introduce them to the major theoretical debates currently informing textual production.

This course will look at early 20th century literature as a challenge to the 19th century’s obsession with ordering and compartmentalising existence into various and separate spheres. It will examine formal attempts by modernist writers to redefine a principle of unification seemingly lost in a fragmentary world.

Prerequisites: LLE201, LLE202, LLE204, LLE204

  • Postmodernism and Literature (LLLE303)

This course will examine textuality and the dissolution of generic boundaries. It will examine several contemporary texts as manifest examples of Lyotard’s broad definition of postmodernism as an ”incredulity towards metanarratives”.

Prerequisites: LLE201, LLE202, LLE204, LLE204

  • South African Literature (LLE304)

This module offers an exploration of South African letters, across genres, which examines the politics of representing South African cultural experience from multiple viewpoints.

Prerequisites: LLE201, LLE202, LLE204, LLE204

  • World Literature Today (LLLE305)

This is a course in contemporary, comparative literature and includes novels from Europe (in translation), from India and from South America.

Prerequisites: LLE201, LLE202, LLE204, LLE204

  • Creative Writing Portfolio (LE306)

Prerequisites: LE205 and LE206 or a portfolio of creative writing

 


 

Contact information
Prof Mary West
Associate Professor
Tel: 27 41 504 2231
Mary.West@mandela.ac.za