LENGL4148 Global Literatures to 1500 Course Descriptor

Course Summary

Global Literatures to 1500 focuses on a selection of the world’s most influential and aesthetically sophisticated early literature. The course is structured around three major literary genres and traditions: oral traditions and epics; drama and performance; and poetry and lyric. The connections between writing and place are a central concern. While texts are read for the most part in translation, they are situated in historically and culturally specific contexts. Attention will be given to the intersections of early literatures with different worldviews and their philosophical, religious, ethical and social underpinnings. At the same time, students will make connections between different literatures, drawing informed comparisons across different cultures. Students will engage with some literary theory, including in relation to genre and translation, and will develop skills in close reading, interpretation, and critical thinking. Furthermore, students will reflect on their own positions in relation to the works under study. In engaging with and reflecting on ongoing dialogues across cultures and across time, students will develop cultural agility together with an appreciation of the importance of literature in understanding human existence. 

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge And Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Professional Skills

Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning strategies for this course will include: 

A minimum of 36 contact hours, typically to include interactive group teaching, co-curriculars, individual meetings, in-class presentations and exams.

Course information and supplementary materials are available on the University Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).

Students will receive individualised developmental feedback on their work for this course.

Students are required to attend and participate in all the formal and timetabled sessions for this course. Students are also expected to manage their directed learning and independent study in support of the course.

Assessment

Formative

Students will be formatively assessed in class through class activities, and during office hours. Formative assessments are ones that do not count towards the final grade but will provide students with developmental feedback.

Summative

The exam typically requires students to write a commentary on a passage selected from one of the texts studied in the first half of the semester. Students will be required to identify and analyse the passage’s key literary features, and to demonstrate an awareness of its cultural contexts.

The portfolio typically consists of two parts: a comparative research pieceessay and a reflection. For the comparative research pieceessay (c. 1500 words), students will write an essay comparecomparing two texts studied on the course. Students will conduct some independent research on each text and/ or on the genres and cultures selected, to deepen their comparison. For the reflection (c. 500 words), students will select from one of a choice of skills and approaches taught on the course and write on how this has developed their understanding of global literatures. 

In these ways, students will have the opportunity to demonstrate knowledge and understanding, and to employ literary critical skills, both in relation to individual texts and in comparison between texts, as well as to reflect on the transferrable skills covered across the course.

Further information on the structure of summative assessment elements can be found in the Summative Assessment Briefs.

Feedback

Students will receive feedback in a variety of ways: written (including via email correspondence); oral (within office hours or on an ad hoc basis) and indirectly through class discussion.

Feedback on examinations is provided through generic internal examiners’ reports and are made available to the student on the VLE. For all other summative assessment methods, feedback is made available to the student either via email, the VLE or another appropriate method.   

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is used as part of the approval/modification process only.

Books 

Damrosch, David. What Is World Literature? Princeton University Press, 2003.

Leeming, David Adams, editor. The World of Myth: An Anthology. Oxford University Press, 1990.

Puchner, Martin and Suzanne Conklin Akbari, editors. The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 4^th ed. (Package 1: Volumes A, B, C), W.W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Waley, Arthur, translator. The Nō Plays of Japan: An Anthology. Dover Publications, 2012.

Journals 

Journal of World Literature. Leiden, Brill Publishers.

Electronic Resources

Hildegaard von Bingen. Ordo Virtutum. YouTube, uploaded by Ensemble Vocatrix, 27 Jan 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUMlhtoGTzY.

Indicative Topics

Students will study the following topics: 

• Creation Myths
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Nō Theatre and Its Precedents
• Sanskrit Classical Theatre
• Arabic and Persian Lyric
• Francien Lyric and Romance

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