LENGL6260 London: Literature, Culture, Identity Course Descriptor

Course Overview

London: Literature, Culture, Identity is centrally about the relationship between place and literature: about how literature helps to form an idea of place through different time periods, how place in turn can determine, inspire, or condition the literary works produced in and about it; how context changes our reading of literary works; and how London, or any part of it, might be seen as what Benedict Anderson calls ‘an imagined community’. The course contains both lectures and study visits, and students are encouraged to work through their own experience of the city alongside reading accounts of the city in literature written from the Early Modern period to the present. A key theme is the recognition of London’s cultural diversity through time as represented in the literature, art, architecture and even the infrastructure of the city. Students are encouraged to examine the literature of London through a focus on location, identity and environment and in relation to their own experience of the city. This will include students focusing on a particular location, finding ways of engaging with the current community, and then considering their findings in relation to earlier representations which might be literary, visual or musical. Ethical frameworks for such fieldwork will be provided.

Learning Outcomes

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

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage students in their studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures/seminars/labs/studios/workshops 

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

• Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group.

OR 

• Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150 

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE. 

Summative Assessments

In the presentation students will focus on a particular location in London and will find ways of engaging with the current community present or represented in that location. They will consider their findings in relation to earlier representations which might be literary, visual, or musical. Ethical frameworks for such fieldwork will be provided.

The portfolio will evidence close reading and analytic skills, together with knowledge of concepts of race, gender, class and/or sexuality, in relation to the listed learning outcomes.

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours). 

Indicative Reading

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

• Ackroyd, Peter, London: A Biography (London: Chatto and Windus, 2000) 
• Ford, Mark, London: A History in Verse (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2012)
• Selvon, Samuel, The Lonely Londoners (1956, London: Penguin, 2006)
• Levy, Andrea, Small Island (London: Headline Review, 2004)
• McLeod, John, Postcolonial London: Rewriting the Metropolis (London: Routledge, 2004)

Electronic Resources

• Layers of London. Available on: https://www.layersoflondon.org/
• Mapping Black London in World War II. Available on: https://dcrn.northeastern.edu/

Indicative Topics

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

• Diverse London identities
• London and War
• Contemporary perspectives