Contemporary Writing: 2000 – Now Course Descriptor

Course Overview

What makes literature contemporary to its moment? In this course, students will investigate and creatively respond to a diverse range of the most significant novels, short fiction, poetry, plays and other creative works produced since the Millennium, and consider how they interact with their present moment, capture a cultural zeitgeist, or represent topical political issues. Contemporary writing will be read alongside historical and sociological accounts of contemporary culture to enable students to understand how literature shapes our collective experience of modern life. The course also considers ‘the contemporary’ as an aesthetic category, a judgement about a work’s artistic value: What are the institutional and public forces which influence a work’s status as ‘contemporary’, from media old and new, to university curricula, prestigious publishers and prize cultures? The breadth of writing (styles, topics and authors) explored in this course supports the development of the student’s own creativity  to produce  writing that is unique and has a consideration of its potential sites of publication and circulation. This course will appeal to readers and/or writers of contemporary literature, and students with an artistic, sociological, or philosophical interest in creative writing in the present.

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

The portfolio requires students to engage in both critical reading and creative production, in relation to the specified learning outcomes. Indicative elements that might be included in the portfolio are a short report, a literary-critical essay, and a piece of creative writing with a reflective commentary. 

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.

• Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other 
• Sally Rooney, Normal People
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ 
•  Jonathan Gibbs, Spring Journal
• James English, The Economy of Prestige
•  Reviews from the London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement and Los Angeles Review of Books

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.

• Major forms and genres of contemporary writing
• The representation of race in contemporary writing
• The representation of gender and sexuality in contemporary writing
• The creative process and the practice of self-reflection and self-critique
• The sociology of the literary marketplace