Delivered at:: Department of Philology

Course type:: Elective course

When:: 3 year, 1, 2 module

Instructors

Goroshkova, Renata

Delazari, Ivan

Full Syllabus

Abstract

The course begins with the major post-war American schools centered around Black Mountain College (Charles Olson’s “projective verse”) and the Beatniks in San Francisco. We will focus on the break with traditional forms, the push towards absolute sincerity of expression, and the exploration of non- heteronormative forms of sexuality. We then proceed to the major communitarian trends – Black nationalist poetry and feminism. We will also consider points of intersection between the two movements, as in the work of Audre Lorde. The next three sections of course examine working-class British poets, Irish poets that articulate a range of forms of national identity, and post- colonial poets from the Caribbean islands and the Indian subcontinent. The course closes with a discussion of political verse being written now.

Learning Objectives

In this course, we will read closely and discuss poems from a range of genres and styles, presenting a survey of contemporary Anglophone poetry with a special focus on politically engaged verse. Among our central themes will be political violence, poverty and oppression, marginalized voices and identities, and the reified forms of language itself.

Expected Learning Outcomes

Students will become acquainted with the major trends of Anglophone poetry after 1945 and many of the most significant poets writing in America, Britain and Ireland. Tracing the different forms of poems under discussion, students will develop a fine-tuned understanding of political engagement found in the how art can contribute to political struggle.

Course Contents

Introduction
Black Mountain School
Beatniks and Queer
Black Nationalism
After Black Nationalism
From Feminine to Feminism
From Feminism to Women of Color
British Working Class
Irish
Post-Colonial
Eco-Poetry
Current

Assessment Elements

In-Class Participation
Students are expected to attend all lectures and seminars and contribute to discussions. They need to be prepared for class by having read the assigned text(s). They contribute to seminar discussions by answering and asking questions relevant to the corresponding class section.
Online Contribution
Students post messages to the topics of the LMS online forum for initiated and/or follow-up discussions, either before or after classes.
Tests
In one or several lectures or seminars, students are given a test of 10 questions based on a short story/several short stories analyzed at lectures by the course instructor. The test is conducted at no advance notice. The exact number of tests and the questions they contain are kept secret. There can be no more than 10 tests conducted during the course. The test(s) cannot be retaken; if a student has missed a test, the result is marked 0 (zero). The mark for this course requirement is the mean of the marks for all the tests offered throughout the course duration.
Presentation: Class Discussion Coordination Session
At the beginning of the course, students sign up for 10 seminar sessions in the role of Class Discussion Moderators, 1-4 students per class, depending on the available number of time slots in one seminar. They select one short story from the course Short Story Pool that is recommended for discussion in the corresponding week, inform other students and the course instructor of their choice, and prepare to lead a 20-min discussion of the text at the class from the teacher’s perspective, finding and providing classmates with reading texts in advance. They conduct the discussion leaning on and/or presenting extra materials of their choice and finding, aiming at everybody’s understanding of the story and its place in literary history.
Exam
The exam is a test with 3-10 questions conducted on a proctored electronic platform. Its time limit is 3 hours from the officially scheduled beginning. Students are allowed to use their lecture notes and primary texts of the short stories. Neither written nor oral communication with classmates or any other persons is allowed: the student who gets caught asking questions and sharing materials is considered as a cheat violating academic integrity, while the exam is graded zero.

Interim Assessment

2022/2023 2nd module
0.3 * Exam + 0.25 * Presentation: Class Discussion Coordination Session + 0.25 * In-Class Participation + 0.1 * Tests + 0.1 * Online Contribution

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Axelrod, S. G., Roman, C., & Travisano, T. J. (2012). The New Anthology of American Poetry : Postmodernisms 1950-Present. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=549303
Matek, L., & Rehlicki, J. P. (2014). Facing the Crises : Anglophone Literature in the Postmodern World. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=805810

Recommended Additional Bibliography

MacGowan, C. J. (2004). Twentieth-Century American Poetry. Maldon, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=231524
Young, R. (2016). Postcolonialism : An Historical Introduction. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1380042

Bachelor’s Programme 'Philology'

Contacts

English literature