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Queer(ing) Literature Across Time - ENG00159M

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  • Department: English and Related Literature
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Melissa Oliver-Powell
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24

Module summary

What does it mean to write, to read, or to think queerly? Is ‘queer’ an adjective, a noun, or a verb? And if, as Lisa Duggan writes, the queer is defined not simply against the heterosexual, but as ‘a stance of opposition’ that 'dissents from the hegemonic', the legitimate, and the 'normal' in general, then how can queer texts and acts of reading help us to reshape the very processes by which meaning is produced? This module invites you on a winding path through the queer times and spaces of literary forms, visiting a wide and diverse range of theories and textual genres, and encouraging you to read beyond the straight and narrow.

Each week, you will explore queer readings of a different literary form and context, led by a subject expert. The texts you will read span from the medieval to the modern and contemporary, and you will encounter works that are vibrantly and provocatively queer. You will also learn how to deploy queer readings of less overtly subversive texts, encouraging a reassessment of what ‘queer literature’ might be and do. Topics may include transgender theory in Shakespeare; writing Black queer lives; radical film form in New Queer Cinema; gender nonconformity in the eighteenth-century novel; and queer masculinities in WWI trench poetry.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2023-24

Module aims

The aim of the module is to equip students with an advanced understanding of a range of queer literary and critical theories and ability to apply them to multiple textual forms, including prose, poetry, and film. The module will encourage students to engage closely with a diverse corpus of primary materials, covering a range of time periods and global cultures, through which students will develop skills in close reading and formal analysis. By the end of the module, students will gain knowledge of key debates in queer literary studies and build confidence in approaching a variety of textual forms and periods through a queer theoretical lens.

Module learning outcomes

On successful completion of the module, you should be able to:

  1. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and engagement with queer literatures across a wide range of historical and cultural contexts.

  2. Demonstrate an advanced understanding of and engagement with a variety of textual forms, including novels, poetry, life-writing, and film, in relation to issues of gender and sexuality.

  3. Evaluate key debates within the relevant critical fields dealing with queer critical theories, literary form, and histories of gender, sexuality and cultural representation on page, stage and screen.

  4. Produce independent arguments and ideas which demonstrate an advanced proficiency in critical thinking, research, and writing skills.

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
Essay : 4000 Word Essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Reassessment

None

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on all assessed work within the University deadline, and will often receive it more quickly. The purpose of feedback is to inform your future work; it is designed to help you to improve your work, and the Department also offers you help in learning from your feedback. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further you can discuss it with your module tutor, the MA Convenor or your supervisor, during their Open Office Hours.

Indicative reading

As this is a team-taught module, seminar content and key texts will change each year, but may include:

  • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

  • Mary Robinson, Walsingham

  • Jordy Rosenberg, Confessions of the Fox

  • Ivor Gurney, 'To His Love'

  • Wilfred Owen, 'Exposure'

  • Siegfried Sassoon, 'The Kiss'

  • Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

  • Elizabeth Bowen, Friends and Relations

  • Akwaeke Emezi, Freshwater

  • Saidiya Hartman, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

  • Tom Kalin (dir.), Swoon

  • Cheryl Dunye (dir.), The Watermelon Woman

  • Ælfric, The Lives of Saints

  • Ancrene Wisse


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.