This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
Challenging the common centre-margin paradigm at the heart of postcolonial discourse, this broad-ranging and comparative module traces interconnections between modernist and postcolonial 'literature of the quest' from different cultural locations and conjunctions. Just as the knights of the Fisher King legend set out to find the Holy Grail, both the modern and postcolonial self embark on individual odysseys in quest of origin, identity and language. Whilst the modernists’ experimentation with form, reflecting the ever-changing data of modern consciousness, evidences the ‘sickness’ of modernity, postcolonial quest literature offers a reaction to a national schizophrenia: quest for self-echoes a quest for a country, a language and a history. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902), an early example of how the imperialist divide and centre-margin dialectic are handled, will mark the beginning of our exploration of modernist grail quests for an effective medium of communication, existentialist quests in a modern world in crisis, experimental quests into the unknown and poetic quests crossing thresholds of meaning. Primary texts will be read alongside recent critical work from a variety of mythological, philosophical, anthropological and theoretical perspectives.
Total Contact Hours: 20
Private Study Hours: 280
Total Study Hours: 300
Assignment (5,000 words) – 100%
Indicative reading list:
Modernist Texts:
Conrad, Joseph (2007). Heart of Darkness. London: Penguin Classics.
Woolf, Virginia, (2014).The Waves. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eliot, T.S., (1969). 'The Waste Land'. London: Faber and Faber.
Postcolonial Texts:
Harris, Wilson (1960). The Palace of the Peacock. London: Faber and Faber.
Malouf, David (1999). An Imaginary Life. London: Vintage Books.
Gurnah, Abdulrazak (1994). Paradise. London: Penguin Books.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 Read and respond to the dialogue between modernist and postcolonial writing with particular focus on the theme of 'the quest';
2 Read the set texts within both modernist and postcolonial contexts, theoretically as well as historically;
3 Demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the ways in which postcolonial works both react to, critically engage with and complement aspects of modernism;
4 Explore themes such as the quest for self, language and place; modernist and postcolonial crises over meaning; questions of origin; experimentation with form; the fragmentation of absolutes; imperialism; national mythologies, rethinking the past; fragmented identities; dislocation, cultural displacement and alienation; exile; the limits between imagination and reality; the limits between the past and the present; the sense of 'home';
5 Apply and interrogate relevant theoretical, mythological, philosophical and anthropological strategies appropriate to literature of the 'quest';
6 Demonstrate analytical and presentation skills to express ideas about the relationship between modernist and postcolonial concepts and themes.
The intended generic learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1 Demonstrate an ability to analyse modernist and postcolonial texts critically and make comparisons across a range of reading;
2 Demonstrate the skills necessary for participating in group discussions and giving oral presentations;
3 Carry out independent research confidently;
4 Demonstrate the ability to critically evaluate and creatively deploy philosophical, theoretical and historical perspectives;
5 Demonstrate the ability to construct original, innovative and complex arguments.
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