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. The modernist and postcolonial subject embarks on odysseys in quest of origin, language and identity. Whilst the modernists’ experimentation with form, reflecting the ever-changing data of modern consciousness, evidences the ‘sickness’ of modernity, postcolonial quest literature dismantles the binaries and power hierarchies within language as a counteraction to imperialist discourse. Early examples 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.
Private Study: 268
Contact Hours: 32
Total: 300
Main Assessment Methods
Critical or creative-critical quest assignment (2,500 words) 30%
Research assignment (3,500 words) 50%
Seminar Participation 20%
Reassessment methods
100% coursework (4,500 words)
The University is committed to ensuring that core reading materials are in accessible electronic format in line with the Kent Inclusive Practices. The most up to date reading list for each module can be found on the university's reading list pages: https://kent.rl.talis.com/index.html
The intended subject specific learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1. Read and respond to the dialogues between modernist and postcolonial writing with a 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 react to, critique, critically engage with and complement aspects of modernism;
4. Explore a range of themes around the quest for a language, place and/or history; questions of origin; experimentation with form, cultural displacement and alienation; and the sense of 'home'.
5. Interrogate relevant theoretical, mythological, philosophical and anthropological strategies appropriate to literature of the 'quest' and bring them into dialogue with the primary literature studied.
6. Develop and demonstrate a range of 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 presenting their ideas using a variety of methods.
3. Show an increased capacity for self-directed research and the ability to discuss, evaluate and creatively deploy creative, critical and theoretical perspectives making use of appropriate sources;
4. Frame and identify appropriate research questions and to construct original, clear and well-substantiated arguments.
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