ENGL3881: Diaspora Literature: Contexts, Concepts and Form

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• To explore diaspora as a concept conditioned though colonial legacies which shapes the literature and culture of Anglophone writing within and beyond metropolitan centres.
• To develop critical frameworks through which students can approach diaspora.
• To develop an understanding of English in relation to other languages and cultures with which it interacts in diasporic texts.
• To develop an understanding of diaspora as a continual, unfinished process negotiating the social and political legacies of colonialism.
• To develop an understanding of diaspora literature as reflecting a breadth of intersectional identities.

• Anglophone and translated texts with connections to Britain, South Asia, the Caribbean; Africa and the Black diaspora; the USA (a range of diasporic nationalities), reflecting women, men, trans and nonbinary authors, a range of class backgrounds and sexual identities.
• Range of textual forms: fiction, poetry, drama, film; close analysis in relation to critical, conceptual, historical and socio-political contexts.
• Primary authors may include: Aime Cesaire, Agha Shahid Ali, Hanif Kureishi, Zafar Kunial, Shailja Patel, Louise Bennett, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jean Binta Breeze, Kei Miller, Jay Bernard, Shani Mootoo, Shivanee N. Ramlochan, Dorothea Smartt, Akwaeke Emezi, Shola von Reinhold, Meena Kandasamy.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students will:
• develop an understanding of the conceptual framework of diaspora and ways in which it can be used.
• develop an awareness of global Anglophone literatures and related critical frameworks.
• develop an understanding of the travels of English and its literary forms and re-writing in local diasporic contexts, as well as the travels of non-Anglophone literary forms reinterpreted in English.
• develop an understanding of the re-making of diasporic selves among new proximal communities.
• develop familiarity with the writing of diasporic intersectional identities.
• gain in-depth knowledge of diaspora as a concept made meaningful in a range of specific contexts.
• be able to demonstrate familiarity with diasporic texts relating to a range of ethnic and cultural contexts.
• gain an in-depth understanding of the relationship of form to a breadth of diasporic contexts, problems, and conditions for writing.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts
• an ability to demonstrate knowledge of a range of texts and critical approaches
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific texts
• sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects on communication of historical circumstances, and to the affective power of language
• an ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• an ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• skills of effective communication and argument
• awareness of conventions of scholarly presentation, and bibliographic skills including accurate citation of sources and consistent use of scholarly conventions of presentation
• command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated

Key Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• a capacity to analyse critically
• an ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way involving the use of distinctive interpretative skills derived from the subject
• competence in the planning and execution of assessed work
• a capacity for independent thought and judgement, and ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• skills in critical reasoning
• an ability to handle information and argument in a critical manner
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information
• organisation and time-management skills

• Seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• Coursework: tests the student's ability to argue, respond and interpret, and to demonstrate subject-specific knowledge and skills such as appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation and the close reading and analysis of texts; they also test the ability to present word-processed work, observing scholarly conventions. In individual Special Topics, the assessment may, where appropriate to the subject, take an alternative form, such as 'creative criticism'.
• Feedback: The written feedback that is provided after the first assessment allows students to reflect on examiners' comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second assessment.

Before Assessment 1, students have an individual 15 minute consultation session in which they are entitled to show their seminar leader a sheet of points relevant to the assessment and to receive oral comment on these points. Students may also if they wish, discuss their ideas for Assessment 2 at this meeting.

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