Module ENGL3711: Mind and Narrative

Department: English Studies

ENGL3711: Mind and Narrative

Prerequisites

• ENGL 2011 Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To investigate the ways in which mind and cognition have been represented and explored by modernist and contemporary literature through a variety of narrative devices and across a range of literary texts (novels and short stories).
• To introduce students to the contemporary scientific debate about the mind through new paradigms (which consider the relationship between the mind and the world as embodied, enacted, extended and embedded) and a range of core problems and processes related to the self, consciousness, perception, mental imagery, memory and intersubjectivity.
• To explore the representation of such problems and processes in literary storyworlds, building on the conceptual toolbox provided by contemporary narrative theory
• To introduce students to debates in the emerging field of cognitive literary studies, which includes theoretical and empirical questions about writing, reading and interpreting fictional minds

Content

• Focuses on literature from the early modernist to the contemporary period to chart the variety of modes and devices whereby the mind has been represented and explored in narrative storyworlds
• Surveys the contemporary cognitive scientific debate about the mind covering a range of concepts and problems such as the self, inner speech, mind wandering, introspection and self-knowledge, mind reading and social cognition, emotions and moods, liminal states of consciousness, hallucinatory and dream states.
• Examines the representation of these processes and problems in a range of literary texts (novels and short fiction) and encourages close textual analysis of the specific modalities and narrative solutions that literature can employ to render or explore a particular cognitive dynamic or mental state. The module will examine the work of writers such as Herman Melville, Kate Chopin, James Joyce, Christopher Isherwood, Samuel Beckett, John Fante and Richard Flanagan.
• Recuperates and updates pivotal narrative theories (such as literary “stream of consciousness”, theories of characters and of literary immersion) with new theoretical insights and models from cognitive literary studies.
• Combines close reading of individual texts with a wider reflection on the possibilities and limitations of literary narratives to account for, and represent, the complex phenomenology of mental states and processes.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will gain extensive knowledge and understanding of the contemporary debate about the mind in cognitive literary studies
• Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the relationship between literary texts, narrative theory and scientific ideas.

• 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

• 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 essays
• 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

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• 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 essay may, where appropriate to the subject, take an alternative form, such as 'creative criticism'.
• Feedback: The written feedback that is provided after the first assessed essay allows students to reflect on examiners' comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second essay.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Before the first essay, students will have an individual consultation session in which they are entitled to show their seminar leader a list of points relevant to the essay and receive oral comment on these points. Students may also, if they wish, discuss their ideas for the second essay at this meeting.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University