Module ENGL46630: Subaltern Futurism: Ecology, Agriculture and World Literature

Department: English Studies

ENGL46630: Subaltern Futurism: Ecology, Agriculture and World Literature

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To explore the literary and theoretical stakes of the global struggle for a post-capitalist food system.
• To investigate the cultural logic of contemporary global peasant movements and postcolonial and indigenous food sovereignty movements, focussing in particular on their utopian imaginaries.
• To invite students to consider the limits of dominant conceptions of modernity, culture and the future by engaging with literatures and theories of plural temporality, agroecology, eco-feminism, and anti-capitalist resistance.
• To study the formal and generic features of works of world literature that seek to imagine a just socio-ecological dispensation beyond capitalism.

Content

• Encompasses three broad areas: 1. theories of ‘culture’, plural temporality and eco-feminist social reproduction; 2. the ‘peasant modernism’ of the Russian Revolution, Zapatista-inspired writing, and contemporary landless poetry; 3. postcolonial and indigenous agroecologies.
• Embraces a chronologically, geographically and generically broad range of writing from early twentieth-century peasant utopia via contemporary subaltern song lyrics to postcolonial georgic, Native American narratives of food sovereignty, and science fictional utopia.
• Includes such writers as Karl Marx, Alexander Chayanov, ‘Luther Blissett’/ ‘Wu Ming’, Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement activists, Bessie Head, Winona LaDuke, Gerald Vizenor, and Ursula K. Le Guin (indicative list).
• Combines close readings of specific literary and theoretical writing with attention to relevant historical and intellectual contexts.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will gain an in-depth understanding of the history and range of subaltern futurist writing, not least as it intersects with questions of postcolonialism, feminism, ecology and post-capitalist imaginaries.
• Students will be able to demonstrate familiarity with key works of postcolonial, indigenous and world literatures, as well as the historical and intellectual contexts in which they were produced.

• Students studying this module will develop:
• Advanced critical skills in the close reading and analysis of literary and theoretical texts;
• An ability to offer advanced analysis of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature;
• An ability to articulate and substantiate at a high level an imaginative response to literature;
• An ability to demonstrate an advanced understanding of the cultural, intellectual, socio-political contexts of literature;
• An ability to articulate an advanced knowledge and understanding of conceptual or theoretical literary material;
• An advanced command of a broad range of vocabulary and critical literary terminology.

• Students studying this module will develop:
• An advanced ability to analyse critically;
• An advanced ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in structured and systematic ways;
• An advanced ability to interpret complex information of diverse kinds through the distinctive skills derived from the subject;
• Expertise in conventions of scholarly presentation and bibliographical skills;
• An independence of thought and judgement, and ability to assess acutely the critical ideas of others;
• Sophisticated skills in critical reasoning;
• An advanced ability to handle information and argument critically;
• A competence in information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access;
• Professional organisation and time-management skills.

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

• Students are encouraged to develop advanced conceptual abilities and analytical skills as well as the ability to communicate an advanced knowledge and conceptual understanding within seminars.
• The capacity for advanced independent study is demonstrated through the completion of two assessed pieces of work.
• 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.
• All students will be offered a 15-minute 1:1 essay consultation which will form the formative assessment component for this module. Please note that this session will not be centrally timetabled and should be organised directly between the student and their tutor.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

All students will be offered a 15-minute 1:1 essay consultation which will form the formative assessment component for this module. This activity will not be centrally timetabled and should be organised between the student and tutor as schedules permit.

■ 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