ENG31500 Nation, Genre & Gender

Academic Year 2018/2019

This course will introduce students to digital analysis of literary texts. Using social network analysis, it will examine how popular fiction imagines national and communal identities and explores anxiety about gender, migration, urbanisation and colonialism in a period of intense social, cultural and political change, between 1860 and 1922. The course will take a comparative approach to Irish and English fiction in the period, focussing on the work of John Sheridan LeFanu, Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Cecil Thurston and Agatha Christie. The course will include practical classes on how to annotate a text, prepare a literary blog post, compile a character dictionary, create a network visualisation and compare character statistics. It will draw on the online resources of the Nation, Genre and Gender research project and students are advised to consuot this at www.nggprojectucd.ie before selecting the course. Please note that this module is assessed by continuous assessment rather than an end of term essay (short pieces of work in weeks 3, 5, 10 and 12 of which 3 best count plus a short essay in week 8). It is very important you attend the seminar in order to be able to complete assignments.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this module students should be able to: 1. Demonstrate a critical awareness of how to use online and digital resources for independent learning 2. Demonstrate and understand how social network analysis of fiction works 3.Develop practical skills in marking up texts for analysis 4. Situate the literary writing on this course in its national, historical, social and political contexts. 5. Make comparisons and contrasts between texts from the different writers studied using digital resources. 6. Demonstrate a critical understanding of the individual texts on this course. 7. Have an enhanced understanding of the potential of digital resources to promote literary culture

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Seminar (or Webinar)

12
Specified Learning Activities

38
Autonomous Student Learning

50
Total

100
 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.



 
Description % of Final Grade Timing
Continuous Assessment: 4 short practical assignments to be submitted, best 3 grades selected, each worth 20%

60

 Throughout the Trimester
Essay: Short Essays (1500 words)

40

 Week 8

Compensation

This module is not passable by compensation

Resit Opportunities

In-semester assessment

Remediation

Students who fail this module will need to repeat or resit the module depending on the availability of the module in the following semester. If you have failed, please contact the Academic Support Officer for information on how to remediate the module. If you are taking this module as an option or an elective, you may be able to substitute another module. Check with your Programme Office if this is possible.