Subject Title / Popular Fiction in English
Medium of Instruction / English
Contact Hours / Lecture :21hours
Tutorial :7hours
Total : 28 hours
Exclusion Requirements / The following students are not allowed to take this subject:
All ENGL students
Students of programme-streams 03001 and 03001-FDG
Objectives / This course introduces students to a broad range of genre fictions commonly published in the English-speaking world. These genres are those that are commonly met with as reading material, as the bases for media productions, and are the source of many tropes that are commonly used in everyday thinking and expectations, humour and art. It will assist students to develop their extensive reading skills, as well as to create cultural bridges to new parts of their intellectual community, and their broader social context. It will orient students to matters of English-speaking culture in the globalising world, in the areas of typical western cultural references and media artefacts. The course material will also help students gain facility in understanding their own expectations and uses of such materials, as well as that of other people, which can enable them to become more socially effective, personally discriminating, and creative. This course content and approach would be useful to science students wanting to develop their extensive reading abilities, and business students who want the value of getting to know a breadth of western cultural references. The content of this course will suit Communications students. Course content and breadth would appeal to media students who want experience typing and analysing western cultural and media artefacts.
Learning Outcomes / Upon completion of the subject, students will be able to:
- identify several types of genre fiction via their characteristic elements such as character and action type, emplotment, segmentation, entrelacement and others
- gain appreciation of the diversity of genre in both fiction and other media
- explore crossovers between literature and film, based on book – other media examples explored in class
Teaching/Learning Methodology / lectures with Power Point presentations, breakout groups with exercise sheets and guided analysis, film and TV clip viewing
Course Outline / The course will present the basics of genre theory, in order to familiarise students with analytic concepts. Early lectures will present overviews of material from theorists including Aristotle, Northrop Frye, Alastair Fowler, E. H. Gombrich, Todorov, and Welleck. The course will then move through several specific genres, at about one genre per week, offering an overview of its development in the 20th century, and a review of specific important works.
Students will explore features of that genre, in a few short extracts from a variety of examples, using work sheets and exercises.
The first week would introduce genre theory, through a short lecture, and then extracts and examples worked though in breakout groups.
Then, each week for the ten weeks, the course would introduce a different genre (using the same theoretical categories introduces in week 1). A Power Point lecture would survey the literary and film background for that genre. Students would them get a selection of short 1 to 2 page extracts, and guided worksheets, which they would explore in small groups, reading the extracts and answering the questions. The class would then come back into whole group, for a longer film clip from a recent film, and end with a guided analytical discussion of where the genre is at this time, why it appeals to the public, and so on.
Genres to be covered include:
- school stories
- adventure stories
- westerns
- murder mysteries
- romance novels and chick lit
- horror fiction
- thrillers
- fantasy novels
- comic books
- science fiction
Lecture outline:
Week 1 Introduction
Week 2 Genre Theory
Week 3 School Stories
Week 4 Adventure Storuies
Week 5 Westerns
Week 6 Murder Mysteries
Week 7 Romance Novels and Chick Lit
Week 8 Horror Fiction
Week 9 Thrillers
Week 10 Fantasy Novels
Week 11 Comic Books
Week 12 Science Fiction
Week 13 Media Crossovers
Week 14 Media Crossovers
The final two weeks, we will consider issues such as the impact of serialisation on society, the move from print to film or print to TV (The X-Men, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, Campion or Lord Peter Whimsey murder mystery), the crossover with visual and graphic media (manga), and the role of electronic media in reformulating traditional genres.
Assessment Method / Book Review (2 pages)
- task requires student to develop their extensive reading capabilities, and will show how effectively student has understood analysis as done with guided worksheets on several short extracts in various genre areas in class
Book – Other Media Crossover Analysis (2 pages)
- task would require student to identify the types of genre fiction via their characteristic elements (book cannot be the same as for the first assessment)
- task would require student to explore crossovers between literature and film, based on book – other media examples explored in class
- task would show how student appreciated the diversity of genre in both fiction and other media / 50%
50%
Total: / 100%
Essential Reading / Nil
Offering Department / Department of English
Subject Teacher / Dr Christina DeCoursey
Enquiry / Email:
Tel : 2766 7352
Office: AG413