Module:  ENG5116-20 Who do you think you are? Writing the self, written lives

Level: 5

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Jenni Lewis

Module Tutor Contact Details: j.lewis@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

• What is the ‘I’ that writes? How do different types of writing fashion the self? Do identity and the self have a history? Is an ‘I’ always human? This module will engage with these questions to introduce you to key concepts of writing, representation, and identity that will enable you to develop an understanding of how the self has been formed and transformed in and through literature across time, across boundaries, and across genre. 

• In this module, you will study a variety of literary forms, including biography, autobiography, bildungsroman, lyric poetry, poetic ‘confessions’, and contemporary experimental meditations on gender, ethnicity and sexuality. Reading across this range of genres you will develop a sophisticated understanding of the different ways that lives have been imagined. The module will be organised around three thematic sections that will explore: 1. how subjectivities are articulated through different literary forms; 2. how memorialisation and story-telling can be a political act; 3. how different types of selfhood are imagined in the twentieth and twenty-first century. 

• By the end of the module you will be able to demonstrate, through the writing of an academic essay, your ability to identify and discuss key concepts of selfhood and their relation to literary form. You will also be able to articulate your ideas in different, less formal ways, by working on a portfolio of creative and critical tasks that will connect your studies with your own experiences, interests, and concerns. 

2. Outline syllabus

The syllabus will be organised around the following three indicative related sections. Indicative questions to be asked include: 

Section 1: Self-Fashioning 

How do different literary forms fashion and/or narrate the self? How have different voices and experiences been articulated? Exploring different genres and forms of writing, how are various identities coded, contested and negotiated? 

Section 2: Story-telling and Memorialisation

What role does memory play in personal identity? Whose stories are told and whose forgotten? What role does memorialisation play in the way individuals, communities, and nations are imagined? How is belonging imagined in writing? What historical forces have shaped it? Is, for example, the nation an ethnic, linguistic or imagined community?

Section 3: ‘Sharing the being of others’: Radical Subjectivities

What signifies difference in the representation of ethnicity, gender and sexuality? How do issues of language impinge upon the making of new identities? What strategies of self-presentation do identity politics draw upon? Is ‘selfhood’ always and only human? What emerges if the category is extended to include animals, plants, even ‘things’?

3. Teaching and learning activities

• Lectures, seminars, writing workshops, one-to-one tutorials 

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Coursework

• Description: Portfolio including critical and creative tasks (2500 words)  

• % Weighting: 50%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: Coursework

• Description: Portfolio Essay (2500 words) 

• % Weighting: 50%