Disciplines and areas of study
English
Program Coordinator: Mr Chris Palmer.
Units offered in the English Program reflect the broad nature of the discipline. The units embrace a variety of literary traditions and genres. Critical approaches and methodologies are equally diverse. Some units draw upon the practices of other disciplines and through these provides a context for the exploration of new ideas emerging from the cross-fertilisation of diverse fields of study. Units focus on various aspects and periods of literature in English, including Australian literature, American literature, new literatures, women’s writing, biography and autobiography, as well as English literature and creative writing in various modes. Units focusing on cultural studies, psychoanalytic theory and the relations between medical, psychoanalytic and literary discourse are also offered.
Availability of units
When planning a major students should note that units that are available in one year might not necessarily be available in the next. In some instances, each of a pair of units is offered in alternate years. Every effort is made by the program to give one-year notice when a unit is to be withdrawn the following year, but unforeseen circumstances may preclude such advance notice. If the enrolments for any second or third year unit fail in any year to reach the minimum figure considered viable by the program, the unit will lapse for that year.
Readings
Readings are listed in each unit entry on the unit database online at www.latrobe.edu.au/udb_public. Lecturers and tutors normally use the edition of the set texts available from the university bookshop.
Attendance requirements
Attendance at lectures and tutorials is obligatory. In order to pass any English unit, it is necessary to have submitted all the written work for the unit. The final date for submission of written work will be included in information given to students at the beginning of each unit.
English expression requirements
In order to pass any English unit, students must attain an acceptable standard of English expression. Tutors will offer guidance with expression difficulties, and further help with language and literacy problems is available from the Humanities Academic Skills Unit or from the Language and Academic Skills (ESL) Unit located in the Humanities 3 building. The program’s conventions of style and format are specified in the section on essay writing in the Essential Guide available to students at www.latrobe.edu.au/english/essential.htm and must be followed in the preparation of all written work.
Prerequisites
Thirty credit points of first year English is the normal prerequisite for second year English.
Forty credit points of second year English is the prerequisite for third year English.
Programs of study
Students who wish to satisfy the degree requirements by taking a major in English are required to take a minimum of 130 credit points of English. 130 credit points of English are required for admission to honours in English but intending honours students are strongly urged to include more English units in their degree.
The normal pattern for an English major is 30 credit points at first year level, 40 credit points at second year level and 60 credit points at third year level.
Students intending to complete a major in English are strongly advised to include in their course a selection of literature from different periods and in different genres.
In order to ensure an appropriate spread of units and to avoid overlap, students may be prohibited from taking both a drama unit offered by the Theatre and Drama Program and an English program unit in drama if three or more texts are prescribed in common on the reading lists of the two units.
| Teaching period | Unit title | Unit code |
|---|---|---|
| First year units (15 credit points) | ||
| TE-SEM-1 | Introducing Literature: the short story | ENG1ILS |
| TE-SEM-1 | Spirituality and Rites of Passage | ENG1SRP |
| TE-SEM-1 | Texts over Time: introduction to literature | ENG1TOT |
| TE-SEM-2 | Classic Victorian Novels: becoming an adult in the 19th century1 | ENG1CVN |
| TE-SEM-2 | Poetry and Desire1 | ENG1PYD |
| TE-SEM-2 | Text, Criticism and the Visual | ENG1TCV |
| TE-SEM-2 | Writing your Own Life | ENG1WYL |
| Second or third year units (20 credit points) | ||
| TE-SEM-1 | American Literature of the 20th Century | ENG2ALT/ENG3ALT |
| TE-SEM-1 | British and American Romanticism | ENG2BAR/ENG3BAR |
| TE-SEM-1 | Love and Eroticism in Asian Literature1 | AST2LEA/AST3LEA |
| TE-SEM-1 | Renaissance Voices and Counter Voices | ENG2REV/ENG3REV |
| TE-SEM-1 | Re-situating Modernism: decolonising contexts | ENG2REM/ENG3REM |
| TE-SEM-1 | Shakespeare in Adaptation1 | ENG2SIA/ENG3SIA |
| TE-SEM-1 | Twentieth-century Australian Literature: inventing the past1 | ENG2TAL/ENG3TAL |
| TE-SEM-1 | Women Writing A | ENG2WWA/ENG3WWA |
| TE-SEM-1 | Writing Poetry | ENG2WRP/ENG3WRP |
| TE-SEM-2 | Contemporary Feminist Thought | ENG2CFT/ENG3CFT |
| TE-SEM-2 | Humour, Comedy and Culture1 | ENG2HCC/ENG3HCC |
| TE-SEM-2 | India in English1 | ENG2IIE/ENG3IIE |
| TE-SEM-2 | Introduction to Medieval Literature1 | ENG2IML/ENG3IML |
| TE-SEM-2 | Inventing the Bush | ENG2ITB/ENG3ITB |
| TE-SEM-2 | Jung’s Cultural Psychology | ENG2JCP/ENG3JCP |
| TE-SEM-2 | Narrative Analysis A1 | ENG2NAA/ENG3NAA |
| TE-SEM-2 | Psychoanalysis and Fictions1 | ENG2PAF/ENG3PAF |
| TE-SEM-2 | Re-thinking Jane Austen | ENG2RJA/ENG3RJA |
| TE-SEM-2 | Shakespeare and Contemporaries | ENG2SAC/ENG3SAC |
| TE-SEM-2 | Tragedy and the Classical World | ENG2TCW/ENG3TCW |
| TE-SEM-2 | Women Writing B | ENG2WWB/ENG3WWB |
| TE-SEM-2 | Writing Fiction | ENG2WFI/ENG3WFI |
| Third year units (20 credit points) | ||
| TE-SEM-1 | Creating Non-fiction | HUS3CNF |
| TE-SEM-1 | Honours Seminar A (for prospective honours students only) | ENG3HSA |
| TE-SEM-1 | Publishing and Editing | MST3PAE |
| TE-SEM-1 | Reading Course A | ENG3RCA |
| TE-SEM-2 | Honours Seminar B (for prospective honours students only) 1 | ENG3HSB |
| TE-SEM-2 | Reading Course B | ENG3RCB |
| TE-SEM-2 | Writing Autobiography | ENG3WAB |
- Key: 1 Not available in 2008.
Honours
Students who do well in second year English receive a letter inviting them to consider taking honours (a fourth year) in English, but any student may ask to be admitted to honours after consultation with the Honours Coordinator and the English Program Coordinator. Applicants for admission to honours in their fourth year should have completed first year English and, normally, a minimum of two second year English semester units. All third year intending honours students are required to include in their English major the 20-credit point, third year honours seminar, either ENG3HSA or ENG3HSB. By the end of their third year, honours students must have completed 130 credit points of English (including either ENG3HSA or ENG3HSB). Intending honours students are strongly recommended to include more English units in their degree. Students may take up to 205 credit points of English.
Permission to continue into fourth year is normally conditional on results of 70% or better in the English units of the pass degree. Applications are considered by a program committee. All admissions to the fourth year honours program, including applications for part-time study, are subject to the approval of the English Program Coordinator. Joint honours, a fourth year honours course shared between English and another discipline, can be arranged. Mid-year entry is also possible. Students interested in the possibility of joint honours should apply in the first instance to the Honours Coordinator.
The fourth year’s work consists of three semester-long units selected from a range of fourth year units and a research essay of 12000 to 15000 words on a topic arranged at the end of the third year’s work and approved by the Honours Coordinator. There is also a methodology component. The three units are worth 45% of the final result (15% for each unit), the research essay 50%, and the methodology component 5%.
Fourth year units
A complete list of fourth year units, together with details of texts, unit requirements and assessment, is published in an honours brochure available from the English Program.
A full description of ENG units (including the unit name, unit code, credit points, campus/location, unit coordinator, class requirements, assessment, prerequisites, and readings) appears below. For the most recent descriptions of all units, please access the unit database at www.latrobe.edu.au/udb_public.