In this subject students will read a body of work that traverses five centuries of literature in English, from Shakespeare to the present, and across three or more continents. The distinct approach taken in this subject brings together the close study of individual texts on one hand, and considerations of very contemporary debates, concepts and theoretical approaches on the other. It revisits the traditions that have shaped literary studies, looking at the ways literary texts arise from, depart from and return to orthodoxy; it studies different genres across time and place; it looks at 'time' and 'place' themselves; it looks at contestations over artistic 'centres' and 'margins', and the effects on these of theories and politics of decolonization, sexuality and gender.

Subject rules

Readings