ESH370
Reading Psychoanalysis Reading Literature
Level 6 (30 credits)
This module will introduce students to psychoanalytic ideas and to psychoanalytically informed ways of reading and interpreting texts. Students should not worry if they have read no psychoanalysis before. We will spend the first part of the module on Freud before moving on to other psychoanalytic thinkers (e.g. Jacques Lacan, Melanie Klein and Frantz Fanon) and engaging with concepts that are central to psychoanalysis. As we continue to build this foundational knowledge, we will put the psychoanalytic texts, and ideas we draw from them, into dialogue with readings of literary works.
Preparing for this Module and Approximate Costs
There is no advance preparation required for this module. Should you wish, you can start by reading through Sigmund Freud and Joseph Breuer's Studies in Hysteria (London, Penguin: 2004.)
All reading is supplied electronically. Should you wish to purchase suggested volumes the approximate cost would be less than £30 for the whole module.
Why take Reading Psychoanalysis Reading Literature
?
- This module will introduce students to psychoanalytic ideas and to psychoanalytically informed ways of reading and interpreting texts. Students should not worry if they have read no psychoanalysis before!
- This module aims to give students a solid grounding in Freudian and post-Freudian psychoanalytic theory in the first instance. This knowledge will then be used to form a dialogue with various pieces of literature, (this list will change but in years past this has included: e.g Octavia Butler, Jhumpa Lahiri, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Edgar Allen Poe, Toni Morrison, Shakespeare.)
- Students will strengthen their critical and theoretical thinking and writing skills, and gain deeper understanding of the ways in which psychoanalytically informed readings of literature and literary readings of psychoanalytic literature can be performed.
| Learning Context |
Long Seminar + Workshop (or equivalent) |
| Semester |
One |
| Assessment |
- Short Writing Exercise (1500 words), 20%
- Essay 1 (2500 words), 30%
- Essay 2 (3000 words), 50%
|
| Mode of reassessment |
Standard |
| Contact |
|
There is some content covered on the programme that you may find challenging and sensitive. We do not issue content notes for individual texts (written, performance, visual, sonic etc.), but please do contact your module tutor and/or convenor and/or adviser if you have concerns or problems relating any of the content, themes or discussions.
