ENGL3941: Post-1945 Black British Writing

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• To introduce students to post-1945 black British writing in ways that remain attentive to the political, ethical and aesthetic ground of their formation.
• To examine the work of key thinkers in the field such as Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall, and Hazel Carby, alongside a selection of diverse texts across multiple genres (from novels, to dub poetry, to film, to the archives, to autotheory, to art, to journalism).
• To interrogate and push against the critical debates in the field which engage with histories of slavery and colonisation, the aesthetics of modernism and postmodernism, race and anti-racism, concepts of diaspora and the black Atlantic, the politics of location and representation, and the influence of contemporary globalisation and discourses of cosmopolitanism.

• This module will engage with black British writing and writers in a chronological fashion, while concomitantly attempting to push against this historicizing gesture.
• The primary texts which will cross various genres will be read alongside a range of secondary sources as a means to situate the lines of debate and contestation in the field.
• The texts in the module include work from writers such as Sam Selvon, Andrew Salkey, E.R. Braithwaite, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jean Binta Breeze, Fred DAguiar, Hanif Kureishi, Caryl Phillips, Zadie Smith, Bernardine Evaristo, Andrea Levy, Roger Robinson, Natasha Brown, Alberta Whittle and more. Students will also have an opportunity to work with archival material as a course text (for instance, with the political magazine Race Today).

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students will gain a comprehensive understanding of post-1945 black British writing across a variety of genres alongside key debates in the field.
• Students will be able to demonstrate knowledge of a diverse scope of aesthetic paradigms and historical contexts related to post-1945 black British cultural production.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts
• an ability to demonstrate knowledge of a range of texts and critical approaches
• informed awareness of formal and aesthetic dimensions of literature and ability to offer cogent analysis of their workings in specific texts
• sensitivity to generic conventions and to the shaping effects on communication of historical circumstances, and to the affective power of language
• an ability to articulate and substantiate an imaginative response to literature
• an ability to articulate knowledge and understanding of concepts and theories relating to literary studies
• skills of effective communication and argument
• awareness of conventions of scholarly presentation, and bibliographic skills including accurate citation of sources and consistent use of scholarly conventions of presentation
• command of a broad range of vocabulary and an appropriate critical terminology
• awareness of literature as a medium through which values are affirmed and debated

Key Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• a capacity to analyse critically
• an ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way involving the use of distinctive interpretative skills derived from the subject
• competence in the planning and execution of essays
• a capacity for independent thought and judgement, and ability to assess the critical ideas of others
• skills in critical reasoning
• an ability to handle information and argument in a critical manner
• information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access information
• organisation and time-management skills

• Seminars: encourage peer-group discussion, enable students to develop critical skills in the close reading and analysis of texts, and skills of effective communication and presentation; promote awareness of diversity of interpretation and methodology. Students will also be expected to present a short unassessed oral paper on their archival work.
• Consultation session: encourages students to reflect critically and independently on their work.
• Independent but directed reading in preparation for seminars provides opportunity for students to enrich subject-specific knowledge and enhances their ability to develop appropriate subject-specific skills.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• Coursework: tests the student's ability to argue, respond and interpret, and to demonstrate subject-specific knowledge and skills such as appreciation of the power of imagination in literary creation and the close reading and analysis of texts; they also test the ability to present word-processed work, observing scholarly conventions. In individual Special Topics, the assessment may, where appropriate to the subject, take an alternative form, such as 'creative criticism'.
• Feedback: The written feedback that is provided after the first assessment allows students to reflect on examiners' comments, giving students the opportunity to improve their work for the second assessment.

Before Assessment 1, students have an individual 15-minute consultation session in which they are entitled to show their seminar leader a sheet of points relevant to the assessment and to receive oral comment on these points. Students may also if they wish, discuss their ideas for Assessment 2 at this meeting.

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