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 106-059 Contemporary Historical Fictions

Credit Points

12.5

HECS Band

1

Coordinator

Clara Tuite

Prerequisites

Usually admission to the Postgraduate Diploma or Fourth Year Honours in English, see Honours entry.

Semester

1 (view timetable)

Contact

A 2-hour seminar per week

Subject Description

This subject explores the relationship between fiction and history across a range of contemporary historical fictions. Formerly a predominantly realist genre which aimed at mimetic representation, historical fiction now locates itself primarily within the transformative modes of romance, allegory and magic realism. Students should develop a critical awareness of historical fiction as a specific literary genre, as we examine the distinctive forms and concerns of postmodern narrative in foregrounding the problems of retrieving and refiguring the past. Students will engage these fictions against a background of contemporary theorisations of the relationship between history and literary postmodernity.

Assessment

Written work totalling 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

A subject reader will be available.

  • W Gibson & B Sterling, The Difference Engine. Bantam.
  • G G Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude. Penguin.
  • T Morrison, Beloved. Vintage.
  • T Pynchon, V.. Vintage.
  • I Sinclair, White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings. Granta.
  • S Sontag, The Volcano Lover: A Romance. Vintage.
  • J Winterson, Sexing the Cherry. Vintage.
Search : Index : Faculty of Arts : English
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