Literature has a long history of representing the erotic, and of exploring, affirming and contesting ideas about the body. This optional module explores how modern writers have, from the late-nineteenth century to the present, engaged with moral, legal and scientific understandings of sexuality, and considers the impact of feminist criticism, queer theory and pornography studies upon how we think about the complex and often difficult relationship between sex and writing. You will critically examine provocative and formally challenging textual material in order to debate a range of contentious issues and themes, such as sexual morality and censorship, literary and journalist accounts of prostitution, the supposed distinctions between literature, erotica and pornography, the effects of new technologies on the representation of sexual desire, and utopian and radical visions of sex and society.
On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:
The module will be taught in a series of two-hour seminars. These fortnightly sessions are flexible so as to allow detailed exploration of both literary texts and critical and theoretical material which engages with questions of sex, desire and their representation, and may include presentations by the module leader, short student presentations and peer-led discussions.
Definitive UNISTATS Category | Indicative Description | Hours |
---|---|---|
Scheduled learning and teaching | Seminars | 22 |
Guided independent study | 278 | |
Total (number of credits x 10) | 300 |
Assessment for this module comprises two elements.
The first (30%) is a 2,000-word ‘conference paper' which will be delivered in seminar and submitted for assessment. Topics, to be chosen in conjunction with the module leader, allow students to explore the literary representations of and/or theoretical approaches to sex and sexuality. The second (70%) is a 4,000-word critical essay which will focus on one or more key concerns of the module and will allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the diverse, challenging ways writers have represented sex and sexuality, and how theoretical material complicates the ways we think about of the relationship between embodiment, desire and writing. In addition to weekly seminar discussion and formal presentations, drafting and preparation of the critical essay will provide explicit opportunities for formative feedback.
Learning Outcome | Assessment Strategy |
---|---|
Demonstrate a critical understanding of the cultural forces that have contributed to understandings of sex and sexual identity at particular historical moments | Assessed formatively by class discussion and in-class presentation of conference paper. Assessed summatively by a critical essay and shorter conference paper. |
Offer sophisticated analyses of literary texts within the context of theoretical debates surrounding sex and sexuality. | Assessed formatively by class discussion and in-class presentation of conference paper. Assessed summatively by a critical essay and shorter conference paper. |
Present their academic work in progress clearly and effectively to both peers and tutors | Assessed formatively by class discussion and in-class presentation of conference paper. Assessed summatively by a critical essay and shorter conference paper. |
Description of Assessment | Definitive UNISTATS Categories | Percentage |
---|---|---|
Coursework | 2000 word conference paper | 30 |
Coursework | 4000 word essay | 70 |
Total (to equal 100%) | 100% |
It IS NOT a requirement that any major assessment category is passed separately in order to achieve an overall pass for the module.
Bersani, Leo, Homos (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005)
Boone, J. A., Libidinal Currents: Sexuality and the Shaping of Modernism (Chicago: Chicago University Press)
Bravmann, Scott, Queer Fictions of the Past: History, Culture and Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London:Routledge, 1999)
Cornier Michael, Magali, Feminism and the Postmodern Impulse: Post-World War II Fiction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996)
Edelman, Lee, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004)
Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality: Vol I An Introduction (London: Allen Lane, 1979)
Hall, Lesley A., The Facts of Life: The Creation of Sexual Knowledge in Britain, 1650-1950 (Oxford: Basil Blackwood, 1991)
Mason, Michael, The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes (Oxford: OUP, 1994)
Maes, Hans, Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2013)
Miller, Andrew H., & James Eli Adams, eds., Sexualities in Victorian Britain (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1996)
Munoz, Jose Esteban, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity (New York: NYU Press, 2009)
Moreland, Iain and Annabelle Wilcox, eds, Queer Theory (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005)
Prosser, Jay, Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998)
Saxey, Esther, Homplot: The Coming-Out Story and Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Identity (New York: Peter Lang, 2008)
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985)
--- Epistemology of the Closet (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994)
Showalter, Elaine, The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830-1980 (London: Virago, 1987)
Sinfield, Alan, Cultural Politics – Queer Reading (London: Routledge, 1994)
--- Gay and After (London: Serpent's Tail, 1997)
--- On Sexuality and Power (London: Columbia, 2005)
Seelow, David, Radical Modernism (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005)
Sigal, Lisa Z. Governing Pleasures: Pornography and Social Change in England, 1815-1914 (Camden, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2002)
Stryker, Susan and Stephen Whittle (eds), The Transgender Studies Reader (London: Routledge, 2006)
Weeks, Jeffrey, Coming Out: Homosexual Politics in Britain, from the Nineteenth Century to the Present (London: Quartet Books, 1977)
--- Sex, Politics and Society: The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 (London: Longman, 1981)