Handbook : Unit informationEdith Cowan University

School: Arts and Humanities

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

• Unit Title

  Issues and Transgressions in Literature

• Unit Code

  ENG3040

• Year

  2017

• Enrolment Period

  1

• Version

  1

• Credit Points

  15

• Full Year Unit

  N

• Mode of Delivery

• Unit Coordinator

  Mr Travis Blair KELLEHER

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Description

This unit investigates literature as a form of transgression with topics that change from year to year. For example, students may focus on gender in Drama Queens: Transgressive Women on Stage and Film or on genre in Testimony and the Holocaust. A thematic approach, such as Revenge on Stage and Film, uses the Medea myth to explore the nature and effects of revenge from antiquity through to Renaissance theatre. Students analyse a range of motivations for revenge, exploring how, as a form of private justice with its inevitable spectacle of blood, revenge continues to fascinate the modern audience, particularly in film. Each new area will generate specific learning processes and outcomes for the semester in which it is taught.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Analyse revenge conventions established in ancient Roman texts.
2. Analyse revenge in plays and film using contemporary trauma theory.
3. Analyse revenge theatre and film using current gender and racial critical paradigms.
4. Compare and contrast cultural and historical treatments of revenge and madness in plays and film.
5. Identify and use rhetorical discourses related specifically to stage plays and film.

Unit Content

1. - Canonical Renaissance revenge plays, including Shakespeares Hamlet.
2. - Classical Roman texts regarding Medea and revenge.
3. - Contemporary revenge theatre and film, such as Kill Bill.
4. - Relevant theoretical and analytical models.
5. Example of TEXTS for " Revenge on Stage and Film"

Additional Learning Experience Information

Seminars, workshops and web-based support.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant Board of Examiners.

Core Reading(s)

• Berkoff, S. (1990). Agamemnon ; The fall of the House of Usher. Charlbury: Amber Lane Press Ltd.
• Andrews, R., & Gibson, R. (2005). Hamlet. (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Tarantino, Q. J. (2003). Kill Bill (DVD). New South Wales: Cinemarket.
• Shakespeare, W. (2006). Measure for measure. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Seneca, L. (1986). Medea / Seneca ; translated and with an introduction by Frederick Ahl. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Shakespeare, W. (1981). Much ado about nothing. London: Arden Shakespeare.
• (2005). Renaissance drama: an anthology of plays and entertainments. (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
• Shakespeare, W. (2006). The merchant of Venice. New haven: Yale University Press.
• Shakespere, W. (2006). Titus Andronicus. Cambridge.: Cambridge University Press.

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