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  2. Tragedy, Tears and Sorrow [HMN3020]

Faculty of Education and Arts

School: Communications and Arts

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

    Tragedy, Tears and Sorrow

  • Unit Code

    HMN3020

  • Year

    2015

  • Enrolment Period

    1

  • Version

    1

  • Credit Points

    15

  • Full Year Unit

     N

  • Mode of Delivery

Description

This unit investigates the idea of the tragic as a powerful mode of cultural production. Through analysis of primary philosophical texts, literature, film and visual art, students investigate the way responses of pity and sadness to texts and images are often culturally and historically determined. This unit begins with the ancient form of tragedy, identifying key aspects of the form that continue to influence drama and film to this day. Students also investigate historical images of suffering, with a particular focus on how religious iconography of suffering informs images through which we continue to understand the suffering of others around the world. This unit empowers students to engage with contemporary arguments about cultural mourning, especially important in a post 9/11 global culture.

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded TRN3020

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Apply theories of pity and mourning to the aesthetic analysis of literary, visual and/or filmic texts.
  2. Contextualise how the tragic is implicated in particular cultural and historical contexts.
  3. Discuss theories of pity, catharsis, and mourning in primary philosophical texts.
  4. Evaluate texts in terms of the ethics of pity, developing a deeper cross-cultural understanding of, and sensitivity to our global cultural economy.

Unit Content

  1. Historical development of tragedy as a genre.
  2. Images of suffering, focusing on issues of the body in pain and gender in contemporary and historical contexts.
  3. Primary texts theorising pity, sadness, trauma, and mourning.
  4. Theoretical debates regarding what has been called contemporary trauma culture.
  5. Trauma texts, focusing on issues of cultural dislocation in a global economy, in historical and contemporary contexts.

Additional Learning Experience Information

Lectures. Tutorials/Workshop.

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.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
PortfolioPrecis/Proposal50%
ProjectCreative/Academic project with exegesis50%

Text References

  • ^ Dedicated Unit Reader
  • Anderson, E. (2010). Memory, mourning, landscape. [EBook library version]. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.eblib.com.au/
  • Wilce, J.M. (2008). Crying shame: Metaculture, modernity, and the exaggerated death of lament. [EBook library version]. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.eblib.com.au
  • Todd, J. (1986). Sensibility: An introduction. London, England: Methuen.
  • Sontag, S. (2004). Regarding the pain of others. London, England: Penguin. [need to order]
  • Fogen, T. (2009). Tears in the Graeco-Roman world. [EBook library version]. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.eblib.com.au/
  • Morgan, D. (1999). Visual piety: A history and theory of popular religious images. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [need to order]
  • Kelly, H.A. (1993). Ideas and forms of tragedy from Aristotle to the middle ages. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
  • Kaplan, A. (2005). Trauma culture: The politics of terror and loss in media and literature. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. [need to order]
  • Eagleton, T. (2002). Sweet violence: The idea of the tragic. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
  • Cole, S L. (1985). The absent one: Mourning ritual, tragedy, and the performance of ambivalence. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
  • Clewell, T. (2009). Mourning, modernism, postmodernism. [EBook library version]. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.eblib.com.au/
  • Bennett, J. (2005). Empathic vision: Affect, trauma, and contemporary art. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [need to order]
  • Bowers, F. (1966). Elizabethan revenge tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London, England: Verso. [need to order]

Journal References

  • New Literary History: a journal of theory and interpretation.
  • Modern Drama: world drama from 1850 to the present.
  • Journal of Interdisciplinary History.
  • Journal of Communication.
  • Critical Inquiry.
  • Speculum: a journal of medieval studies.
  • Art History: Journal of the Association of Art Historians.
  • Shakespeare Quarterly.
  • Renaissance Studies.
  • October.
  • British Journal of Aesthetics.

^ Mandatory reference

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Academic Misconduct

Edith Cowan University has firm rules governing academic misconduct and there are substantial penalties that can be applied to students who are found in breach of these rules. Academic misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

  • plagiarism;
  • unauthorised collaboration;
  • cheating in examinations;
  • theft of other students' work;

Additionally, any material submitted for assessment purposes must be work that has not been submitted previously, by any person, for any other unit at ECU or elsewhere.

The ECU rules and policies governing all academic activities, including misconduct, can be accessed through the ECU website.

HMN3020|1|1

Faculty of Education and Arts

School: Communications and Arts

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

    Tragedy, Tears and Sorrow

  • Unit Code

    HMN3020

  • Year

    2015

  • Enrolment Period

    2

  • Version

    1

  • Credit Points

    15

  • Full Year Unit

     N

  • Mode of Delivery

Description

This unit investigates the idea of the tragic as a powerful mode of cultural production. Through analysis of primary philosophical texts, literature, film and visual art, students investigate the way responses of pity and sadness to texts and images are often culturally and historically determined. This unit begins with the ancient form of tragedy, identifying key aspects of the form that continue to influence drama and film to this day. Students also investigate historical images of suffering, with a particular focus on how religious iconography of suffering informs images through which we continue to understand the suffering of others around the world. This unit empowers students to engage with contemporary arguments about cultural mourning, especially important in a post 9/11 global culture.

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded TRN3020

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Apply theories of pity and mourning to the aesthetic analysis of literary, visual and/or filmic texts.
  2. Contextualise how the tragic is implicated in particular cultural and historical contexts.
  3. Discuss theories of pity, catharsis, and mourning in primary philosophical texts.
  4. Evaluate texts in terms of the ethics of pity, developing a deeper cross-cultural understanding of, and sensitivity to our global cultural economy.

Unit Content

  1. Historical development of tragedy as a genre.
  2. Images of suffering, focusing on issues of the body in pain and gender in contemporary and historical contexts.
  3. Primary texts theorising pity, sadness, trauma, and mourning.
  4. Theoretical debates regarding what has been called contemporary trauma culture.
  5. Trauma texts, focusing on issues of cultural dislocation in a global economy, in historical and contemporary contexts.

Additional Learning Experience Information

Lectures. Tutorials/Workshop.

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.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
PortfolioPrecis/Proposal50%
ProjectCreative/Academic project with exegesis50%

Text References

  • ^ Dedicated Unit Reader
  • Anderson, E. (2010). Memory, mourning, landscape. [EBook library version]. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.eblib.com.au/
  • Bennett, J. (2005). Empathic vision: Affect, trauma, and contemporary art. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [need to order]
  • Bowers, F. (1966). Elizabethan revenge tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
  • Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life: The powers of mourning and violence. London, England: Verso. [need to order]
  • Clewell, T. (2009). Mourning, modernism, postmodernism. [EBook library version]. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.eblib.com.au/
  • Cole, S L. (1985). The absent one: Mourning ritual, tragedy, and the performance of ambivalence. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
  • Eagleton, T. (2002). Sweet violence: The idea of the tragic. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
  • Kaplan, A. (2005). Trauma culture: The politics of terror and loss in media and literature. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. [need to order]
  • Kelly, H.A. (1993). Ideas and forms of tragedy from Aristotle to the middle ages. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
  • Morgan, D. (1999). Visual piety: A history and theory of popular religious images. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. [need to order]
  • Fogen, T. (2009). Tears in the Graeco-Roman world. [EBook library version]. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.eblib.com.au/
  • Sontag, S. (2004). Regarding the pain of others. London, England: Penguin. [need to order]
  • Wilce, J.M. (2008). Crying shame: Metaculture, modernity, and the exaggerated death of lament. [EBook library version]. Retrieved from http://www.ecu.eblib.com.au
  • Todd, J. (1986). Sensibility: An introduction. London, England: Methuen.

Journal References

  • Art History: Journal of the Association of Art Historians.
  • British Journal of Aesthetics.
  • Critical Inquiry.
  • Journal of Communication.
  • Journal of Interdisciplinary History.
  • Speculum: a journal of medieval studies.
  • New Literary History: a journal of theory and interpretation.
  • October.
  • Shakespeare Quarterly.
  • Renaissance Studies.
  • Modern Drama: world drama from 1850 to the present.

^ Mandatory reference

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Academic Misconduct

Edith Cowan University has firm rules governing academic misconduct and there are substantial penalties that can be applied to students who are found in breach of these rules. Academic misconduct includes, but is not limited to:

  • plagiarism;
  • unauthorised collaboration;
  • cheating in examinations;
  • theft of other students' work;

Additionally, any material submitted for assessment purposes must be work that has not been submitted previously, by any person, for any other unit at ECU or elsewhere.

The ECU rules and policies governing all academic activities, including misconduct, can be accessed through the ECU website.

HMN3020|1|2