Credit Points 10

Legacy Code 101650

Coordinator Ben Etherington Opens in new window

Description This subject explores a selection of modern literary works that focus on the question of "race." Readings will allow students to learn how notions of race have shifted over time, giving particular attention to how mixed-race people challenge dyadic conceptions of racial difference. Readings may include one or more national literatures, such as American or Australian literature.

School Humanities & Comm Arts

Discipline Literature

Student Contribution Band HECS Band 1 10cp

Check your HECS Band contribution amount via the Fees page.

Level Undergraduate Level 3 subject

Restrictions

Successful completion of 60 credit points of study in currently enrolled program.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. critically discuss the representation of race in literature;
2. analyse critically the interaction between literary texts and shifting definitions of race in a culture.;
3. identify the historical contexts from which literary and cultural texts emerge;
4. demonstrate the intersection of the concepts of race, sexuality and gender; and
5. demonstrate advanced capacities in oral and written argument.

Subject Content

The national literature or literatures studied in this subject will vary from year to year depending on the subject coordinator's area of expertise. Topics to be studied will address some of the following topics:
- 19th century white authors and race: exploration of how their literary production reflects their views on slavery; race and animality
- 20th century black authors and race
- the problem of racial "authenticity"; investigation of how people of mixed-race identity problematize the black/white division; legal prohibitions on miscegenation.
- "Nativism" and "Primitivism" in the 1920s: exploration of how race relates to gender and sexuality; the Jew as racial other.
- black/white conceptions of beauty; consideration of Cheng's notion of "racial melancholia."