Credit Points 10

Legacy Code 101964

Coordinator Anne Jamison Opens in new window

Description This subject will set nineteenth-century women's short stories in their historical, intellectual, publishing and cultural contexts. Using a broad range of short fiction from across Australia, Britain, North America and Ireland, it will investigate topics such as gender and sexuality, colonialism and empire, and race and identity while also exploring the multiple modes and genres in which these texts were written, including nineteenth-century gothic, sensation, and crime fiction. It will further consider how women writers of the period utilised the format of the short story to engage in the topical public debates of the day, especially the changing role of women in society. The subject will finally ask students to think about how these texts are still relevant to contemporary society and its global challenges.

School Humanities & Comm Arts

Discipline Literature

Student Contribution Band HECS Band 1 10cp

Check your fees via the Fees page.

Level Undergraduate Level 2 subject

Restrictions

Successful completion of 40 credit points of study in currently enrolled program.

Learning Outcomes

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

1. Evaluate the intellectual and historical contexts that inform a range of nineteenth-century women’s texts
2. Analyse a range of nineteenth-century women’s texts and make connections between them
3. Summarise and evaluate literary-critical arguments relating to nineteenth-century women’s writing.
4. Work effectively with other students on classroom team tasks
5. Participate effectively in the debate and sharing of complex ideas and concepts through high level oral, aural and language communication skills
6. Work independently to organise, plan and deliver a critically-informed research essay relating to nineteenth-century women’s writing.
   

Subject Content

1. British, Irish, North American and Australian nineteenth-century women's short fiction published during the nineteenth century.
2. The intellectual, cultural, critical and publishing contexts of nineteenth-century women's short fiction.
3. The intersections of gender, race and sexuality in women's nineteenth-century short fiction.
4. The multiple genres of women's short fiction in the nineteenth-century, e.g. sensation fiction, the gothic, didactic fiction.
5. Women's subversive engagement with key public debates of the period via the short story format.
6. The uncertainties of home, colonialism and empire in women's short fiction in the nineteenth century.
7. The relevance of women's nineteenth-century writing to contemporary society and intellectual thinking, as well as an examination of literature as a socialising force.
8. Representations of the changing social role of women in the nineteenth century.