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Critical Approaches to Literature
UndergraduateMAQ-ENGX30512024
Course information for 2024 intake View information for 2025 course intake
Explore the pathways you can take when analysing English literature. Consider characterisation, genre and suspense. Think about a writing's context and authorial intent. Devour short stories, plays and critical texts as you broaden your studies.
Enrolments for this course are closed, but you may have other options to start studying now. Book a consultation to learn more.
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Entry requirements
- Prior study needed
- Duration
- 13 weeks
- Loan available
- HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Critical Approaches to Literature
About this subject
At the completion of this subject students will be able to:
- Demonstrate an advanced understanding of a range of critical approaches to literature, shown through being able to identify, understand, and apply different questions and concepts to the interpretation of texts and to the creation of meaning
- Demonstrate an understanding of what is at stake in the way literature is understood and consumed by being able to approach and critique texts from a range of perspectives
- Demonstrate a well-developed capacity for rigorous and independent thinking, shown through being able to compare different points of view, and to generate new ideas, both in spoken and written contexts
- Demonstrate advanced research skills, shown through being able to locate, interpret, and, critically analyse published scholarship in English literary studies
- Demonstrate advanced skills in critical thinking and synthesis, shown through combining research findings and critical practice to support ideas about literary expression, textual meaning, and the social, aesthetic, and cognitive functions of literature
- Demonstrate advanced skills in persuasive argumentation, shown through being able to organise and present information efficiently and meaningfully
- Demonstrate advanced oral communication and academic writing skills shown through the production of reasoned, well-informed argument in written work and class participation
- What is Literature For? What is Literary Theory For?
- Close Reading
- Structuralism
- Post-structuralism
- Reader Response theory
- Postcolonial theory
- Feminist approaches
- Queer theory
- New Formalism
- Narrative theory
- Cognitive narratology
- Emerging approaches
This subject examines different critical approaches to analysing literature, including narratological, postcolonial, feminist, and cognitive. This range of perspectives will open up ways of considering what literature is, what kinds of knowledge it provides, and what is at stake — culturally, politically, aesthetically, and emotionally — in the way texts are understood and consumed. This subject will prepare students for research in literary studies by addressing questions concerning how we as scholars approach literary texts and the critical responses they have attracted; how we recognise and assess a literary approach; and what questions and access points we use to understand and critique literary texts. Practically, students will learn to identify, understand, and apply different questions and concepts to the interpretation of texts and to the creation of meaning.
- Participatory Task (20%)
- Essay (30%)
- Research Essay (50%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
This research-intensive university in north-western Sydney offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. With over 44,000 current students, Macquarie has a strong reputation for welcoming international students and embracing flexible and convenient study options, including its partnership with Open Universities Australia.
Learn more about Macquarie University.
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- QS Ranking 2024:
- 10
- Times Higher Education Ranking 2024:
- 10
Entry requirements
Prior study
You must have successfully completed the following subject(s) before starting this subject:
one of
Equivalent subjects
You should not enrol in this subject if you have successfully completed any of the following subject(s) because they are considered academically equivalent:
MAQ-ENGX3050 (Not currently available)
Others
ENGX1001 or ENGX1002 or ENGX120; and 20cp in ENGX units at 2000 level or above
Additional requirements
- Other requirements - Students who have an Academic Standing of Suspension or Exclusion under Macquarie University's Academic Progression Policy are not permitted to enrol in OUA units offered by Macquarie University. Students with an Academic Standing of Suspension or Exclusion who have enrolled in units through OUA will be withdrawn.
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
Equivalent full time study load (EFTSL) is one way to calculate your study load. One (1.0) EFTSL is equivalent to a full-time study load for one year.
Find out more information on Commonwealth Loans to understand what this means to your eligibility for financial support.
What to study next?
Once you’ve completed this subject it can be credited towards one of the following courses
UndergraduateMAQ-ART-DEG
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