MA/PGDip Gender, Sexuality and Culture / Course details

This module provides a brief overview of fiction from the 1970s to the millennium, looking in particular at the historical, political and critical contexts of that fiction’s production and reception, and examining the various historical and cultural continuities and discontinuities across the period. A central question here concerns the utility of the concepts of ‘consensus’ and ‘dissensus’ for understanding both aesthetic and political matters in the late twentieth century.  

The consideration of a mixture of theoretical/critical material (by critics such as Alan Sinfield, Patricia Waugh, Wendy Brown, David Harvey, Brian McHale, and others) alongside a range of novels published in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, seeks to bring to light the galvanizing themes and topics of each decade: from postmodern theory (and its impact on literary fiction), to social movements such as feminism; from the apparent waning of class consciousness, to gay liberation and the AIDS crisis; from the legacies of imperialism to debates about migrant identities and multiculturalism.

To develop a critical understanding of the recent history of contemporary fiction, through the analysis of a range of novels published between 1970 and 2000. To situate those novels in their appropriate historical, political and cultural contexts, thereby developing a better understanding of the functions of literature - and of 'culture' more generally - during this period.

By the end of this course students should be able to:

Knowledge and understanding
Show a developed knowledge and understanding of literature of the period 1970-2000, its formal and stylistic diversity, its critical reception, and the contexts of its production, along with some knowledge of critical/theoretical discourse of this period.

Intellectual skills
Demonstrate skills of close reading and analysis of literary texts, alongside skills of appropriate research and critical argument.

Practical skills
Locate and employ library and web-based materials in support of a developed critical argument, plan a project and meet a deadline.

Transferable skills and personal qualities
Demonstrate enhanced verbal and written communication skills, with a view to clarity, concision and reasoned argument, and work well both independently (in the preparation of the assessment) and in groups (in class-based discussion exercises).

Essential reading (a more detailed outline will be provided to students during Welcome Week):

• Critical extracts from Waugh, Harvest of the Sixties (1995); Alan Sinfield, Literature, Politics and Culture in Postwar Britain (1997); Marie Moran, ‘Identity and Identity Politics: A Cultural-Materialist History’ (2018); Theodore Martin, Contemporary Drift (2019); Stuart Hall, Policing the Crisis (1978)  
• J.G. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition (1970)
• Kamala Markandaya, The Nowhere Man (1972)
• Buchi Emecheta, Second Class Citizen (1974)
• Pat Barker, Union Street (1982)
• Salman Rushdie, Shame (1983)
• Jeanette Winterson, The Passion (1987)
• Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)
• Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia (1990)
• V.S. Naipaul, The Enigma of Arrival (1987)
• Zadie Smith, White Teeth (2000)

• B.S. Johnson, Christy Malry’s Own Double-Entry (1973)