ALL102 - From Horror to Romance: Genre and Its Revisions

Unit details

Note: You are seeing the 2023 view of this unit information. These details may no longer be current. [Go to the current version]
Year:

2023 unit information

Enrolment modes:

Trimester 2: Burwood (Melbourne), Waurn Ponds (Geelong), Online, CBD*

Trimester 3: Burwood (Melbourne), Online

Credit point(s):1
EFTSL value:0.125
Unit Chair:Trimester 2: Andrew Dean
Trimester 3: David McCooey
Cohort rule:Nil
Prerequisite:

Nil

Corequisite:Nil
Incompatible with: ALL402
Typical study commitment:

Students will on average spend 150-hours over the teaching period undertaking the teaching, learning and assessment activities for this unit.

Scheduled learning activities - campus:

1 x 1-hour class per week, 1 x 2-hour seminar per week

Scheduled learning activities - online:
Online independent and collaborative learning activities including: 1 x 1-hour class per week (recordings provided), 2-hour online seminar per week equivalent

Note:

*CBD refers to the National Indigenous Knowledges, Education, Research and Innovation (NIKERI) Institute; Community Based Delivery

Content

This unit invites students to analyse popular genres such as horror, crime, autobiography, science fiction, and romance. Storytelling is a fundamental means through which humans make sense of the world, and genres provide common templates for story-telling and meaning-making. This unit will investigate the origins of genres and their revision across time, highlighting how genre stories are involved in cultural struggles over meaning. The unit will take a historical and comparative approach, but it will also introduce students to relevant interdisciplinary fields such as gender studies and media studies. Encompassing novels, films, poetry, and comics, set texts include Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness. Students will write their own piece of genre fiction, as well as undertaking a multimedia presentation and a critical essay exploring genre and its revisions.

ULO These are the Learning Outcomes (ULO) for this unit. At the completion of this unit, successful students can: Deakin Graduate Learning Outcomes
ULO1

Apply knowledge of literary history, modes, concepts and language to an understanding of the real-world function of literary texts and literary study

GLO1: Discipline-specific knowledge and capabilities

ULO2

Use a broad range of vocabulary in the comparative evaluation of texts and in the critical investigation of text-world relationships, adopting clear, well-structured forms of oral and written communication

GLO2: Communication

ULO3

Apply knowledge of how different social and cultural contexts have an impact on literature and language, and explore ethics in relation to social conduct and responsibility in order to engage in a scholarly and professional manner in local, national and international contexts

GLO3: Digital literacy

ULO4

Employ a range of digital communication technologies to conduct literary research and to express your knowledge and judgements in a variety of forms

GLO4: Critical thinking

ULO5

Analyse, evaluate and synthesise knowledge and express your judgements and inquiries in a variety of forms and appropriate registers, with a growing understanding of literary studies conventions, to generate new, innovative and creative solutions

GLO5: Problem solving

ULO6

Demonstrate autonomy, responsibility and a continued commitment to learning and skill development, as a reflective and self-directed practitioner, to pursue life-long learning

GLO6: Self-management

Assessment

Assessment Description Student output Grading and weighting
(% total mark for unit)
Indicative due week
Assessment 1 - Presentation 800 words
or equivalent
20% Week 5
Assessment 2 - Exercise 1600 words
or equivalent
40% Week 9
Assessment 3 - Essay 1600 words
or equivalent
40% Week 11

The assessment due weeks provided may change. The Unit Chair will clarify the exact assessment requirements, including the due date, at the start of the teaching period.

Learning Resource

The texts and reading list for the unit can be found on the University Library via ALL102
Note: Select the relevant trimester reading list. Please note that a future teaching period's reading list may not be available until a month prior to the start of that teaching period so you may wish to use the relevant trimester's prior year reading list as a guide only.

Unit Fee Information

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