Course module - Writing Workers/Workers Writing
Code : ENGL33041 Credit rating: 20 Semester : 1
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Aims |
Objectives |
Assessment |
Information
|
Course Content |
Course Materials |
Tutors |
Timetable |
Teaching Methods |
Keywords
Aims
- To introduce students to a range of early and mid-nineteenth century writings on the working classes;
- To introduce students to the debates surrounding the emergence of the working classes in the first half of the nineteenth century;
- To enable students to engage with the critical debates surrounding the particular problems attending the representation and self-representation of the working classes;
- To enable students to understand the inter-relationship between text, genre and historical context.
Objectives (Learning Outcomes)
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
- Display familiarity with the representation and self-representation of the working classes across a wide range of genres;
- Situate representations of the working classes within their historical and cultural contexts;
- Demonstrate an understanding of the particular problems of representation generated by the historical emergence of the working class;
- Analyse the differences and similarities between the various representational and narrative strategies used by both working-class and non-working-class writers;
- Demonstrate skills of critical thinking and analysis through close engagement with a variety of sources;
- Critically discuss the inter-relationship between text, genre and historical context;
- Work critically and creatively with primary texts;
- Summarise and engage with the arguments presented by secondary texts;
- Demonstrate good oral communication skills;
- Ddemonstrate good written communication skills;
- Demonstrate good critical thinking skills;
- Demonstrate good time-management skills;
- Demonstrate good research skills.
Assessment
Seminar presentation including Q&A session, plus accompanying handout (20%); creative assignment of 1,500 words (20%); one 4,000-word essay (60%)
Information
THIS COURSE IS NOT AVAILABLE AS FREE-CHOICE
Course Content
The first half of the Nineteenth Century witnessed the emergence of the ‘working classes’ (the term is first used in 1813) as a distinct group within British society. This course explores the growing economic, political and cultural visibility of the working classes in the period from 1830 to 1860. It compares the representation of the working classes by non-working-class writers with the self-representations produced by working-class writers. We will examine both canonical and non-canonical writers across a range of genres; fiction, poetry, journalism and autobiography. We will explore the particular problems which the working classes posed in terms of existing representational strategies, and consider the various ways in which writers sought to resolve these problems. Throughout the course we will consider the inter-relationship between text, genre and historical context.
The course begins by looking at the construction of the working classes as objects of pathos and fear. We then consider Chartism as an exercise in working-class self-representation, before exploring middle class attempts to contain Chartism. We will also look at two key attempts to interpret and understand the specificities of the Manchester working class, and two examples of working-class self-representation through poetry and autobiography (Kingsley’s fictional ‘autobiography’ of a Chartist poet). Finally, the course ends by looking at the representation and self-representation of the working classes in the post-Chartist period.
Course Materials
Tutor(s)
Sanders, Dr Michael
Timetable
PROVISIONAL TIMETABLE FOR 2013-2014
seminar: Monday 1-3
tutorial: Thursday 11-12
Teaching Methods
One 2-hour seminar plus one 1-hour tutorial per week.
Preliminary reading
1) John Brown, A Memoir of Robert Blincoe, and Caroline Norton, A Voice from the Factories
2) Thomas Carlyle, Chartism, and Richard Pilling’s trial speech
3) Extracts from Thomas Cooper, The Purgatory of Suicides and The Life of Thomas Cooper
4) Benjamin Disraeli, Sybil
5) Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
6) READING WEEK
7) Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton
8) Gerald Massey, Voices of Freedom & Lyrics of Love
9) Charles Kingsley, Alton Locke
10) John James Bezer, Autobiography of one of the Chartist Rebels of 1848
11) Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
12) Extracts from Edwin Waugh and Ben Brierley