Explore the rewards of close reading, analysing and debating voyages of self-discovery in seminal 20th century works, including Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Plenty by David Hare and Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.

Explore the challenges of close reading and critical thinking through reading, analysing and debating works by three contemporary authors:  The Sea by John Banville, Baumgartner by Paul Auster and The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante.

This course explores how critical and narrative theory can add insight to your reading and help you appreciate literature at a deeper interpretative level. Reading works of modern fiction by Jean Rhys, James Baldwin and Sylvia Plath, we will examine how different narrative theories offer lenses that enrich our understanding of these works.

We will explore three key British novels of the nineteenth century: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847), Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South (1855) and Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations (1861). Drawing on the insights of the burgeoning field of literary food studies, we will consider how Victorian authors employed food and drink to develop theme, character and social commentary in their fiction.