Module description
In this module we draw on approaches from Cultural Studies to examine the relationship between literature as a creative industry and literature as aesthetic practice. Focusing on twentieth and twenty-first century works by authors traditionally situated at ‘the margins’ of nation-based literary systems, we will ask what role marketing and the literary industry might have to play in how a writer’s voice becomes heard. In doing so, we take up Graham Huggans’ suggestion that a boom in postcolonial literature has been accompanied by a fetishisation of difference or a ‘marketing of the margins’ which is at odds with many of the positions espoused in that literature. We will move beyond the Anglophone context in order to explore the application of this idea to authors from a range of countries and texts originally written in French, German, and Spanish.
Each fortnight we will take a different prize or publishing model and related literary text as a case study and will explore the following key questions: 1) How are marginality and exoticism dealt with within the text? 2) What does attention to the publishing history, marketing, and institutional reception of the author and their work reveal about the workings of the literary industry? 3) What is the relationship between the aesthetics employed in a literary text and its status as a product or commodity for sale? In particular, students will address the role which publishing houses and literary prizes have to play in the circulation of these cultural products, and will reflect on the ways in which migrant and minority authors negotiate the literary marketplace, issues of cultural capital, and exoticism, both within and beyond their literary works.
Assessment details
500-word written assignment (15%); 10 min Group Presentation (15%); 2500-word essay (70%)
Educational aims & objectives
- To introduce students to considerations of the contemporary role of the market in the creation and promotion of authorship and literary works across a range of linguistic contexts;
- To develop students’ abilities to engage with key theoretical texts from the fields of postcolonialism and migration studies;
- To introduce students to the applications of techniques from literary studies (critical close reading skills in context) beyond the literary text (paratexts, advertising materials).
- To develop skills for working critically with texts in translation.
- To develop skills in operating as subject-experts in interdisciplinary dialogue.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module, students should be able:
- To bring ideas and skills developed in one subject area to bear on what is traditionally another (theories from Anglophone postcolonial literature to other related contexts and vice versa; approaches from literary study to marketing and vice versa).
- To engage in close analysis of literary texts in translation from a range of linguistic contexts.
- To relate this analysis to the role of prize-giving and publishing houses in the literary system.
- To present insights from their degree subject in an interdisciplinary context.
Teaching pattern
Two hours per week
Suggested reading list
Core reading on this module includes several novels in English translation as well as several short academic studies or articles.
N. B. The below is an indicative list of set reading only. The course outline and readings remain subject to change in order to allow tie in with relevant new developments and potential author visits or events. The final list of set reading will be confirmed via KEATS at the start of term.
Indicative Core Literary Texts:
- Hanif Kureishi, Buddha of Suburbia (1990);
- Alain Mabanckou, The Black Bazaar (2012) [Black Bazar (2009)].
- Selected extracts of work by Deniz Utlu & Emine Sevgi Özdamar OR Mithu Sanyal Identitti (2022)
- Yuri Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World (2015)
- Nikesh Shukla, The Good Immigrant (2016). Extracts.
Indicative Core Academic Texts:
- Anamik Saha, “The Rationalizing/Racializing Logic of Capital in Cultural Production,” Media Industries Journal 3, no.1 (2016): 1-15.
- Claire Squires, Publishing’s Diversity Deficit (2017) [12-page report]
- James English, ‘Prizes and the Study of Culture’, in The Economy of Prestige (2005). Extract.
- “Towards a World Literature in French” (manifesto).
- Richard Watts, Packaging Post/Coloniality: The Manufacture of Literary Identity in the Francophone World (2005). Extract.
- Further short article or extracts may be set.
Online access to most set literary and theoretical material will be provided, but students may need to purchase one novel (tbc). Students may also prefer to purchase hard copies of core novels.
Content Note: On this module we will read and critically discuss material which addresses race, ethnicity, and questions of cultural value. Some of the literary texts do contain examples of hate speech directed against main characters, experiences of racism and discrimination, and references to sexual violence. The KEATS page and initial lecture will provide information about where these appear in advance and these passages will not be the focus of the in-class discussions.