AustLit
Texts
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Confessions of an English Opium Eater and Other Writings T De Quincey OUP
The Mary Shelley Reader B T Bennett and C E Robinson (eds) OUP
Selected Writings W Hazlitt Penguin
The Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth D Wordsworth, M Moorman (ed) OUP
Complete Poems W Blake Penguin
The White Hotel D M Thomas Penguin
Selected Poems W Wordsworth
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge J F Lyotard
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y
Remembering Babylon
London
Milsons Point
:
Chatto and Windus
Random House
,
1993
Z452447
1993
single work
novel
historical fiction
(taught in 48 units)
'In the mid-1840s, a thirteen-year-old boy, Gemmy Fairley, is cast ashore in the far north of Australia and taken in by Aborigines. Sixteen years later, when settlers reach the area, he moves back into the world of Europeans, men and women who are staking out their small patch of home in an alien place, hopeful and yet terrified of what it might do to them.
Given shelter by the McIvors, the family of the children who originally made contact with him, Gemmy seems at first to be guaranteed a secure role in the settlement, but there are currents of fear and mistrust in the air. To everyone he meets - from George Abbot, the romantically aspiring young teacher, to Mr Frazer, the minister, whose days are spent with Gemmy recording the local flora; from Janet McIvor, just coming to adulthood and discovering new versions of the world, to the eccentric Governor of Queensland himself - Gemmy stands as a different kind of challenge, as a force which both fascinates and repels. And Gemmy himself finds his own whiteness as unsettling in this new world as the knowledge he brings with him of the savage, the Aboriginal.' - Publisher's blurb (Chatto & Windus, 1993).
Description
This subject offers an introduction to romanticism as a paradigmatic discourse of modernity, with particular emphasis on questions of gender, aesthetics and subjectivity. It also examines aspects of the role played by the ideology and discourse of romanticism in contemporary culture, with particular reference to the sublime and sexuality. Students who successfully complete this subject will be familiar with some of the key concepts and tropes in the discourse of romanticism, have a broad understanding of the relation between romanticism and modernity, and understand some of the cultural functions of the discourse of romanticism in contemporary culture.
Objectives:
Students who complete this subject will:
- be familiar with some of the key concepts and motifs in the discourse of romanticism;
- have a broad understanding of the relation between romanticism and modernity; and
- understand some of the cultural functions of the discourse of romanticism in contemporary culture.
Assessment
An essay of 5000 words 100% (due in the examination period). Students are required to attend a minimum of 80% (or 10 out of 12) classes in order to qualify to have their written work assessed. Any student who fails to meet this hurdle without valid reason will not be eligible to pass the subject. All required written work must be submitted in order to pass the subject. Essays submitted after the due date without an extension will be penalised 2% per day. Essays submitted after two weeks of the assessment due date without a formally approved application for special consideration or an extension will only be marked on a pass/fail basis if accepted.
Other Details
Offered in:
2010, 2011, 2012
Current Campus:
Parkville
Levels:
Undergraduate - Honours
Coordinator:
Categories:
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