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Twenty-First Century Literatures (ENGL2131)
Semester 2 / 2015

Texts

y separately published work icon The Arrival Shaun Tan , Shaun Tan (illustrator), South Melbourne : Lothian , 2006 Z1285263 2006 single work graphic novel children's (taught in 16 units)

"The Arrival is a migrant story told as a series of wordless images that might seem to come from a long forgotten time. A man leaves his wife and child in an impoverished town, seeking better prospects in an unknown country on the other side of a vast ocean. He eventually finds himself in a bewildering city of foreign customs, peculiar animals, curious floating objects and indecipherable languages. With nothing more than a suitcase and a handful of currency, the immigrant must find a place to live, food to eat and some kind of gainful employment. He is helped along the way by sympathetic strangers, each carrying their own unspoken history: stories of struggle and survival in a world of incomprehensible violence, upheaval and hope." (Source: Shaun Tan website)

Course Reader

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006)

Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (2008)

Lena Dunham, Not that Kind of Girl (2014)

Bernadine Evarist,o Blonde Roots (2008)

John Green, The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Description

Twenty-firstCenturyLiteraturesexaminesaselectionofbest-selling,criticallyacclaimed and/or notorioustwenty-firstcenturyfictionsandnon-fictions.We’llfollowthecommercial andcritical circulation of these texts. We’ll explore some of the cultural and institutional contexts that shape contemporaryliterature.Wewillconsiderthesetextsthroughavariety ofcriticalperspectives including: gender, sexuality, race, class, and authorship.

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