Creative Reading: Topics in Theory, Methodology and Interpretation

There are many different ways to ‘read’ texts. Some of the most exciting contemporary debates concern not just what to read, but how and why. In the process, the meanings of ‘reading’ and ‘text’ have been thrown wide open, and these meanings have ramifications for research writing. What does it mean to ‘read’ 20,000 novels using an electronic database? Can we ‘read’ performing bodies, or emotions, ‘as if’ they were texts? This course seeks to introduce students to a range of current theories and methods in humanities scholarship, with a particular focus on literary and cultural studies, drama and creative writing. Although it builds on skills and knowledge students will have developed through their undergraduate study, this course begins with an introductory or ‘refresher’ segment which provides an overview of the major developments in literary criticism and theory over the course of the twentieth century, including humanism, formalism, structuralism and post-structuralism, Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, historicism and postcolonialism. Informed by this foundation, students will examine in turn 3 or 4 current topics in literary and cultural studies, each running over 2-3 weeks and paired with a primary text (a novel, play, film, case study etc.). Topics might include: new theories of reading, such as ‘distant reading’, ‘surface reading’, ‘reparative reading’ etc.; animal studies; ecocriticism; theories of performance; practice-led research; theories of affect and emotion; trauma studies; memory studies; neuroscience and ‘plasticity’; each taught by scholars focusing on these areas. The course will not provide a comprehensive overview, but an exciting and varied sample of current debates. Its aim is to stimulate students to think of reading as a creative process, and of research writing as itself a form of creative reading.