Learning Outcomes:
At the conclusion of this module students should be able to demonstrate:
A critical understanding of and ability to apply waste studies, critical hope discourse, and material cultures to a range of literary texts;
Knowledge of the impact changing practices of salvaging and repairing have had on literary writings from the nineteenth to the twenty first century;
An increased understanding of the ways salvage and waste discourse can be used by literary texts to both create and challenge classed, gendered, and racialised communities of exclusion and disposability;
An ability to write critically about a range of literary genres and forms from the nineteenth to the twenty first century.
Indicative Module Content:
The module will study a range of literary genres and forms and address diverse themes.
Genres and forms studied may include: nineteenth-century journalistic ethnographies, household manuals, scrapbooks, eco-poetry, Indigenous writing, drama, and creative non-fiction.
Themes will include: waste and salvage, toxicity and the home, repair, and renewal.
Authors may include: Latife Tekin, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Jesmyn Ward, Kathleen Jamie and Brigid Collins, Henry Mayhew, Charles Dickens and George Eliot.
We will also explore practices of repair and reuse used in literature such as papermaking and scrapbooking.