Texts and Culture: Introduction to Literary and Cultural Analysis 1 (5cr)
Course unit code: C-10122-KIE--ENA--130
General information
- Credits
- 5 cr
- Institution
- University of Tampere
Objectives
The students develop analytical skills for both primary and secondary texts. They are able to explain the most important concepts, terms and frameworks of literary and cultural analysis and apply them to specific texts. They can identify and define a wide range of different text types, genres and media, and analyse the historical and ideological dimensions of textual form and structure. They also learn to discuss texts academically both orally and in writing.
Content
This course introduces students to a range of textual forms as well as established reading techniques and concepts of literary analysis. Students also become familiar with a range of literary traditions – from Shakespearean drama to postmodern fiction – that are suitably analysed through these concepts. These include poetic form, irony, ambiguity, rhetorical figures and tropes, characters, narrative structure and narrators, focalisation etc. The students are introduced to structuralist and poststructuralist perspectives, and learn to interpret texts as systems of signs.