Undergraduate units of study
This page provides information about units currently offered in the program. Please check cross-listing options before enrolling. Some Departments place a cap on the number of ICLS units that may be cross-listed towards their major.
Unit of study outlines including information on prerequisites, assessment and classes can be found in the Faculty of Arts handbook or at units of study online.
- Curriculum overview
- Units of study offered in 2008
- Units of study offered in 2009
- Additional units of study
Undergraduate Units of Study in ICLS are offered on a rotating basis. One Unit from each of the three thematic groups listed below is offered every year.
1. Great Books
ICLS 2624: Great Books 1: The Human Condition
ICLS 2636: Great Books 2: Innovations, Inspirations
ICLS 2622: Great Books 3: The Twentieth Century
These Units of Study introduce students to works of literature that have become canonical either through their particular treatment of the human condition, or because they are innovative or inspirational in some way. The twentieth century is treated separately as a particularly rich period in the world history of literary innovation.
2. Literature and Society
ICLS 2621: Love in Different Languages
ICLS 2633: Cities of the World
ICLS 2634: Literature and Revolution
These Units of Study look at how questions of society, history, culture and politics have been framed within literature from different traditions at different periods of time. It looks at the mainstream and the marginal, the visionary and mythical and the terre à terre, stories of hope and stories of loss.
3. Literary Genres, Movements and Styles
ICLS 2603: Crosscultural Modernities
ICLS 2626: Words and Pictures Across Cultures
ICLS 2631: Popular Fiction and Culture
ICLS 2635: Science Fiction: The Future is Now
These Units of Study explore particular aspects of literary production from an international and comparative perspective: techniques, genres and schools of thought. Some focus on a particular period in literary history or a particular movement while others traverse time and encompass a range of literary debates.
ICLS2621 Love in Different Languages
Prerequisite: At least 18 junior credit points from any department in the Faculty of Arts from Table A, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission from the .
What is the meaning of 'love'? Is it the same for different individuals and cultures at different periods? How does it relate to the profound crisis of meaning in contemporary society? What is its relationship to desire, language and death? Why do the Greeks have three words for love and the English one? This unit of study explores the theme of love in a variety of national literatures including English, Greek, French and Italian.
ICLS2625 Great Books of Western Literature
Prerequisite: At least 18 junior credit points from any department in the Faculty of Arts from Table A, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission from the .
What are the great works of Western Literature? How have they come to be so regarded? What is it that has made them so enduring and adaptable? What is their relevance to a postmodern society? What is their influence on contemporary literature? This unit introduces, in English and from a contemporary perspective, some of the cornerstones of further literary study, and, through guided readings, seeks to reveal and understand some of their continuing power.
ICLS2626 Words and Pictures across Cultures
Prerequisite: At least 18 junior credit points from any department in the Faculty of Arts from Table A, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission from the . Prohibition: ICLS2602.
This unit of study will look at the interaction of literature and visual, audiovisual and performance arts in different cultural and historical contexts. How do these art forms draw upon each other to represent and frame society and culture, and how does this influence our reading of them? Using examples from literature, painting, music, theatre, film and dance, these questions will be examined through study of movements such as orientalism, modernism, postmodernism and traditionalism, and theory and practice of ekphrasis.
Semester 1
ICLS2633 Cities of the World
Coordinator: Bronwyn Winter
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission from the .
The 'city' is a diverse and controversial theme in world literature. It touches upon past and present, alienation and fulfilment, luxury and poverty, success and failure, anonymity and fame. There are modern and old cities, cosmopolitan and ‘holy’ cities. By examining how the cultural and historical transformation of urban living has been approached by writers of different cultural and national backgrounds, this unit of study offers a journey to different geographic locations but also a journey through time.
ICLS2631 Popular Fiction and Culture
Coordinator: Yiyan Wang
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission from the .
What is popular culture? How do we identify popular fiction and how does it fit into both popular and literary traditions? What are the common elements of popular culture and popular fiction in different national, cultural and historical contexts? This unit introduces approaches to the study of popular culture and fiction through the study of different genres of popular fiction written in English or translated into English.
Semester 2
ICLS2636 (NEW IN 2009) Great Books 2: Innovations, Inspirations
Coordinator: Bronwyn Winter
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission from the .
What works most mark the stylistic development of world literature? What was their innovative and inspirational potential? Did they represent the pinnacle of their tradition or did they break with it? How have they inspired other writers and artists, then and now? This unit will look at some of those literary works that have come to symbolise literary innovation and inspiration and ask how they came to be part of our modern canon and serve as a model for others.
In addition to the units of study listed above, the following units may also be offered in future years.
ICLS2603 Literary Change and Innovation
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission by the .
This unit aims to study modernity as a trans-national European and Asian phenomenon, by combining historical and cultural analyses with methodologies relevant to the study of cross-cultural literary interaction. Focusing on a selection of literary texts from a variety of national literatures, it will compare a number of different manifestations and responses to the challenges of modernity and will examine the ideological and aesthetic assumptions implicit in literary change.
ICLS2622 Great Books of the 20th Century
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission by the .
What are the great works of literature of the 20th century? How does history leave its marks on them? This unit introduces some exemplary literary works translated into English from Asian and European languages. It studies them in the context of world history, national literatures and different narrative traditions.
ICLS2634 Literature and Revolution
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission by the .
This unit surveys the connection between literature and revolution by investigating the ways in which literary texts and movements across the world have influenced radical responses to the status quo, questioning, and provoking a re-conceptualisation of prevailing values and traditions. But how and when do literary experiments become revolutionary? Are they the same in different cultures? Could a pattern of synergies connecting literary with political and social revolutions emerge from a historical as well as cross-cultural investigation? This unit can be cross-listed with (counting for a major in) English.
ICLS2635 Science Fiction: The Future is Now
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission by the .
Science Fiction is one of the most interesting explorations of human future. Yet it addresses a number of social, political and existential issues that refer to the present: dilemmas, phobias and hopes of a world traumatised by war, disease and internal contradictions. Through the comparative study of novels and movies, this unit explores how the future, from a promised land of a great utopia, has become the dreadful exile into a dark dystopia.
