Complex Exam

1. Histories of the Novel: the afterlives of 19th-century novelistic genres

Boxall, Peter, ed. The Cambridge Companion to British Fiction: 1980-2018. Cambridge UP, 2019. 
Boxall, Peter and Bryan Cheyette, eds. The Oxford History of the Novel in English. Vol. 7: British and Irish Fiction since 1940. Oxford UP, 2016 (online: 2018). 
McHale, Brian and Len Platt, eds. The Cambridge History of Postmodern Literature. Cambridge UP, 2016. 
 
Suggested further readings: 
Maunder, Andrew. “Mapping the Victorian Sensation Novel: Some Recent and Future Trends.” Literature Compass, vol. 6, nr. 2, 2005, pp. 1–33. 
Mullan, John. Why the Novel Matters. Oxford UP, 2006.

 
2. Systemic Approaches to Contemporary American Literature & Culture

Dango, Michael. Crisis Style: The Aesthetics of Repair. Stanford UP, 2021.  
McGurl, Mark. The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. Harvard UP, 2009. 
Rebein, Robert. Hicks, Tribes & Dirty Realists: American Fiction After Postmodernism. UP of Kentucky, 2009. 
 
Suggested further readings: 
Duvall, John N. ed. The Cambridge Companion to American Fiction after 1945. Cambridge UP, 2012.
Savvas, Teophilus and Christopher K. Coffman. “American Fiction After Postmodernism.” Textual Practice, vol. 33, nr. 2, 2019, pp. 195-212. [Republished as: Coffman, Christopher K. and Teophilus Savvas, eds. After Postmodernism: The New American Fiction. Routledge, 2020].

3. Postcolonialism and Multiculturalism in English-Speaking Cultures

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds. Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts. Routledge, 2013. 
Quayson, Ato, ed. The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature. Cambridge UP, 2021.
Stierstorfer, Klaus and Janet Wilson, eds. The Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader. Routledge, 2017. 
 
Suggested further readings:
Chibber, Vivek and Rosie Warren, eds. The Debate on Postcolonial Theory and Specter of Capital. Verso, 2016. 
Martynuska, Malgorzate and Elzbieta Rokosz-Piejko, eds. New Developments in Postcolonial Studies. Peter Lang, 2017.

4. Popular Culture and Literature

Darley, Andrew. Visual Digital Culture. Routledge, 2001.
Fiske, John. Understanding Popular Culture. Routledge, 1989.
Gelder, Ken. Popular Fiction. The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field. Routledge, 2004.

Suggested further readings:
Glover, David and Scott McCracken, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Popular Fiction. Cambridge UP, 2012.
James, Edward and Farah Mendlesohn, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. Cambridge UP, 2003.

5. Approaches to Narrative

Herman, David, James Phelan, Peter J. Rabinowitz, Brian Richardson, and Robyn Warhol. Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates. Ohio State UP, 2012. 
Herman, David, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Cambridge UP, 2007. 
Ryan, Marie-Laure, ed. Narratives Across the Media. The Languages of Storytelling. U of Nebraska P, 2004.  
 
Suggested further readings: 
Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge UP, 2002. 
Herman, David, Manfred Jahn, and Marie-Laure Ryan, eds. Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory. Routledge, 2007.

6. Environmental Humanities

Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity, 2013.
Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Trans. Catherine Porter. Harvard UP, 1993.
Robles, Mario Ortiz. Literature and Animal Studies. Routledge, 2016. 
 
Suggested further readings:
Garrard, Greg, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism. Ed. Greg Garrard. Oxford UP, 2014. 
Heise, Ursula, Jon Christensen, and Michelle Niemann, eds. The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities. Routledge, 2017.

7. Utopian Studies

Czigányik, Zsolt, ed. Utopian Horizons: Ideology, Politics, Literature. Central European UP, 2017. 
Levitas, Ruth. The Concept of Utopia. Syracuse UP, 1990.
Pintér, Károly. The Anatomy of Utopia: Narration, Estrangement and Ambiguity in More, Wells, Huxley and Clarke. McFarland & Company, 2010. (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy, 23.) 
 
Suggested further readings: 
Claeys, Gregory, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature. Cambridge UP, 2010. 
Lyman Tower Sargent. A Very Short Introduction to Utopianism. Oxford UP, 2010.

8. Transformations in Irish literature: history, identity, (trans)nationality

Grene, Nicholas. The Politics of Irish Drama: Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel. Cambridge UP, 2000.
Ingman, Heather. A History of the Irish Short Story. Cambridge UP, 2009.
Lonergan, Patrick. Irish Drama and Theatre since 1950. Methuen, 2019.
 
Suggested further readings: 
Kirby, Peadar, Luke Gibbons, and Michael Cronin, eds. Reinventing Ireland: Culture, Society and the Global Economy. Pluto, 2002.
Pilny, Ondrej, Clare Wallace, eds. Global Ireland: Irish Literatures for the New Millennium. Syracuse UP, 2006.

9. Cultural Studies

Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge, 2011.
Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Blackwell, 1991.
Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Cornell UP, 1982.

Suggested further readings:
During, Simon, ed. The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd edition. Routledge, 1999.
Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. Oxford UP, 1987.

10. Reading list in line with the applicant’s field of research to be compiled by supervisor

1. Histories of the Novel: the afterlives of 19th-century novelistic genres

Maunder, Andrew. “Mapping the Victorian Sensation Novel: Some Recent and Future Trends.” Literature Compass, vol. 6, nr. 2, 2005, 1–33. 
MacKay, Marina. The Cambridge Introduction to the Novel.  Cambridge UP, 2010, 1-15, 99-114, 148-158.
Hammond, Brian and Shaun Regan. Making the Novel. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Preface and chapter 1.

Primary Readings:
Bram Stoker, Dracula.
John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman.

2. Systemic Approaches to Contemporary American Literature & Culture

Dango, Michael. “Styles of Repair”, Crisis Style: The Aesthetics of Repair. Stanford UP, 2021, 1-46.
McGurl, Mark. “Introduction: Halls of Mirror”, The Program Era: Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing. Harvard UP, 2009, 1-74.
Rebein, Robert. “After Postmodernism”, Hicks, Tribes & Dirty Realists: American Fiction After Postmodernism. UP of Kentucky, 2009, 1-21.
 
Primary Readings:
Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49.
Egan, Jennifer. A Visit from the Goon Squad.

3. Postcolonialism and Multiculturalism in English-Speaking Cultures

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, “Issues and debates” The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Routledge 2006, 9-70.
Stierstorfer, Klaus and Janet Wilson, eds. “Terms and conceptions” The Routledge Diaspora Studies Reader. Routledge, 2017, 1-21.
        
Primary Readings:
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness.
J. M. Coetzee. Foe.

4. Popular Culture and Literature

Darley, Andrew. Visual Digital Culture. Routledge, 2001.
Gelder, Ken. Popular Fiction. The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field. Routledge, 2004.

Primary readings:
Tolkien, J.R.R. Lord of the Rings.
Gibson, William. Neuromancer.

5. Approaches to Narrative

Lanser, Susan S. “Toward a Feminist Narratology.” Style, vol. 20, no. 3, 1986, 341–63.
Thon, Jan-Noël. „Transmedial Narratology Revisited: On the Intersubjective Construction of Storyworlds and the Problem of Representational Correspondence in Films, Comics, and Video Games.” Narrative 25.3 (October 2017), 286-320.
Herman, David. “Narrative Ways of Worldmaking”, Sandra Heinen & Roy Sommer (eds.), Narratology in the Age of Cross-Disciplinary Research, de Gruyter, 2009, 71-87. 

Primary Readings:
Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights
Don DeLillo: White Noise

6. Environmental Humanities

Kerridge, Richard. “Ecocritical Approaches to Literary Form and Genre: Urgency, Depth, Provisionality, Temporality.” Garrard, Greg, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism. Oxford UP, 2014. 361-76.
Raine, Amme. “Ecocriticism and Modernism.” Garrard, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism. 98-117.
Strathern, Marilyn. “Naturalism and the Invention of Identity.” Jensen, Casper Bruun and Atsuro Morita, ed. Multiple Nature-Cultures, Diverse Anthropologies. Berghann, 2019. 15-30.
Pickering, Andrew. “The Ontological Turn: Taking Different Worlds Seriously. Jensen and Morita, ed. Multuple Nature-Cultures. 134-150.

Primary Readings:
William Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom!
Marilynne Robinson: Housekeeping

7. Utopian/Dystopian Studies

Czigányik, Zsolt, ed. Utopian Horizons: Ideology, Politics, Literature. Central European UP, 2017. Intro + 3 selected chapters.
Pintér, Károly. The Anatomy of Utopia: Narration, Estrangement and Ambiguity in More, Wells, Huxley and Clarke. McFarland & Company, 2010. (Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy, 23.), 1-96.
Gregory Claeys. “Dystopia.” The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures, edited by Fátima Vieira, Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor, and Peter Marks, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, 53-64.
 
Primary reading:
Thomas More: Utopia
George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-Four

8. Transformations in Irish literature: history, identity, (trans)nationality

Grene, Nicholas. “Stage Interpreters.” The Politics of Irish Drama: Plays in Context from Boucicault to Friel. Cambridge UP, 2000, 5-50.
Paul, Salomé. “A Feminist Tragedy? Marina Carr’s Subversion of Euripides’ Medea in By the Bog of Cats...” CompLit. Journal of European Literature, Arts and Society, n° 4, 2022:2, Varia, 193-214.
Armie, Madalina. “Theorising and Discussing Ireland and Its People in the Context of the Post- Celtic Tiger Republic” In: The Irish Short Story at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century. Routledge, 2023.    
D’hoker, Elke. “Introduction.” Irish Women Writers and the Modern Short Story. Palgrave, 2016. 1-20.

Primary readings: 

Brian Friel: Translations. In: Plays One. Faber, 1996.
Carr, Marina. By the Bog of Cats. In: Plays One. Faber, 2000.
Enright, Anne. The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story. Granta, 2011.

9. Cultural Studies

Butler, Judith, “Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire”, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. Routledge, 2011, 3-44.
During, Simon, “Introduction”, The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd edition. Routledge, 1999, 1-28.
Jameson, Fredric. “On Interpretation: Literature as a Socially Symbolic Act”, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Cornell UP, 1982, 17-102.

Primary Readings:
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

10. Reading list in line with the applicant’s field of research to be compiled by supervisor