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Undergraduate | GRF-LTR110 | 2024
Dangerous Pleasures: An Introduction to Literary Studies
Course information for 2024 intake
View information for 2023 course intakeMeet one of literature’s most famous characters in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Resurrect the story of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Journey into Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Explore what makes these novels and more considered ‘literary’.
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- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Entry requirements
- No ATAR needed,
- No prior study
- Duration
- 13 weeks
Price from
$555
Upfront cost
$0
HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Dangerous Pleasures: An Introduction to Literary Studies
About this subject
At the completion of this subject you will have:
- a solid foundation for later subjects in Literary Studies
- an improved ability to read closely, carefully, and attentively and with ethical, imaginative and emotional engagement
- an improved ability to see continuities and discontinuities between past cultures (as embodied in the works studied) and contemporary culture
- an improved ability to think clearly and logically about literature-and to express those ideas with civility and courtesy in online discussions
- an improved ability to express critical appreciation of literature in clear, cogent, and well-constructed essays.
- Medea - love and marriage, revenge, gender roles, alienation, otherness
- Heart of Darkness - the nature of evil, alienation, race and colonisation
- Metamorphosis - humanity, hierarchy, postmodernism, vulnerability
- Jane Eyre - gender roles, alienation, love and marriage, class, vulnerability
- Frankenstein - medicalisation and science, the monstrous, parenthood, creation
This subject was previously known as Great Books.
Dangerous Pleasures: An Introduction to Literary Studies examines the allure of the literary. For centuries humans have recited poetry, enacted drama and, more recently, written novels that all speak to the human condition in ways that exceed the everyday even as they somehow capture it. In thematic terms this subjects asks: what does it mean to be human? What are the immortal themes that recur in any genre of great literature? In terms of readers' experiences of literature, what is it that makes a work 'literary'? How have people managed to express themselves in way that outlast the span of a single lifetime? What formal approaches have been taken to understanding and promoting 'the literary'. Perhaps most importantly of all, though, what does literature offer in a world full of images, a world apparently driven by economic issues. Join us to ponder upon such issues as you discover, or revisit, a fine range of literary texts.
- Essay 1 - 1000 words (20%)
- Essay 2 - 2000 words (40%)
- Online Discussion (40%)
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Entry requirements
No entry requirements
Study load
0.125 EFTSL
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Student feedback
7 student respondents between 7 Feb - 22 Feb 2023.
100%of students felt the study load was manageable
85%of students felt this subject helped them gain relevant skills
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