2024/2025

Modern English Literature (20-21 centuries)

Type: Mago-Lego

Delivered by: School of Foreign Languages

When: 3, 4 module

Open to: students of all HSE University campuses

Instructors: Olga A. Kolykhalova

Language: English

ECTS credits: 6

Contact hours: 40

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This survey course on the twentieth- and twenty-first-century British and American literature offers an opportunity to study writers and writing from cultures both united and divided by a common language, the English language. As far as literary production and traffic are concerned, the Atlantic Ocean does not form a barrier between the two cultures – quite the opposite, it is often impossible to fully understand contemporary British or American literature without knowing something of the other nation’s culture. Moreover, many writers from this robust period of literary production became expatriates, committed both to international artistic movements and to intellectual affairs of their native countries. Students who decide to join this course will explore British and American literature in all its major forms – prose, poetry and drama, relating it to key social and historical contexts. Through guided discussion and independent research, this course will enable students to study both British and American literature in equal depth, strengthen their ability to read and write critically about literary texts, and help them develop a deeper appreciation of both countries’ entwined literary history. To fulfill the requirements of the course students need to have a good command of written and spoken English (required CEFR language proficiency level is C1).