Ateneo - UPO

GENDER; BODY; AND SEXUALITY IN BRITISH LITERATURE AND CULTURE SINCE 1890.

1) Jacob Ross, a cura di, Closure: Contemporary Black British Short Stories, Peepal Tree 2015 2) Philip Hensher, a cura di, The Penguin Book of the British Short Story: 2: From P.G. Wodehouse to Zadie Smith , Penguin 2016 3) Nicholas Royle, a cura di, Best British Short Stories 2024: The nation’s favourite story anthology, Salt 2024 4) Nick Bentley, Contemporary British Fiction, Edinburgh UP 2008

* Acquire an awareness of the cultural and historical implications of the keywords in the module title. * Learn to read literary texts according to a clear thematic focus. * Learn the difference between author and narrator in order to discuss narrative and ideological strategies in relation to the chosen keywords and themes. * Learn how to write clearly and correctly, answering in a focused way to specific questions about the narrator's strategies in relation to the themes of gender, body and sexuality in the selected short stories, avoiding generalizations

English level B1. Sufficient skill in written Italian or English with grammatical correctness: punctuation, syntax, paragraph structure, spelling, register.

Lectures; discussions in classroom.

The literary texts to be analyzed in class will be made available on the DIR space of the module. This program is designed to be consistent with Goals 4, 5, 16) of the UNESCO 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Quality Education, Reducing Gender Gap; Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). Le studentesse e gli studenti con disabilità o con Disturbi Specifici dell’Apprendimento (DSA) o con Bisogni Educativi Speciali (BES) possono richiedere servizi e strumenti specifici a loro dedicati rivolgendosi all’ufficio di riferimento consultando la pagina dedicata del sito di Ateneo: https://uniupo.it/it/servizi/servizi-studentesse-e-studenti-condizione-di-disabilità-e-dsa. Le studentesse e gli studenti con disabilità, DSA, BES, una volta preso contatto con lo Staff di Ateneo, possono contattare la/il docente titolare dell'insegnamento in relazione alla declinazione delle modalità di esame, in merito agli aspetti didattici.

The students will be evaluated through a written exam (in Italian or English) with two questions: the first will concern the issues and focal keywords of the module as regards one pf the short stories (500 words); the second will evaluate the ability to comment in detail a passage of a short story. The written answers will be assessed both as to their form and content (50%-50%).

The module offers a cultural-historical introduction to terms and notions, such as body, gender, sex and sexuality in the period examined in the module. 8 short stories written between the 1890s and the 2000's will be commented and discussed. An important part of the module will focus on the question of the narrator (and narrative voice) in order to analyze the short stories from a broad cultural and ideological standpoint. INTEGRATION OF THE GENDER DIMENSION The gender dimension is at the heart of the module's content, intersecting with other terms such as body and sexuality (but also race, class and religion).

- Knowledge and comprehension skills: to write about the themes covered by the module with a historical perspective and an awareness of their socio-cultural complexity; to be able to compare different perspectives on similar topics by different authors; basic ability to analyze a literary text both as regards its themes and ideological point of view, and its formal (narrative) strategies. – Applied knowledge and comprehension skills: improved reading skills in English applied to short literary texts, paying attention to form and content; improved skills in writing short clear and focused texts in reply to specific questions of reading comprehension.