Booking will close on Monday 7th February 2022 at 12 noon

Due to limited resources we are UNABLE TO ACCEPT LATE BOOKINGS after this date

THE COURSE WILL BE HELD ONLINE THROUGH ZOOM

THE WORLD THROUGH LITERATURE

Thursday mornings 10-12 noon for seven weeks 10th February - 24th March 2022

The silent witness to our society past and present and sometimes uncannily predicting the future, Literature offers us an alternative view of the world or an escape into the imaginations of the fiction writer and the poet. It creates characters we love or hate and challenges our perceptions. In this course various tutors select a favourite piece from across the literary genres to interpret and provoke the imagination through stimulating presentation and class discussion.

Reading List:

Week One : 10th February 2022

Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse Tutor : Hailey Austin

In what ways does the main character Maggie subvert traditional hero tropes?

How does the post-apocalyptic setting enhance the narrative/themes?

What does the term ‘Indigenous Futurism’ mean to you? How would you categorise this book? Sci-Fi, fantasy...?How does this book change your ideas of the Navajo (Dine) people?

Week Two : 17th February 2022

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Tutor : Eric Summers

Is this the first detective novel? What elements of a modern crime novel are present? Does it convince?

Is this a critique of empire?

Are Collins and Dickens rivals?

Week Three: 24th February 2022

A Bunch of Fives: Selected Stories by Helen Simpson Tutor : Ester Read

A Bunch of Fives by Helen Simpson is an anthology of 25 stories, chosen by the author herself, five from each of her previous five collections. The introduction takes the form of an imagined antagonistic interview in which she discusses the nature of the short story form and addresses some of the criticisms of her work. This is a useful guide as any to your reading of the book. Questions raised include:

In what way does the short story challenge the reader?

What do you consider to be the predominant themes in Simpson's work?

How well does the word 'tragicomic' sum up the tone of her writing?

Week Four : 3rd March 2022

People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd. Tutor : Rachel Marsh

The key concepts to think about are multiple points of view, unreliable narrator, and the use and discussion of social media in a novel.

Week Five: 10th March 2022

Greenvoe by George Mackay Brown Tutor : Eric Summers

Is Greenvoe a religious novel?

Is the destruction of traditional communities inevitable?

How does GMB draw upon Orkney to elaborate universal values?

Week Six : 17th March 2022

Riddley Walke by Russell Hoban Tutor : Katie Donnelly

In this session we'll discuss language, philosophy and the end of the world. We'll share our experience of reading a 'difficult' book that resists interpretation, with particular focus on the text's unique vernacular/lexis, exploring the poetic function of language, as well as issues of language and power, and asking questions: how and why does language change? Through close reading we'll trace the concept of the 'hero's journey' in the narrative, and reach towards an understanding of the importance of storytelling and myth in structuring a society, considering along the way such themes as the collective unconscious, nuclear war and St Eustace's Vision, in an attempt to uncover the fabric of Hoban's dystopian world.

Week Seven : 24thMarch 2022

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine Tutor : Nicole Brandon

Published in 2014, poet Claudia Rankine's Citizen : An American Lyric remains one of the stand-out elements of American literature form the 2010s - it is simply described as "a book-length poem about race and the imagination" but truthfully it is an incredibly dense and resonant piece of work that pushes the boundaries of what literature means on 'on the page".

For our starting points we'll be talking about:

How Citizen works as an essay, and how it can change our attitudes to what an essay is, and can achieve for its writer, reader and subjects.

The potential for poetry to do what a more 'typical' form of non-fiction writing cannot do - how do we think Rankine explores this potential, and its limits?

The juxtaposition of images and text, as well as Citizen's motif of analysing video and events that we can all access via YouTube, even 8 years after it was published. What it is like reading a work that provides depictions and analysis of events, and also asks us to "google it"?

Our response as readers, everything from emotions to intellectualisations of essay's contents will be up for discussion. How does it work on us as individuals, and how does it work on us as a group?

What is it like reading a poem exploring race and the public imagination in the USA, from here in the UK? What resonates? What feels alien, shocking or even mundane?How does Citizen : An American Lyric (to give it its full title) translate to a Scottish readership?

Course code: 05 211

Enquiries should be sent to: lifelonglearningdundee@gmail.com

As a volunteer organisation with limited resources we try to respond to queries as quickly as possible. Please bear with us.