Year
2024Credit points
10Campus offering
No unit offerings are currently available for this unit.Prerequisites
ENGL200 Nineteenth-Century Literature: Revolutions in Writing OR ENGL202 Twentieth-Century Literature OR ENGL204 American Writing OR ENGL205 Australian Literature for Children and Young Adults OR ENGL210 Shakespeare and the Renaissance OR ENGL221 Cultural Studies OR ENGL224 Romantic Generations OR ENGL231 Australian Literature OR ENGL232 Irish Literature OR ENGL234 The Literature of Other Worlds: Fantasy and Science Fiction OR ENGL235 Writing with Style OR WLIT200 Medieval and Renaissance Masterpieces: the Rise of the English Literary Tradition OR WLIT201 The Age of the Novel: 1600-1900 OR WLIT300 Romanticism to Postmodernism: Movements Toward the Literary Present
Unit rationale, description and aim
The impact of digital technology is apparent in every aspect of human life and understanding the dynamics of debates about literary culture and the impact of digitisation is vital to many professions. In literary studies this impact ranges from new digital reading practices to experiments in hypertext fiction which both alters how we interpret literature and shifts our understanding of the meaning and effects of the literary. In this unit the student will explore key technological changes and their impact on reading strategies, literary archives and methods of literary criticism. Students will work with a range of primary and secondary texts in order to investigate key topics and developments in this field. Applying a range of literary and cultural approaches, the student will contribute to analyses and debates generated by the rise of digital technology. The aim of this unit is to develop a student's capacity to construct sophisticated and well-informed analyses of the impact of digital technology on literary culture.
Learning outcomes
To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.
Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.
Explore the graduate capabilities.
| Learning Outcome Number | Learning Outcome Description | Relevant Graduate Capabilities |
|---|---|---|
| LO1 | Demonstrate broad and deep knowledge of a range of literary theories and periods and apply these to a variety of literary texts in order to generate new interpretations of texts | GC1, GC2, GC7, GC9, GC10, GC11 |
| LO2 | Devise, develop and communicate complex ideas and concepts concerning digital literatures using both critical and creative approaches including audio, digital, oral, visual or written form as appropriate | GC2, GC11 |
| LO3 | Locate, interpret and appropriately reference a range of texts and critical resources and use them to sustain a nuanced evidence-based argument in a self-devised project | GC3, GC7, GC9, GC10, GC11 |
| LO4 | Critically analyse evidence and synthesise scholarship in digital literatures according to the methodological and ethical conventions of the discipline | GC1, GC2 |
| LO5 | Describe and analyse the role of literary/digital texts and archives in imagining and interpreting the world | GC1, GC2, GC6, GC9, GC10, GC11, GC12 |
Content
Topics may include:
Reading and Digital culture
- Screen reading and cognitive processes
- New forms of reading: text and twitter
- Online reading communities
Writing and Digital Culture
- New forms of writing: hypertext and experimental
- Games as a form of literature
- Modes and genres in e-fiction
- Small scale online publishers
- Self-publishing and the end of cultural gatekeepers
- Fan fiction
Archives and Digital Analysis
- The digital archive: print to electronic records
- Digital literature and digital literacy
- Big Data: Franco Moretti and ‘distant reading’
Active techniques in investigating literary culture
- Locating and using advanced primary and secondary materials in questions of reading, publishing and archiving
- Approaches to analysing literary culture
Learning and teaching strategy and rationale
In the spirit of the unit’s content, this unit will be delivered as a fully online digital experience. The unit embraces active learning involving online activities through which students will:
1) Gain a deep understanding of the content covered in the unit.
The active learning activities in this unit include reading, writing, discussion and online debates aimed at promoting analysis and synthesis of class content, paying particular attention to the dynamics of debates about literary culture and the impact of digitisation. Students will examine a range of positions within each topic in order to understand the complex relationship between literary culture and new digital forms.
2) Acquire, develop and hone skills fundamental to the discipline of literary studies.
This will include the sharpening of skills in close reading; the ability to place texts within a wider literary culture; the ability to identify relevant and high-quality secondary sources and incorporate them into their own research and analysis; the ability to take a position within debates and to communicate their findings in a scholarly manner.
This is a 10-credit point unit and has been designed to ensure that the time needed to complete the required volume of learning to the requisite standard is approximately 150 hours in total across the teaching period To achieve a passing standard in this unit, students will find it helpful to engage in the full range of learning activities and assessments utilised in this unit, as described in the learning and teaching strategy and the assessment strategy.
The unit is hosted on a Learning Management System (LMS) site with resources and online links, announcements, and a discussion board to post questions and reflections that promote connection between content and educational experiences.
Mode of delivery: This unit may be offered in different modes, as described below.
Online unscheduled
Learning activities are accessible anytime, anywhere. These units are normally delivered fully online and will not appear in a student’s timetable.
Online scheduled
All learning activities are held online, at scheduled times, and will require some attendance to enable online interaction. Activities will appear in a student’s timetable.
ACU Online
In ACU Online mode, this unit is delivered asynchronously, fully online using an active, guided learning approach. Students are encouraged to contribute to asynchronous weekly discussions. Active learning opportunities provide students with opportunities to practice and apply their learning. Activities encourage students to bring their own examples to demonstrate understanding, application and engage constructively with their peers. Students receive regular and timely feedback on their learning, which includes information on their progress
Assessment strategy and rationale
Before attempting the research essay or investigative tasks, students need to have a strong foundation knowledge of how reading and literary cultures have evolved in response to digitisation. The purpose of the first assessment is to develop a sound knowledge of the field of evidence, including primary works of electronic literature and secondary works which examine key concepts in digital literature, such as the experience of reading digital materials, the growth of electronic forms and the formation of digital literary communities. Students will be required to demonstrate awareness that each of these areas is accompanied by debates concerning impact and likely future developments. This investigative task develops a capacity to discover apposite sources, critically analyse them and insert evaluative statements into the context of existing debate.
Students build on these skills in locating and analysing resources to find, synthesise and critically evaluate evidence related to a specific issue within digital literary culture in an individual research task. This will require students to generate a thesis which will be justified by evidence accumulated through close reading or other forms of analysis of primary and secondary works – this thesis will also be placed within the context of existing debates in the field.
The third assessment is an explorative task that invites students to use the resources of a digital archive to make a specific statement about a literary issue. The point of this assessment is to explore the range of archives available and to develop evidence that could only be generated by digital tools. These may include digital text analysis, developing a concordance, tracking the presence of key words and so on.
Overview of assessments
| Brief Description of Kind and Purpose of Assessment Tasks | Weighting | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|
Investigative Task The key purpose of this assignment is for students to develop skills in understanding and participating in the complex field of evidence and debate relevant to reading and literary culture in a digital age. | 30% | LO1, LO2, LO3 |
Research Task The key purpose of this assessment is to foster skills in analysis, synthesis, writing skills and research. The task will encourage students to construct an evidence-based argument concerning an issue within digital literary culture, while demonstrating an understanding of competing positions and/or approaches. | 40% | LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4, LO5 |
Explorative Task The purpose of this assessment is to apply skills in locating and exploring a digital archive to make statements about an issue related to literature. | 30% | LO3, LO5 |
Representative texts and references
Bode, Katherine. Digital Collections and the Future of Literary History. University of Michigan Press, 2018.
Bode, Katherine. Reading by Numbers: Recalibrating the Literary Field. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Earhart, Amy E. Traces of the Old, Uses of the New: The Emergence of Digital Literary Studies. University of Michigan Press, 2015.
Eskelinen, Markku. Cybertext Poetics: The Critical Landscape of New Media Literary Theory. Bloomsbury, 2012.
Hammond, Adam. Literature in the Digital Age. Cambridge University Press, 2016.
Moretti, Franco. Distant Reading. Verso, 2013.
Murray, Simone. The Digital Literary Sphere: Reading, Writing, and Selling Books in the Internet Era. Johns Hopkins, 2018.
Rettberg, Scott. Electronic Literature. Polity, 2019.
Ross, Shawna, and O'Sullivan, James. Reading Modernism with Machines: Digital Humanities and Modernist Literature. Palgrave, 2016.
Salazar, Juan F. and Gauthier, Jennifer. Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, Poetics, and Politics. Duke University Press, 2008.