Encountering the Supernatural in English Literature

After completing this course you will have:

• gained awareness of the role and significance of the supernatural in Anglophone literary texts and cultural movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
• learned to place key literary texts and traditions in dialogue with contemporary critical discourse
• developed the ability to relate the course materials and themes to intellectual and theoretical discussions of major issues such as:
  • modernity and secularisation
  • belief, cultural difference and the horizons of possibility
  • human and nonhuman agency
  • historical experience and the presence of the past
  • reason and unreason
  • realism
• gained enhanced skills in literary and cultural analysis and activated these by creating both critical and creative contributions to a course blog, building a dialogue with fellow students
• demonstrated the ability to select, organise, research and deliver a final written project

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

This course is for students admitted to the master programmes European Languages (master's two years), Lektorprogrammet (master - 5 år), masterspesialisering i engelsk and Profesjonsrettet master med integrert praktisk-pedagogisk utdanning (masterspesialisering i engelsk).

Students enrolled in other Master`s Degree Programmes can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is cleared by their own study programme.

Seminars, 2 hours per week for 10 weeks.

Obligatory activity:

• The obligatory activities during the course itself will involve two blog posts. There will be two categories, "critical" and "creative"; students will do one of each (in whichever order they choose). For each category, there will be a list of approved formats. This is a preliminary version:
  • Critical: Response to a primary text; response to a secondary text; response to a seminar topic/discussion
  • Creative: Photo essay; poster; audio/video recording; short fiction; poetry; digital media
• In addition to making these two posts, students will write two comments on others’ posts (four comments in total during the semester). These will follow the principles of peer mentoring and constructive feedback. Read more here about rules concerning valid excuses and how to apply for postponements.Information about guidelines for obligatory activities.
• It is obligatory to show up for a minimum of 60% of the teaching. In this course you have to attend 6 of 10 seminars. The requirement is absolute.

The allowed absence limit will cover all absences, including illness. You will not be granted valid absences with documentation, even when the absence is due to something beyond your control.

In certain circumstances, i.e. serious or chronic illness, you could apply for special needs accommodations.

Fulfilled course requirements are only valid the semester you attend the course.

The form of assessment is a term paper of 10-12 standard pages (a standard page consists of 2,300 characters). References and bibliography comes in addition.

You will be offered individual term paper supervision.