Outcomes: Students are able to (1) read and analyse a major cultural genre, romance, through the close study of a wide selection of its varieties in literature and film; (2) understand and employ key concepts used in the interpretation of literary and film narratives; (3) read and analyse individual texts in relation to the culture, history and ideology of the periods in which they were written; (4) decode the ideologies of contemporary forms of romance; (5) inform and challenge one's independent analyses and ideas with discriminating reading in critical, scholarly and theoretical literature; (6) express ideas, information and argument concisely and clearly in written and oral forms; (7) inform others helpfully in discussion and learn from their contributions; and (8) respect and practise the correct forms of citation, quotation and bibliographical reference.
Content: Romances are beautiful lies, always entertaining, but also ideologically loaded. This unit examines a range of stories of love and war, of mystery and imagination, with an emphasis on their social and political implications in different historical eras from the Middle Ages to the postmodern present. The materials used include films and an exciting variety of written texts including a modern romance novel.
