Course Code: ELT375
Synopsis
ELT375 Popular Fiction and Culture explores the history, forms and role of popular fiction in popular culture. It provides a critical introduction to key concepts and approaches to popular literature studies: debates about the value of popular literature, issues of cultural production, literary taste, readership and reception. The course looks at the important genres of popular fiction: crime and mystery, romance, horror, fantasy and science fiction. Students will read representative examples of these genres and examine them in their social, cultural, political contexts.
Level: 3
Credit Units: 5
Presentation Pattern: EVERY JAN
Topics
- What is popular culture?
- Literature and popular culture
- Emergence of popular fiction and mass readership
- Crime and mystery in detective fiction
- Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- Mystery and romance
- Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
- Narratives of horror: Stephen King’s Misery
- Fantasy and science fiction in popular culture
- Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
- Nuraliah Norasid’s The Gatekeeper
- Changes in modes and production of popular fiction.
Learning Outcome
- Identify characteristic features of key genres of popular fiction.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the historical and cultural production of popular fiction.
- Evaluate critical issues and approaches in the study of popular fiction.
- Discuss the social, historical and cultural contexts of works of popular fiction.
- Examine the stylistic features and treatment of issues in popular fiction genres through close reading of texts.
- Apply research skills and critical methods to discuss works of popular fiction.