Slavery, Créolité & Caribbean Textual Cultures ENGLIT4142
- Academic Session: 2026-27
- School: School of Critical Studies
- Credits: 20
- Level: Level 4 (SCQF level 10)
- Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2
- Available to Visiting Students: Yes
- Collaborative Online International Learning: No
- Curriculum For Life: No
Short Description
This course allows for a close examination of the Caribbean's creole identity by assessing Caribbean literary and cultural works from the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Film, music, religion, literature, and food will be explored to specifically examine the influence of slavery on Caribbean culture.
Timetable
1 x 2hr seminar per week over 10 weeks as scheduled on MyCampus.
This is one of the Honours options in English Literature and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus.
Requirements of Entry
Successful completion of Junior Honours English Literature, and by arrangement to visiting students or students of other Honours programmes.
Excluded Courses
None
Co-requisites
None
Assessment
The standard assessments for this course are:
■ 1 x Essay Prospectus & Annotated Bibliography (1500 words) - 25%
■ 1 x Final Essay (2500 words) - 50%
■ Seminar Presentation (5 mins) - 15%
■ Seminar Contribution - 10%
If required, for instance where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, the following alternatives are available:
■ There is no alternative to the essays, but flexible deadlines can be offered as reasonable adjustments (students should follow the usual process for extensions)
■ Recorded presentation OR one-to-one presentation / discussion/Q&A with staff (where presentation would normally be in class) as an alternative to the presentation
■ Written self-evaluation reflecting on seminar contribution OR written response to seminar material in advance or after seminar as an alternative to the seminar contribution
Further reasonable adjustments may be provided where necessary. Students are encouraged to consult with the course convenor.
Course Aims
This course aims to:
■ Introduce students to a variety of Caribbean texts across multiple genres.
■ Assess social categories like identity, class, race, and migration.
■ Examine history, culture, and geography to contextualise the Caribbean as a creole space.
Intended Learning Outcomes of Course
By the end of this course students will be able to:
■ Recognise the importance of historically contextualizing Caribbean texts
■ Identify the socio-historical context of key themes, like identity, race, class, migration.
■ Analyse how slavery has influenced Caribbean creative and intellectual productions.
■ Assess texts across distinct genres and forms.
■ Use scholarly discourse to understand cultural texts.
■ Examine the meaning and formal qualities of individual texts and groups of texts in presentations and in written assessments.