Course Catalogue

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Taking in literary and visual texts, this course explores how key issues in the Portuguese-speaking world, such as race, gender, class, identity, migration, and memory, are given spatial representation in spheres such as the nation, the city, the workplace, and the home. Though sessions will focus on individual examples, the course takes a comparative, decolonising perspective overall: what issues does the polycentric Lusophone world share? What aspects of its common heritage unite or divide it? How does it look from different standpoints? 

16 x 1hr Seminar across semester 1 & 2 as scheduled on MyCampus. This is one of the Honours options in SMLC and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus.

Available to all students fulfilling requirements for Honours entry into one of the SMLC Honours programmes, and by arrangement to visiting students or students of other Honours programmes who qualify under the University's 25% regulation.

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The standard assessments for this course are:

■ Reading Diary (1600 words - 4 x 400 words) - 40%

■ Written-up Conference Paper (2400 words) - 60%

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 reading diary and conference paper, but an extension to the deadline can be offered as reasonable adjustment (students should follow the usual process for extensions).

Further reasonable adjustments may be provided where necessary. Students are encouraged to consult with the course convenor. 

This course aims to:

■ Introduce students to a range of literary and visual texts produced across the Portuguese-speaking world;

■ Place each text in its social and historical context and examine through a spatial lens how key issues in the Portuguese-speaking world are represented in literary and visual terms;

■ Apply an appropriate range of methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of literary, photographic, and filmic texts

■ Allow students to develop written and oral skills in a professional academic environment

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Engage with a variety of social and cultural contexts from across the Portuguese-speaking world;

■ Analyse key themes in Lusophone literary, photographic, and visual texts through a spatio-social lens;

■ Participate in discussion and present arguments and ideas in formal presentations in a professional academic context;

■ Defend a critical analysis of a Portuguese-speaking text in written and oral form that engages effectively with primary and secondary reading