Registry

Module Specifications

Current Academic Year 2012 - 2013
Please note that this information is subject to change.

Module Title	Comparing Perceptions of Otherness
Module Code	LC279
School	SALIS
Online Module Resources
Module Co-ordinator	Semester 1: Jean-Philippe Imbert Semester 2: Patricia O'Byrne
NFQ level	8	Credit Rating	5
Pre-requisite	None
Co-requisite	None
Compatibles	None
Incompatibles	None

Description

This module will offer an introduction to the study of images of racial/national/social/sexual alterity or otherness and their representation in encounters both within Europe and between Europe and other continents.Each topic will be introduced with a lecture giving the necessary historical context.Materials discussed in class will consist of literary and documentary texts, together with representations from the visual arts, especially painting, film, cartoons, visual novels. Students will be expected to contribute individual presentations on one of the topics, which will serve as the basis for their final essay assignment.

Learning Outcomes

1. Recognize continuity and change in the varied discourses of alterity in European and non-European societies.
2. Identify racial, social, sexual and moral assumptions implicit in European and non-European reports and portrayals of other cultures, communities or nations.
3. Relate specific forms and modes of representation of alterity to their historical or social context.
4. Discuss the significance of notions of cultural difference in the development and formation of European and national self-awareness.
5. Employ imagology as a methodological tool for analysing, deconstruct and critically engage with the representations of otherness and alterity
6. Expand on the influence of images of difference in European and non-European intercultural artistic artefacts

Workload	Full-time hours per semester
*Type*	*Hours*	*Description*
Lecture	12	No Description
Seminars	12	No Description
Independent learning	101	No Description
Total Workload: 125

All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml

Indicative Content and Learning Activities

Introduction and critical material on Otherness/stereotypes/Imagology.
Discussion of images of difference generated in intercultural encounters, both within Europe and between Europe and other parts of the world, will focus on periods and themes selected from the following:.

Colonial Discourses and Representations in Literature, Art and Film (e.g. Heart of Darkness).
Orientalism: European perceptions of Islam in the 19th century.

Representation of the Sexual Other (e.g. FunHome: A Family Tragicomic).
Noble savage versus bestial primitive: contrasting images of the Other in the colonial and post-colonial era (e.g. Mexico and Surrealism in Literature and Art).

Representations of Apartheid in South-African Literature and Film.
European expansion and the literature of exploration in the age of the voyages of discovery (e.g. Caribbean Poetries).

Ireland and/as the Other: (e.g. stereotyping the Irish: cartoons, pamphlets and histories/ Ireland, travellers and immigrants in literature, media and film).

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment	100%	Examination Weight	0%

Course Work Breakdown
Type	Description	% of total	Assessment Date
Essay	n/a	100%	n/a

Reassessment Requirement
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories; 1 = A resit is available for all components of the module 2 = No resit is available for 100% continuous assessment module 3 = No resit is available for the continuous assessment component
This module is category 1

Indicative Reading List

Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth & Tiffin, Helen (eds.): 1989, The Empire writes back: Theory and Practice in Post-colonial Literatures, Routledge, London,
Barfoot, C.C. (ed.): 1997, Beyond Pug’s Tour: National and Ethnic Stereotyping in Theory and Literary Practice, Rodopi, Amsterdam,
Beller, Manfred, & Leerssen, Joep: 2007, Imagology: the Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters. A Critical Survey, Rodopi, Amsterdam,
Leerssen, Joep: 1996, Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century, Cork University Press,
Memmi, Albert: 1990, The Colonizer and the Colonized, Earthscan, London,
Pickering, Michael: 2001, Stereotyping: the Politics of Representation, Palgrave, New York,
Said, Edward: 1994, Culture & Imperialism, Vintage, London,
Said, Edward: 1995, Orientalism, Penguin, London,
Yegenoglu, Meyda: 1998, Colonial Fantasies: towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism, Cambridge UP, Cambridge,