Course aims:

Understanding and a correctly using fundamental ideas concerning epistemology in literary discourses.
Integration of this knowledge in a coherent structure.
Connecting past and present through the theory of knowledge.

Course Entry Requirements:

There is no compulsory work placement in the course unit.

Course contents:

After defining the basic terminology, the course focuses on the understanding of the way in which the theory of knowldgede characterizing a certain historical epoch is to be met in different literary works (even films). Two directions are to be followed: the one belonging to the Enlightenment Age through creators such as Locke, Condillac, Rousseau, Swift, Sterne as well as through articles from Diderot’s Encyclopaedia; the other connected to intertextuality and hypertextuality going through Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the myth of Prometheus in order to get to contemporary achievements such as Her (2013) and Ex Machina (2015). Contextualisations will be of utmost importance.

Teaching methods:

Interactive learning.

Learning outcomes:

• operating with different sources which follow the same goal; • establishing theoretical and practical connections through practice on texts;

Learning outcomes verification and assessment criteria:

Written paper – interpretative essay – 60%; continuous assessment – 40%.

Recommended reading:

Linde, Charlotte, Narrative in Institutions. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Schiffrin, Deborah. Tannen, Deborah & Hamilton, Heidi E (eds)., Blackwell Publishers Ltd, -, 2001, pp. 518-535.
Meretoja, Hanna, Narrative and Human Existence: Ontology, Epistemology, and Ethics. In New Literary History, Volume 45, Number 1, Winter, The Johns Hopkins University, -, 2014, pp. 89-109.
Clive Thomson (ed.), Mikhail Bahtin and the epistemology of Discourse.Critical Sudies, vol. 2 no.1 / 2., GA, Amsterdam, Atlanta, 1990,