Table of Contents

Prologue. Change and Challenge Today Crossing borders, establishing boundaries; Texts in contexts, literature and history; Seeing through theory; Technologizing the subject: actual and virtual communities; English Literature and Creative Writing; English still spells EFL, ESL, ESP, EAP; The shaping of things to come ... Part One. Introduction to English Studies 1.1 Which 'Englishes? 1.2 One English language, literature, culture - or many? 1.3 Summary: one and many 1.4 Activities, reading 1.5 How studied? 1.6 Summary: pasts, presents and futures 1.7 Activities, discussion, reading 1.8 Fields of Study 1.9 Summary: keeping on course and making your own way Part Two. Theoretical Positions and Practical Approaches: 2.1 Getting some initial bearings 2.2 Theory in practice - a working model 2.3 Practical Criticism and (old) New Criticism 2.4 Formalism into Functionalism 2.5 Psychological approaches 2.6 Marxism, Cultural Materialism and New Historicism 2.7 Feminism, Gender and Sexuality 2.8 Poststructuralism and Postmodernism 2.9 Postcolonialism and multiculturalism 2.10 Towards a new eclecticism: Ethics, Aesthetics, Ecology ...? Part Three. Common Topics: Absence and presence, gaps and silences, centres and margins; Accent and dialect; Addresser, address, addressee; Aesthetics and pleasure, art and beauty; Author and authority; Auto/biography and travel writing: self and other; Bibles, holy books and myths; Canon and classic; Character and characterisation; Comedy and tragedy, carnival and the absurd; Creative writing, creativity and re-creation; Difference and similarity, preference and re-valuation; Drama and theatre, film and TV; Foreground, background and point of view Genre and kinds of text; Image, imagery and imagination; Narrative in story and history: novel, news and film; Poetry and word-play; Realism and representation: fiction, fact, faction and metafiction; Speech and conversation, monologue and dialogue; Standards and standardisation, varieties and variation; Subject and agent, role and identity; Text, context and intertextuality Translation and translation studies; Versification: rhythm, metre and rhyme; Writing and; reading, response and re-writing; Your own modifications and additions Part Four. Textual Activities and Learning Strategies: 4.1 Overview of textual activities 4.2 Frameworks and checklists for close reading 4.3 Writing and research from essays to the Internet 4.4 Alternative modes of critical and creative writing Part Five. Anthology of Sample Texts: 5.1 Poetry, song and performance 5.2 Prose fiction, life-writing and news5.3 Drama - scripts and transcripts, monologue and dialogue 5.4 Intertextual clusters Part Six. Glossary of Grammatical and Linguistic Terms. Appendices: A Maps of Britain, the USA and the World B A chronology of English language, literature, culture, communication and media C English and or as other educational subjects D An alphabet of speech sounds Bibliography Relevant journals and useful addresses Index

About the Author

Rob Pope is Professor of English Studies at Oxford Brookes University and a National Teaching Fellow.

Reviews

'A marvellously compact, all round guide to English, written primarily with the undergraduate in mind but suitable for everyone with an interest in the language. Seriously academic textbooks rarely make for interesting, accessible reading for the rest of us, but this is one very welcome exception.' - Writing Maga zine

'Useful to teachers as a handbook to the changing nature of English Literature, and a source of classroom activities' - English and Media Magazine