The syllabus of the course is based on the students' selection of 5 books from the following list:
Ian McEwan: Black Dogs (1992), Amsterdam (1998), Saturday (2005), On Chesil Beach (2007), Solar (2010)
Jeanette Winterson: Written on the Body (1992), Art and Lies (1994)
Martin Amis: Time’s Arrow (1991), House of Meetings (2007)
Peter Ackroyd: The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994), The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2008)
Kazuo Ishiguro: When We Were Orphans (2000), Never Let Me Go (2005)
Graham Swift: Last Orders (1996), The Light of Day (2003), Tomorrow (2007)
Julian Barnes: England, England (1998), Arthur & George (2005), The Sense of an Ending (2011)
Hanif Kureishi: The Buddha of Suburbia (1990), Something to Tell You (2008)
Zadie Smith: White Teeth (2000), On Beauty (2005)
Angela Carter: Wise Children (1991)
Monica Ali: Brick Lane (2003)
Jim Crace: Arcadia (1992), Being Dead (1999), The Pesthouse (2007)
Will Self: How the Dead Live (2000), Dorian (2002)
John Banville: The Sea (2005)
Adam Thirlwell: Politics (2003)
Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty (2004)
Simon Mawer: The Glass Room (2009)
David Lodge: Deaf Sentence (2008)
This seminar is reading-based and deals with a wide selection of texts written by the most prominent contemporary British writers (Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Graham Swift, Jeanette Winterson, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, A.S. Byatt, John Banville) with respect to modern literary theories.
Course requirement: an essay (1000 words).