ENGLISH 221 New Zealand Literature - Course Outlines

Course Prescription

Offers an historical survey of major writers and key issues in New Zealand literature. Students will not only read some of the best writing our country has to offer but will develop, through the literature studied, a richly detailed overview of New Zealand experience from the period of first contact until now.

Course Overview

English 221: New Zealand Literature explores a selection of works by our greatest writers in relation to ideas about place, culture and history. We look at how versions of the past have been remembered and explore the significance of those pasts for New Zealanders today. We raise questions about the relation between cultures, settings, and stories. We explore issues of identity and belonging, and provide a rich and complex map of our cultural history from the period of first contact until now.

Our first text is FE Maning’s Old New Zealand (1863), a memoir of the life and times of a Pākehā who lived with a Māori tribe in the years before the Treaty of Waitangi. We introduce strategies for cross-cultural reading, examine problems of European settlement and raise questions about the relation between traditional Māori values and modern forms of life—questions that will be asked in different ways by many other works in the course. In our drama section, for example, we explore Māori and Pākehā relations through comparisons between a play written by a Pākehā dramatist in the 1960s, when assimilation was official policy, with another play, set in the same period, written by a young Māori playwright in the "bicultural" 1990s. Both plays involve journeys from the country to the city, and involve conflict between traditional values and the attractions of popular culture and the modern secular world. The tension between old and new is also explored in two contrasting novels of family history, Bulibasha and Plumb, written by two of our most eminent living writers, Witi Ihimaera and Maurice Gee.

Early in the semester, we make a detailed study of the short stories of Katherine Mansfield and Frank Sargeson, and pay particular attention to narrative theory and modes of experimentation in representing psychology and social issues in fiction.

Robin Hyde’s novelised biography of a World War One soldier, Passport to Hell, puts our theme of representing the past into another key: she is interested in the connection between war trauma, NZ styles of masculinity, and sexuality. Gender issues are also important in our study of Frank Sargeson’s stories, which seem coded "gay" to readers today, yet did not strike their first audience that way. CK Stead’s All Visitor’s Ashore recreates the energy and confusion of bohemian life in the Auckland of the 1950s. With Stead’s novel, we begin a turn away from realism towards a more "metafictional" treatment of the relation between people and places, as exemplified by Janet Frame’s fascinating novel about New Zealanders travelling to the United States, Living in the Maniototo.

The poetry section of the course offers a detailed study of early and late works by our most distinguished poet, Allen Curnow, alongside poems by his contemporaries writing in the 1930s—Bethell, Mason, Glover—as well as a major mid-century figure, James K Baxter. We also examine work by several contemporary poets.

This course can fit into your degree in a number of ways. For all students majoring in English, a "stand alone" course in New Zealand literature makes an ideal introduction to the culture of your own place. Our literature is not only interesting in its own right, but knowing about writing produced here, in a local and familiar context, gives you a counterweight that will enable you to better understand the literature of other times and places.For some students, ENGLISH 221 might be part of a pathway in world or postcolonial literatures. Looking beyond our own major, ENGLISH 221 might also be part of a concentration in New Zealand Studies with strong links to courses in History, Media Film and TV, Māori Studies and other subjects.

Course Requirements

Prerequisite: 30 points at Stage I in English Restriction: ENGLISH 355

Learning Outcomes

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

Apply close-reading skills, narrative theory, and cultural understanding to NZ texts from different periods and different genres. (Capability 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3)
Relate NZ texts to a critical understanding of their rhetoric, narrative structure, and cultural positioning. (Capability 2.2 and 2.3)
Analyse how NZ texts give shape to and are shaped by the times and places in which they are set, and evaluate the contemporary implications of the stories they tell. (Capability 3.1)
Articulate and discuss ideas in group work and essay writing. (Capability 4.2)
Demonstrate an historical and culturally informed understanding of the relation between Māori and Pākehā through a study of literary texts. (Capability 6.1 and 6.2)

Assessments

Assessment Type	Percentage	Classification
Essays	50%	Individual Coursework
Final Exam	50%	Individual Examination
2 types	100%

Learning Resources

Text List

F. E. Maning, Old New Zealand and Other Writings (Continuum or e-text)
'Maoriland' writers: selection provided on Canvas
Katherine Mansfield, Selected Stories (Oxford World Classics or e-text)
Frank Sargeson, The Stories of Frank Sargeson (Cape Catley)
Robin Hyde, Passport to Hell (AUP)
Bruce Mason, Awatea (VUP) (e-text)
Hone Kouka, Wairoa (Huia)
Witi Ihimaera, Bulibasha (Reed)
Maurice Gee, Plumb, (Faber)
C.K. Stead, All Visitors Ashore (Godwit)
Janet Frame, Living in the Maniototo (Hutchinson)
Allen Curnow and other poets (e-texts, and selection provided on Canvas)

Workload Expectations

This course is a standard 15 point course and students are expected to spend 10 hours per week involved in each 15 point course that they are enrolled in.

For this course, you can expect 2 hours of lectures, a 1 hour tutorial, 4 hours of reading and thinking about the content and 3 hours of work on assignments and/or test preparation.

Digital Resources

Course materials are made available in a learning and collaboration tool called Canvas which also includes reading lists and lecture recordings (where available).

Please remember that the recording of any class on a personal device requires the permission of the instructor.

Academic Integrity

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting their learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the internet. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against online source material using computerised detection mechanisms.

Inclusive Learning

All students are asked to discuss any impairment related requirements privately, face to face and/or in written form with the course coordinator, lecturer or tutor.

Student Disability Services also provides support for students with a wide range of impairments, both visible and invisible, to succeed and excel at the University. For more information and contact details, please visit the Student Disability Services’ website at http://disability.auckland.ac.nz

Well-being always comes first
We all go through tough times during the semester, or see our friends struggling. There is lots of help out there - for more information, look at this Canvas page (https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz/courses/33894), which has links to various support services in the University and the wider community.

Special Circumstances

If your ability to complete assessed coursework is affected by illness or other personal circumstances outside of your control, contact a member of teaching staff as soon as possible before the assessment is due.

If your personal circumstances significantly affect your performance, or preparation, for an exam or eligible written test, refer to the University’s aegrotat or compassionate consideration page: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/exams-and-final-results/during-exams/aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration.html.

This should be done as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the affected test or exam date.

Student Feedback

At the end of every semester students will be invited to give feedback on the course and teaching through a tool called SET or Qualtrics. The lecturers and course co-ordinators will consider all feedback and respond with summaries and actions.

Your feedback helps teachers to improve the course and its delivery for future students.

Class Representatives in each class can take feedback to the department and faculty staff-student consultative committees.

Student Charter and Responsibilities

The Student Charter assumes and acknowledges that students are active participants in the learning process and that they have responsibilities to the institution and the international community of scholars. The University expects that students will act at all times in a way that demonstrates respect for the rights of other students and staff so that the learning environment is both safe and productive. For further information visit Student Charter (https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/forms-policies-and-guidelines/student-policies-and-guidelines/student-charter.html).

Disclaimer

Elements of this outline may be subject to change. The latest information about the course will be available for enrolled students in Canvas.

In this course you may be asked to submit your coursework assessments digitally. The University reserves the right to conduct scheduled tests and examinations for this course online or through the use of computers or other electronic devices. Where tests or examinations are conducted online remote invigilation arrangements may be used. The final decision on the completion mode for a test or examination, and remote invigilation arrangements where applicable, will be advised to students at least 10 days prior to the scheduled date of the assessment, or in the case of an examination when the examination timetable is published.

Capability 1:	Disciplinary Knowledge and Practice
Capability 2:	Critical Thinking
Capability 3:	Solution Seeking
Capability 4:	Communication and Engagement
Capability 6:	Social and Environmental Responsibilities

ENGLISH 221 : New Zealand Literature

Arts

2020 Semester One (1203) (15 POINTS)