Convener: A/Prof. Barbara Boswell
Lecture Times: Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Period 2, 09:00-09:45.
Timetable, tutorial times and tutorial sign-up are published on Amathuba once you have registered for the course.
Entrance requirements: None.
DP requirements: All written work to be handed in and at least 75% attendance at tutorials.
Assessment: Class test (20%), Take home essay (40%) Final examination (40%).
Course Outline:
As an introduction to cultural and literary studies, this course examines various modes of expression as we seek to understand how texts of multiple kinds accomplish their acts of meaning-making and persuade their readers. We will give attention to the impact of a text’s form and context in shaping its message and content. In trying to understand the rhetorical effects of any text, we will examine examples from various genres that use words, images, and even sound to engage their audience or readers within different historical and political contexts. Objects of study will include texts that use sound as well as words (such as performance poetry and hip hop, or contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays), visual images (such as posters in protest action, photographs that document war and suffering, and historical maps that retraced the shape the world), and words collated and presented in particular ways on the page. By drawing on vital theoretical insights into the politics of representation, we aim to develop the critical skills needed to become savvy readers of contemporary culture and politics. The course aims to build upon the critical reading and writing skills taught in ELL1013F.
Prescribed Texts, 2026
Franz Kafka, ‘The Metamorphosis’ (1915) (any edition)
The Island by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona (any edition of the play)
Gaël Faye, Small Country, any good edition (available via the UCT library’s Snapplify app)
- Shakespeare’s Richard II
- Selected essays, poetry and images to be supplied on Amathuba
- Selected critical articles to be supplied on Amathuba