COURSE DESCRIPTION AND CONTEXTUALIZATION



Drama in English is a third/fourth-year course in the English Studies degree and it is intended to provide students with a survey of some of the most representative plays in contemporary English-language drama, including both canonical and non-canonical authors. The course will examine the interaction between these plays and their historical and cultural context.

COMPETENCES / LEARNING OUTCOMES



COMPETENCES





Within the English Studies degree, this subject belongs to the English Literature module (M06). This course focuses on four of the competences of the module:



CM01. – To understand the English language and to use it properly through the reading of different literary texts.

CM02.- To analyze literature written in English exploring the interaction of the literary texts with the cultural and historical context in English-speaking countries.

CM03.- To understand, analyse and interpret critically literature in English, using adequate text analysis techniques and to transmit and discuss it in groups and individually

CM04.- To understand the role of literature in the genesis of personal and collective ideas related to fields of general interest, such as history, social relations or gender.



Final achievement of the module competences above entails the fulfillment of the degree competences:



G004.- To understand, analyze and interpret English literature and to be able to evaluate critically texts and documents in English.

G007.- To be able to relate the specific knowledge of the degree with other areas and disciplines and to transmit that knowledge in further studies in order to favor conciliatory and tolerant attitudes towards multilingual and multicultural diversity.

G008.- To be able to work autonomously and in teams making use of the techniques and tools acquired.

G009- To be able to transmit the knowledge acquired in different academic contexts to be used in diverse professional contexts.



LEARNING OUTCOMES



LEARNING OUTCOMES



1) In this course students can recognize the dominant features in American drama during the 20th and 21st centuries, establishing a proper connection between these plays and their historical and cultural context.

2) By the end of the course students are expected to identify and explain the main themes, characters and stylistic devices of the compulsory readings texts

3) Students are able to employ properly critical reading strategies, including the use of the required literary terms

4) By the end of the course students are able to discuss critically the main achievements of representative contemporary American plays

1. History of British and U.S. Drama: An Introduction

2. Critical Framework: Drama, Gender, Postcolonial, Post-Marxist and Queer Studies

3. Postmodern Irish Drama: 1980s

4. Contemporary American Drama: 1980s-2020

TEACHING AND LEARNING STRATEGIES



1. Theoretical lectures: 40 hours (classroom activities) and 60 hours (out-of-classroom activities). Theoretical lectures will provide students with a general survey of 20th century and 21st century Irish, British, and American drama in English, exploring its main currents, genres, authors, and texts. These sessions will offer a basic introduction to the historical and cultural background of the different texts to be analyzed during the term.

2. Practical lectures: 20 hours (classroom activities) and 30 hours (out-of-classroom activities) Seminars and practical lectures will be used to discuss the texts included on the compulsory reading list. Students are expected to play an active role during these class sessions, discussing the main themes, characters, and formal features of the different texts. Students will have to offer their individual/group readings and reading performances of these texts taking into account different critical stances.

3. Total number of required hours: 150



*Tutorials will help students to check the progress of their assignments, in particular of their reading performances. Office hours will be particularly useful for individual/group guidance, a deeper understanding of course material, and the development of critical inquiry through active questioning.

• Sistema de Evaluación Continua
• Sistema de Evaluación Final
• Herramientas y porcentajes de calificación:
  • Prueba escrita a desarrollar (%): 60
  • Prueba tipo test (%): 20
  • Exposición de trabajos, lecturas… (%): 20

FIRST CALL ASSESSMENT:



The final grade for this course will be based on the following criteria:



- In-class presentation & leading the following debate: 20%. This class aims for excellent discussion. Students will be paired with a partner and assigned a day to present the results of their independent analysis of a given excerpt from a play. Esach pair will be also responsible for leading the class debate that w ill follow their presentation. This task will be employed to assess the following competences: CM01, CM02, CM03, CM04, G004, G007, G008, G009.

- Mid-term in-class test on the theoretical content of the course: 20%. Students are asked to sit an in-class test regardsing the theoretical content covered during the first 5 weeks of the course and which corresponds to Units 1 & 2.

- Written examination: 60 %. The final exam will consist of two different parts. In Part I, students will be given an excerpt from each one of the compulsory texts for Unit 3, and will be expected to carry out a guided critical analysis of one of them. In Part II, students will have to analyse a passage from one of the texts included on the compulsory reading list for Unit 4. In both cases, students should discuss literary context, topics, characters, style, structure, language and/or any other relevant issues. The exam will be employed to assess the following competences: CM01, CM02, CM03, CM05, G004, G009.



-IMPORTANT NOTE: For a student to pass the course as a whole, they must obtain a minimum of a 1.5 points out of 3 in both parts of the final exam and the sum of the final exam + the theory test + the oral presentation must equal 5 out of ten or more.



- Information on the use of resources and materials for the assessment tasks/exam



Exam: The use of mobile or electronic devices, notes, books is not allowed.

In-classs presentation: the work presented by the students must be their own work and must have been researched and written completely by themselves. The students must identify and include the source of all facts, ideas, opinions and viewpoints of others, through in-text referencing and the relevant sources should all be included in the list of references at the end of their work. Direct quotations from books, journal articles, internet sources or any other source must be acknowledged and the sources cited must be identified in the list of references.





Withdrawal from Continuous or Mixed Assessment: All students have the right to be evaluated according to the final evaluation procedure independently of whether or not they have participated in the continuous or mixed assessment module. In order to do withdraw from the continuous assessment, they must write the instructor responsible for the course expressing their desire to do so. Students can withdraw within the first 9 weeks of the course, according to the academic calendar of their centre. The form that has to be filled in is available at the website of the faculty. http://www.ehu.eus/eu/web/letrak/idazkaritza

Withdrawal from an Exam Call: Withdrawal from a call will be assessed as “no grade reported” [no presentado/a], ez aurkeztua).

1. In the case of continuous or mixed assessment, not sitting the exam on the official date of the exam qualifies as an automatic withdrawal from the corresponding call.

2. In the case of final assessment, not sitting the exam on the official date of the exam qualifies as an automatic withdrawal from the corresponding call.



Students who choose to withdraw from continuous assessment will be graded according to their performance in the following tasks:



- Written examination: 80 %. The exam will consist of three different parts. In Part I, students will be given a multiple-choice test covering the theoretical content of Units 1 and 2. In part II, students will be given an excerpt from each one of the compulsory texts for Unit 3, and will be expected to carry out a guided critical analysis of one of them. In Part III, students will have to analyse a passage from one of the texts included on the compulsory reading list for Unit 4. In both cases, students should discuss literary context, topics, characters, style, structure, language and/or any other relevant issues. The exam will be employed to assess the following competences: M04CM01, M04CM02, M04CM03, M04CM05, G004, G009.



- Oral presentation: 20%. Viva voce presentation and discussion about their critical analysis of an excerpt culled from one of the compulsory texts and assigned to them by the lecturer. This task will be carried out in the lecturer's office on the same day of final exam or on the previous/following day (this will depend on the exam calendar and the lecturer's/students' availability).

SECOND CALL ASSESSMENT for both continuous and non-continuous assessment:



Students will be allowed to choose which parts they want to retake, regardless of whether they had passed those individual parts or not in the first call. Should a student choose not to retake a task, the grade originally obtained in the first call will be carried over to the second call. For a student to pass the course as a whole, they must obtain a minimum of a 1.5 points out of 3 in both parts of the final exam and the sum of the final exam + the theory test + the oral presentation must equal 5 out of ten or more. The topic and excerpt for the viva voce presentation will be assigned by the lecturer and the presentation and discussion will be carried out in the lecturer's office on the same day of final exam or on the previous/following day (this will depend on the exam calendar and the lecturer's/students' availability).



- Written examination: 80 %. The exam will consist of three different parts. In Part I, students will be given a multiple-choice test covering the theoretical content of Units 1 and 2. In part II, students will be given an excerpt from each one of the compulsory texts for Unit 3, and will be expected to carry out a guided critical analysis of one of them. In Part III, students will have to analyse a passage from one of the texts included on the compulsory reading list for Unit 4. In both cases, students should discuss literary context, topics, characters, style, structure, language and/or any other relevant issues. The exam will be employed to assess the following competences: M04CM01, M04CM02, M04CM03, M04CM05, G004, G009.





- Information on the use of resources and materials for the assessment exam: the use of mobile or electronic devices, notes, books is not allowed.

- Withdrawal from an Exam Call: Withdrawal from a call will be assessed as “no grade reported” [no presentado/a], ez aurkeztua). Not sitting the exam on the official date of the exam qualifies as an automatic withdrawal from the corresponding call.

The new regulation about assessment can be found at the following link: http://www.ehu.eus/es/web/estudiosdegrado-gradukoikasketak/ebaluaziorako-arautegia.

REQUIRED TEXTS FOR 2022/2023:

Brian Friel: Translations (1980)

Wendy Wasserstein: The Heidi Chronicles (1988)

Lynn Nottage: Sweat (2015)

Bibliografía básica

BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY



Carlson, Marvin and Yvonne Shafer. The Play’s the Thing: An Introduction to Teatre. Longman, 1990.

Childs, Peter & Roger Fowler. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. London: Routledge, 2006.

Lennard, John and Mark Luckhurt. The Drama Handbook: A Guide to Reading Plays. Oxford UP, 2002.

Pickering, Kenneth: How to Study Modern Drama. London: Macmillan, 1988.

Richards, Shaun. The Cambridge Companion to Twentieth-Century Irish Drama. Cambridge UP, 2004.

Saddik, Annette J.: Contemporary American Drama. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007.

Shepherd, Simon and Mick Wallis. Drama/Theatre/Performance. Rutledge, 2004.

Smart, John; Bickley, Pamela; Brinton, Ian; Siddall, Stephen. Twentieth Century British Drama. Cambridge UP, 2002.

Bibliografía de profundización

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Bigsby, C.W.E.: A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama (3 vols.). Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982.
Bordman, Gerald: The Oxford Companion to American Theatre. New York: Oxford UP, 1981.
Crow, Brian and Chris Banfield. An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theatre. Cambridge UP, 1996.
Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. Methuen, 1980.
Quinn, Arthur Hobson: A History of the American Drama: From the Civil War to the Present Days. New York: Irvington, 1980.
Pickering, Kenneth: Studying Modern Drama. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Sinfield, Alan. Out on Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theatre in the Twentieth Century. Yale UP (UK), 1999.
Williams, Raymond. Drama from Ibsen to Brecht. Penguin, 1973.

Revistas

JOURNALS

- American Literature
- American Studies International
- Atlantis
- ES: Revista de Filología Inglesa
- Feminist Review
- Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses
- Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos
- The New Yorker

Direcciones web

WEBPAGES

- American Literature: Twentieth Century Texts and Resources (University of Virginia): http://www.xroads.virginia.edu
- Norton Websource to American Literature: http://www.norton.com/naal/
- PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide: http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/TABLE.HTML
- REWEST (Research in Western Literature): http://www.ehu.es/en/web/rewest/home
- Voices of the Shuttle: WebPage for Humanities Research (American Literature) http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/shuttle/english.html

-Brian Friel: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Brian-Friel

-https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctvcj2kt4

-Hanif Kureishi: https://www.bl.uk/people/hanif-kureishi

-A Study Guide for Wendy Wasserstein's "The Heidi Chronicles": https://books.google.es/books?hl=es&lr=&id=dgDQDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT3&dq=heidi+chronicles+feminism&ots=H8axsJC9QX&sig=P3T9JgmMoOv_kyZCGvYf7TfC9Q0#v=onepage&q=heidi%20chronicles%20feminism&f=false

- "The Heidi Chronicles": The Big Chill of Feminism: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3201302

- THE DEINDUSTRIAL GENERATION: MEMORY, BIOGRAPHY AND THE BODY IN LYNN NOTTAGE'S SWEAT: https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/pausbed/issue/49722/548680

- Three Readings of Reading, Pennsylvania: Approaching Lynn Nottage's "Sweat" and Douglas Carter Beane's "Shows for Days": https://www.jstor.org/stable/26367490

- A Socio-Cognitive Study of Ethnocentric Discourse in Lynn Nottage: https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=950216

- Forum Theatre: https://forum-theatre.com/