COM5020 / FRE5020 Why ? Identities, Cultures, Narratives

Pre-requisite: [COM5020:] COM101 Introduction to Literature, or any similar Level 4 module [FRE5020:] FRE4201 French Foundations, or equivalent Assessment: One 1500-word essay (40%) One 2500-word essay (60%) Credit Value: 15 Level: 5 Semester: 3 or 5 Organizer: Prof Adrian Armstrong Contact details: Arts One 2.09a; tel. 7882 8316; email [email protected]. Feedback and advice hours: Tuesdays 11-12, Thursdays 2-3 (teaching weeks) Timetable: Thursdays 10-11 (GO Jones 2.08), 12-1 (Fogg 3.15)

All students must ensure that they access the Handbook relevant to their programme of study, and follow the School's guidelines and regulations in all matters regarding this module.

DESCRIPTION Uniquely in the UK, this module explores the work of both French- and Dutch-speaking Belgian authors. It focuses on the treatment of identity in novels, short stories, and comics written between the mid-19th and the late 20th centuries. Students taking COM5020 will study all these texts in translation. Students taking FRE5020 will study French texts in the original language, and Dutch texts in translation. Topics covered include war and colonialism; space and place; language; Catholicism; and identity as performance. Belgium provides an ideal setting for comparative approaches to literature and culture. Its multilingual make-up encourages cross-cultural exchange, while its cities and regions have rich artistic traditions that stretch back far beyond the lifespan of Belgium as an independent nation- state. Yet the literary affiliations between the country’s two major linguistic communities, French- and Dutch-speakers, are investigated much more rarely than we might expect. Such neglect is sometimes politically motivated, but very often simply reflects linguistic obstacles. Only recently, with the translation of a suitable range of materials, has genuine comparative study become possible for English-speaking students. This module enables you to take these new opportunities to examine how Belgians think of themselves, each other, and their place in the world. The texts studied range from the dark urban atmosphere of Georges Rodenbach’s -la-Morte (1892) to the vivid early short stories (1843-44) of the prolific Hendrik Conscience; from Hergé’s often offensive colonialist depiction of the Belgian Congo (1930/1946) to Amélie Nothomb’s almost equally controversial portrait of modern Japan (1999); via the themes of madness and wartime collaboration explored by Hugo Claus (1962), a Flemish novelist of world standing. In the process, you will become familiar with aspects of Belgian history and culture that are often overlooked – not only in the English-speaking world, but also by various groups within Belgium itself.

LEARNING OUTCOMES OF THE MODULE

Knowledge outcomes: Understanding of Belgian identity, history, and culture Understanding of the thematic, formal, and socio-historical issues raised by the representation of Belgian experience Familiarity with a range of texts [for COM5020: translated texts] from 19th- and 20th-century Belgium Discipline-specific skills: Ability to establish meaningful relationships between the content and style of the texts studied and wider cultural issues Ability to compare and contrast texts accurately and pertinently Increased awareness of appropriate academic style and terminology General intellectual attributes: Ability to evaluate different critical approaches to texts and culture Ability to deploy evidence effectively in support of arguments Increased awareness of the shifting and plural nature of social identities

MODULE SCHEDULE

The two weekly sessions will typically comprise a lecture and a seminar. The texts will mostly be studied in chronological sequence, alternating between the two major language communities. Lectures will address key issues relating to the prescribed texts, their cultural contexts, and/or relevant wider issues. Seminar activities will vary throughout the semester, but will tend to involve a mix of reading, group-based discussion, and individual or group presentations.

Week 1. Lecture: introductory: course structure and rationale; approaches to identity Seminar: approaches to identity (ctd); interpreting assessment criteria 2. Lecture 1: Belgian culture and identities Lecture 2: Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte 3. Seminar: Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte Lecture: Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte 4. Seminar: Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte Seminar: essay writing workshop 5. Lecture: Hendrik Conscience, Sketches from Flemish Life (recorded) Lecture: Hendrik Conscience, Sketches from Flemish Life (recorded) 6. Seminar: Hendrik Conscience, Sketches from Flemish Life: essay writing workshop Lecture: Hergé, Tintin in the Congo Reading Week 8. Seminar: Hergé, Tintin in the Congo

Lecture: Hergé, Tintin in the Congo 9. Lecture: Hugo Claus, Wonder Seminar: Hugo Claus, Wonder 10. Lecture: Hugo Claus, Wonder Seminar: Hugo Claus, Wonder; feedback on Essay 1 11. Lecture: Amélie Nothomb, Fear and Trembling Seminar: Amélie Nothomb, Fear and Trembling 12. Lecture: Amélie Nothomb, Fear and Trembling Seminar: revision, troubleshooting

ASSIGNMENT DEADLINES Essay 1: 23:55 on Sunday 27 October 2019 (end of Week 5) Feedback on individual essays will be provided by the end of week 9, and general feedback will be delivered in class in week 10 Essay 2: 23:55 on Sunday 5 January 2020 (before semester 1 examination period) Feedback will be provided within four weeks of submission, i.e. by 2 February Extensions to deadlines may only be granted by the relevant Senior Tutor. To be granted an extension, you must submit an online claim for Extenuating Circumstances before the coursework deadline. Details and links to the claim form can be found on QMplus, on the SLLF undergraduate landing page. Late submission, without an agreed extension due to extenuating circumstances, will be penalised according to the relevant SLLF regulations. Work submitted within seven days of the deadline will be accepted but subject to a late submission penalty against the marks awarded. The work will be marked normally, and then a late submission penalty of five marks per 24-hour period will then be applied. Work that is more than seven days late will receive a mark of zero.

SUBMISSION OF COURSEWORK Your final version of each assignment must be uploaded to QMplus by the deadlines above, as either a Word document or a PDF file (don’t use other file formats). All coursework for each assignment will be submitted via Turnitin. If you wish to see a Turnitin report on your assignment before submitting the final version you will be able to do so. However, you must ensure that your submit your draft version well in advance, allowing at least 24 hours before the deadline to receive and review your report, and amend and upload your final version of the coursework by the deadline. If you plan to review your work more than once, you must plan your initial submission to allow at least 24 hours between reports.

MARKING CRITERIA Assessment criteria are indicated on the QMplus site for this module, and also in SLLF’s Handbook for Undergraduate Students. We will further discuss the assessment criteria in the week 1 seminar.

SET TEXTS/PRIMARY READING 1. Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte, trans. Mike Mitchell, intr. Alan Hollinghurst (Sawtry: Dedalus, 2009) [for FRE5020 students:] Bruges-la-Morte, ed. Jean-Pierre Bertrand and Daniel Grojnowski (Paris: Flammarion, 1998) 2. Hendrik Conscience, Sketches from Flemish Life, trans. Nicholas Trubner (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1846), available online: https://archive.org/details/sketchesfromfle00consgoog 3. Hergé, Tintin in the Congo, trans. Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper and Michael Turner (London: Egmont, 2005) [for FRE5020 students:] Tintin au Congo (Tournai: Casterman, 2006) 4. Hugo Claus, Wonder, trans. Michael Henry Heim (Brooklyn: Archipelago Books, 2009) 5. Amélie Nothomb, Fear and Trembling, trans. Adriana Hunter (London: Faber & Faber, 2004) [for FRE5020 students:] Stupeur et tremblements (Paris: Albin Michel, 1999) Sketches from Flemish Life is freely available online, as noted above. You should buy a copy of each of the other primary texts. Advice on how best to acquire them will be circulated in a QMplus announcement. We will be referring closely to the texts in class, and this makes it essential that as far as possible everyone who uses a translation uses the same one. The editions selected for study have been chosen because of their quality (e.g. usefulness of introductions and ancillary materials) and availability. Please don’t use other editions/translations: you’ll find it harder to follow things in class.

FURTHER READING This introductory list comprises items in English that are relevant to both COM5020 and FRE5020. Further materials, in French as well as English, are listed in the online reading list; this will be available via the Library website and QMplus.

1. General and historical material Absillis, Kevin, ‘“From now on we speak civilized Dutch”: the authors of , the language of the Netherlands, and the readers of A. Manteau’, Language and Literature, 18 (2009), 265-80 Arblaster, Paul, A History of the Low Countries (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) Aubert, Nathalie, Pierre-Philippe Fraiture, and Patrick McGuinness, eds, From Art Nouveau to Surrealism: Belgian Modernity in the Making (Oxford: Legenda, 2007) Barnard, Benno, et al., How Can One Not be Interested in Belgian History: War, Language and Consensus in Belgium since 1830 (Ghent: Academia Press, 2005) Dembour, Marie-Bénédicte, Recalling the Belgian Congo: Conversations and Introspection (New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000) Flanders Literature [English-language site on contemporary literature from Flanders, run by the cultural organization Vlaams Fonds voor de Letteren], https://www.flandersliterature.be/ Fraiture, Pierre-Philippe, ed., ‘Belgium and its Colonies’, in Prem Poddar, Rajeev S. Patke and Lars Jensen, eds, A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures: Continental Europe and its Empires (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008), pp. 6-56

Frey, Hugo, ‘History and Memory in Franco-Belgian Bande Dessinée (BD)’, Rethinking History, 6 (2002), 293-304 Hermans, Theo, ed., A Literary History of the Low Countries (London: Camden House, 2009) ——— et al., The Babel Guide to Dutch and Flemish Fiction in English Translation (Oxford: Boulevard Books, 2001) Jack, Belinda, ‘Belgium’, in Francophone Literatures: An Introductory Survey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 25-40 The Low Countries [English-language website run by the independent Flemish-Netherlands cultural association Ons Erfdeel vzw], https://www.the-low-countries.com/ Mallinson, Vernon, Modern Belgian Literature 1830-1960 (London: Heinemann, 1966) Meijer, Reinder P., Literature of the Low Countries: A Short History of Dutch Literature in the Netherlands and Belgium (Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes, 1978) Yale French Studies, 102 (2002), ‘Belgian Memories’, ed. Catherine Labio

2. Studies of specific texts, authors, or periods Apostolidès, Jean-Marie, ‘Hergé and the Myth of the Superchild’, Yale French Studies, 111 (2007), 45-57 Assouline, Pierre, Hergé: The Man who Created Tintin, trans. Charles Ruas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) Dunnett, Oliver, ‘Identity and Geopolitics in Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin’, Social and Cultural Geography, 10 (2009), 583-98 Edwards, Paul, ‘The photograph in Georges Rodenbach’s Bruges-la-Morte (1892)’, Journal of European Studies, 30 (2000), 71-89 Farr, Michael, Tintin: The Complete Companion (London: Egmont, 2011) Flanell-Friedman, Donald, ‘A Medieval City as Underworld: George Rodenbach’s Bruges-la-Morte’, Romance Notes, 31/2 (Winter 1990), 99-104 Guyot-Bender, Martine, ‘Coding Japan: Amélie Nothomb’s and Alain Corneau’s Stupeur et tremblements’, Contemporary French and Francophone Studies, 9 (2005), 369-78 Hermans, Theo, ‘The Highs and Lows of Hendrik Conscience’, The Low Countries, 22 (2014), 162- 69, available online: https://dbnl.org/tekst/_low001201401_01/_low001201401_01_0021.php McCarthy, Tom, Tintin and the Secret of Literature (London: Granta, 2006) Mosley, Philip, ed., Georges Rodenbach: Critical Essays (Madison NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, 1996) Musée Hergé [site of the Hergé Museum in Louvain-la-Neuve; the English-language version can be selected from the homepage], http://www.museeherge.com/ Musschoot, Anne Marie, ‘The Revolution of the Sixties, 1960-1970’, in Hermans, ed., A Literary History of the Low Countries, pp. 603-23 Peeters, Benoît, ‘A Never Ending Trial: Hergé and the Second World War’, Rethinking History, 6 (2002), 261-72 Tisseron, Serge, ‘Family Secrets and Social Memory in Les Aventures de Tintin’, Yale French Studies, 102 (2002), 145-59 Van den Berg, Willem, ‘The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1880’, in Hermans, ed., A Literary History of the Low Countries, pp. 369-461