Many of the works we have examined yearn for a strong or vital relationship between self and place. With reference to work by TWO authors on the course syllabus, examine the geographical aspects of their work. What role does a sense of place or country play in their work? What about displacement, or a sense of being unable to locate yourself? Does writing depend on some connection with or disconnection from the land? How and why?

Write an essay of approximately 1800 words (6 typed, double-spaced pages) on ONE of the following topics. You must establish a clear, critically focused argument at the outset of your essay, and you must support your interpretation of the texts you have chosen with direct analysis of the language and structure of those texts. Think carefully about how to structure your essay comparatively.

All of the texts we have studied either include or describe various kinds of media technologies (such as newspapers, drawings, photographs, songs, laser measurements, social media). Compare and contrast the ways in which media and mediation are incorporated into the work of TWO of the writers on the course syllabus. How and why do literary texts include other mediums of communication?
Investigate the idea of belonging in the work of TWO of the writers on the course syllabus. How do these writers define what it means to belong in or to a family, a community, a country? What does it mean to be a “citizen”? How are people included in or excluded from meaningful connections to others?
Many of the texts on the course describe precarious bodies, often in physical peril. Discuss the depiction of corporeality in the work of TWO writers on the course syllabus. How and why do bodies come to matter? What exactly is a (human) body, for them?
Discuss the tensions between word and world in TWO authors on the course syllabus. How do the tactics and practices of representation—of well-crafted words standing for or standing in for aspects of “real life”—shape how we understand our place on the planet? What aspects of form or of style contribute to, or perhaps work against, the depiction of an actual, living world?
Many of the works we have examined yearn for a strong or vital relationship between self and place. With reference to work by TWO authors on the course syllabus, examine the geographical aspects of their work. What role does a sense of place or country play in their work? What about displacement, or a sense of being unable to locate yourself? Does writing depend on some connection with or disconnection from the land? How and why?
Investigate the presentation of gender in the work of TWO of the writers on the course syllabus. How is gender identity connected to agency or to empowerment in their texts? How do they re-think what constitutes or produces gender (such as masculinity or womanhood)?
BOOKS INVOLVED: (ANY 2): MS MARVEL by G WILLOW WILSON, LIVES OF GIRLS AND WOMEN by ALICE MUNRO, FINDINGS by KATHLEEN JAMIE, EAVAN BOLAND.

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