M.Phil. in Popular Literature: Trinity College Dublin

2006-05-31T14:54:00.000+01:00

M.PHIL. IN POPULAR LITERATURE

School of English, TCD

"Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong." - Oscar Wilde

Contemporary literary culture is built on a paradox: that which is most popular is that which critics value least. The novels of Dan Brown, Stephen King and Agatha Christie, for instance, have long attracted many more readers than the winners of prestigious prizes such as the IMPAC or Man Booker. When readers were asked to name their favourite book in a recent BBC poll, they placed Tolkein's Lord of the Rings at Number 1. And yet, such popular literature receives little critical attention, and wins few major prizes. How did this curious separation of popularity and value come about?

This course offers an opportunity for the advanced study of popular literature and its strange place within modern culture. It will trace the history of such popular genres as horror, science fiction, romance, and detective fiction, and offer a comprehensive introduction to contemporary theories of the popular. Participants will also choose from a range of specialist options on particular aspects of the popular, and study research methods. This M.Phil. will provide an invaluable base for those who wish to do further graduate study, but will also appeal to those who wish to develop their critical skills and knowledge in relation to an important aspect of contemporary culture.

The course is comprised of four elements:

A core course meeting twice a week for two hours, over two terms.
Option courses meeting once a week for two hours - participants will take one per term.
A research methods course.
A 15,000 word dissertation.

Option courses for the 2006/2007 session are: The Victorian Child, Cyberculture/Popular Culture: Theory and Practice, Lost Worlds: Victorian and Edwardian Fantasy Literature, Mapping the Myths of Mars

For further infomation on the core course, option courses, and other administrative details please click on the following link: http://poplitcourseoutline.blogspot.com/

Contact Details:

M.Phil. in Popular Literature
The School of English
Trinity College
Dublin 2
Ireland
Tel: +353-1-608-1111 Fax: +353-671-7114

Course Director:
Dr Darryl Jones, Room 4010, School of English, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland. Tel. +353-1-6081878 email: drjones@tcd.ie

2006-05-30T14:23:00.000+01:00

FEAR 2006

On 19 May 2006 the first annual conference in association with the MPhil in Popular literature was held at Trinity College. This one-day interdisciplinary conference sought to explore and engage in issues surrounding fear both as a subject matter and a tactic in popular culture and its varying discourses. Delegates' papers engaged in wide range of issues regarding the moral, social, political and psychological significance of fear.

Speakers included:

Professor Sir Christopher Frayling (Royal College of Art), Professor Frank Furedi (University of Kent), Mr Bill Durodié (Cranfield University), Mr Mark O'Sullivan (Author), Dr Ian Haywood (Roehampton University).

To learn more about the conference please visit:

http://fear-conference-2006.blogspot.com/

2006-04-13T14:32:00.000+01:00

CLASS EXCUSIONS

As well as in-class work, a number of class excusions are arranged for students throughout the year. In the 2005/2006 session, trips to Leap Castle in County Offaly and London were offered.

LEAP CASTLE

To get into the Christmas spirit of ghost-story telling, M.Phil students visited Leap Castle in December 2005. Widely regarded as the most haunted castle in Europe, Leap's turbulent and blood-soaked history is said to have left an indelible paranormal mark upon the building. Supposedly hosting an impressive roll-call of supernatural entities, the most famous of these ghosts is that simply called ‘The Elemental’, described thus in 1908 by the then lady-of-the-castle, Mildred Henrietta Gordon Darby:

"The Thing was about the size of a sheep, thin, gaunt and shadowy in parts. Its face was human, or to be more accurate, inhuman, in its vileness, with large holes of blackness for eyes, loose slobbery lips and a thick saliva-dripping jaw, sloping back suddenly into its neck. Nose it had none, only spreading cancerous cavities, the whole face being one uniform tint of grey. This too was the colour of the dark coarse hair covering its head, neck and body. Its forearms were thickly coated with the same hair, so were its paws, large, loose and hand-shaped; as it sat on its hind legs, one hand or paw was raised ready to scratch the paint. Its lustreless eyes, which seemed half decomposed in black cavities and looked incredibly foul, stared into mine, and the horrible smell which before had offended my nostrils, only a hundred times intensified, came up into my face, filling me with a deadly nausea. I noticed that the lower half of the creature was indefinite, and seemed semi-transparent – at least, I could see the framework of the door that led into the gallery through its body."

LONDON

In April 2006, staff and students from the M.Phil course went to London to sample the delights of its Victorian heritage, beverage, and literary associations. Visits to Highgate cemetery, Greenwich Observatory, Tate Britain's Gothic Nightmares exhibition, and the Sherlock Holmes Museum were organised as well as a night-time walking tour of Whitechapel, the scene of the Jack-the-Ripper murders in 1888. Staying in Hampsted, minutes away from the Heath (itself the setting for the opening of Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White), nearby attractions included 'The Spaniard's Inn', a tavern dating to the fifteenth century and a favourite watering hole of Byron, Shelley, and Dickens.

The Ten Bells Pub, Whitechapel

The new crimefighting duo

Highgate cemetery

Greenwich Observatory

Our Glorious Leader