​Close Reading, The University of Liverpool, 2010-2011

A first year undergraduate module that introduces the practice of close reading to new students. Ranging across time and format, this module aims to provide the interpretative and critical tools that would enable students to engage in nuanced readings of literature throughout their undergraduate course. The topics and forms covered include 'Medieval Lyrics', 'Sonnets', 'Dramatic Monologues', 'Poetry, Sense and Nonsense', 'Close Reading and Close Writing', 'Close Reading Crime Writing', 'Eighteenth-Century Prose', 'Romantic Prose' and 'Life-Writing'.

I led seminars and selected extracts from works such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, Browning's 'Porphyria's Lover', Fielding's Tom Jones, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'As Kingfishers Catch Fire', Leigh Brackett's The Long Goodbye, Suniti Namjoshi's 'Look, Medusa!', W.S. Merwin's 'Just This' and Ted Chiang's 'The Evolution of Human Science'.