Università Roma Tre

Language, Culture and Institutions of the English Speaking Countries
Professor Tania Zulli
A.A. 2018/19
8 C.F.U.

Valid for all Undergraduate Courses
Classes start on 11th March 2019

3 modules-compulsory-8 CFU

Timetable:



To give the exam, students MUST enrol on the “Portale dello studente”.
When coming to register the mark, students will have to hand a certificate attesting that they have passed the test at CLA.
This syllabus is valid till February 2020.
Students are highly recommended to read the files PROGRAM and FAQ_COURSE_2018-19 before getting in touch with questions about the course.

Attending students:

- Peter May, Compact First. Second Edition, Student’s Book Pack with answers, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
- Tania Zulli, Amy Foster, Venezia, Marsilio, 2018.
- Tania Zulli, Joseph Conrad: Language and Transnationalism, Chieti, Solfanelli, 2019.



Non-attending students:

- Peter May, Compact First. Second Edition, Student’s Book Pack with answers, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
- Tania Zulli, Amy Foster, Venezia, Marsilio, 2018.
- Tania Zulli, Joseph Conrad: Language and Transnationalism, Chieti, Solfanelli, 2019.










SYLLABUS 2018-2019

“JOSEPH CONRAD AND THE TRANSNATIONAL: MIGRATION, CULTURE AND LANGUAGE”

1° module: English Grammar: Learning the language
Classes will focus on the study of English grammar, vocabulary, as well as reading, writing, listening, and speaking.


2° module: Joseph Conrad
Conrad’s fiction will be analyzed in a transnational perspective, not only by focusing on his well-known biographical condition of émigre which certainly invites to an international approach, but mainly considering the many practices of cultural negotiation characterizing his narrative. In order to show this multiplicity of literary and linguistic effects, we will make a comparative analysis of Conrad’s prose and the works of other writers, both European and non-European. Conrad is a British writer whose Polish origins and solid European literary culture influenced and shaped both the content and the language of his works. Several idioms are present in his narrative: English as the official language of novel writing, French and Polish as the languages that influenced the structure and word choice of his fiction, the colonial languages introduced in his African and Malay novels. This linguistic variety conveys a multiplicity of cultural viewpoints that has been transposed in Conrad’s works accounting for his status of cosmopolitan writer.

3° module: “Amy Foster”
Differently from other works written by Conrad, which concentrate on the social, political and cultural implications of the ‘adventure of colonization’, Amy Foster concentrates on the ‘adventure of migration’, apparently less cruel, but equally tragic in its representation of mass movements, hostility and solitude. The topic is introduced under a double perspective, the plural vision of mass migration — the protagonist’s journey on trains and ships crowded with people is skillfully reported by Dr Kennedy as Yanko’s own story — and the individual view of the emigrant, the single man fighting to change his life.
Exclusion, adaptation, and the difficulty of communication will be analyzed in order to detect the many links of the story to today’s contemporary reality of migration.


Attending students:

Exemption Test
The Exemption Test for attending students takes place at the end of the course and is exclusively addressed to the students who have attended classes. It is made up of multiple choice exercises (module 1: grammar) plus 3 open questions (modules 2 and 3: literature and culture). Further details will be given by the teacher in class.


Oral Exam
Attending students who would like to improve their written mark may give an Oral Exam in one of the three available sessions (i.e. January/February, June/July, September). The exam will be on the topics analysed during the course (both grammar and literature/culture). Further details will be given by the teacher in class.
Depending on the oral performance, the initial mark may either increase or decrease.


N.B. Access to the Oral Exam is only possible after passing both the CLA and Exemption tests. When registering the mark (during one of the oral sessions) students will have to present a document attesting that they have passed the test at CLA. Enrolment on the “Portale dello studente” is compulsory.


Non attending students:

Written Exam
The Written Exam is made up of multiple choice exercises (module 1: grammar) plus 3 open questions (modules 2 and 3: literature and culture). Questions will focus on the programme for non-attending students.


Oral Exam
Non-attending students who would like to improve their written mark may give an Oral Exam in one of the three available sessions (i.e. January/February, June/July, September). The exam will focus on the topics of the programme for non-attending students (both grammar and literature/culture).
Depending on the oral performance, the initial mark may either increase or decrease.


N.B. Access to the Oral Exam is only possible after passing both the CLA and Written tests. When registering the mark (during one of the oral sessions) students will have to present a document attesting that they have passed the test at CLA. Enrolment on the “Portale dello studente” is compulsory.

- Peter May, Compact First. Second Edition, Student’s Book Pack with answers, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
- Tania Zulli, Amy Foster, Venezia, Marsilio, 2018.
- Tania Zulli, Joseph Conrad: Language and Transnationalism, Chieti, Solfanelli, 2019.

First module: English grammar: Learning the Language
The first module deals with some of the main grammar and morpho-syntactic structures of the English language. The language skills acquired by the students will be assessed at the end of the course through the 'Prova di esonero'.

Second module: Afrofuturism: Literature, Music, Cinema
Afrofuturism is an interdisciplinary cultural movement that rejects a number of clichés that have commonly referred to people of African descent. At a first glance, Afrofuturism may sound like an oxymoron. “Afro” and “Futurism” are likely to be considered as terms in opposition, the former evoking images of primitivism and backwardness, the latter – ever since F. T. Marinetti’s definition in 1909 – celebrating instead speed and modernity. The creative contribution of Afrofuturist writers, musicians, artists, filmmakers and critics challenges the stereotypical historical view routinely applied to the Black Atlantic experience and proposes counter-histories that reconsider the role of black people in the western society in the past and imagine alternative roles in the future. The module focuses on the different languages of Afrofuturism: music, visual arts, cinema and especially literature − proto-Afrofuturist fiction such as W.E.B. Du Bois’s short story “The Comet” (1920), George S. Schuyler’s novel Black No More (1931) and more recent examples such as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) and Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred (1979). The reference material includes works of fiction, critical essays and audiovisual material.

For students attending classes:
- Adriano Elia, La Cometa di W.E.B. Du Bois, Roma, RomaTrE-Press, 2015.
Further reference material will be given during the course (see References below).

For students not attending classes:
- R. Ambrosini, A. Rutt, A. Elia, The UK: Learning the Language, Studying the Culture, Roma, Carocci, 2008 (2005).
- N. McNaughton, Understanding British and European Political Issues, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2010 (2003).
- A. Hunt, B. Wheeler, “Brexit: All you need to know about the UK leaving the EU”, BBC News, 5 September 2017
(available here: https://scienzepolitiche-uniroma3-it.mirror.uniroma3.it/aelia/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2009/11/Brexit.pdf).
- English Grammar 2019-20
(available here: https://scienzepolitiche-uniroma3-it.mirror.uniroma3.it/aelia/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/09/English-Grammar-2019_20.pdf).