Overview
This course examines literary representations of desire and pleasure as thematic, aesthetic, emotional, and political forces. Students study how poetry, fiction, drama, memoir, criticism, and digital forms represent longing, intimacy, fantasy, sensuality, restraint, consent, self-knowledge, and social belonging without reducing literary interpretation to plot or biography.
Through close reading and contextual research, students engage feminist, queer, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, reader-response, and formalist approaches. Attention is given to the desiring subject, the gaze, affect, eroticism, pleasure in reading, narrative identification, repression, ambiguity, transgression, and the relationship between private experience and public discourse. Students develop comparative arguments, engage respectfully with contested interpretations, and revise analytical writing for clarity and precision.
Learning Outcomes
- Define and apply major critical terms associated with literary representations of desire and pleasure.
- Analyse how literary form, genre, voice, imagery, structure, and narrative perspective shape representations of desire.
- Evaluate feminist, queer, psychoanalytic, postcolonial, reader-response, and formalist interpretations of selected texts.
- Compare culturally and historically distinct perspectives on intimacy, sensuality, restraint, consent, and social belonging.
- Construct nuanced interpretive claims supported by precise textual evidence and relevant contextual research.
- Synthesize theoretical approaches in comparative literary analysis or a creative-critical project.
- Revise analytical writing to improve conceptual clarity, evidential precision, structure, and scholarly style.
- Engage respectfully and critically with divergent interpretations of contested literary and cultural material.
Timetable
| Type | Length | Frequency | Period |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 2 hours | Weekly | All semester |
| Tutorial | 1 hour | Weekly | All semester |
| Workshop | 2 hours | Fortnightly | All semester |
Assessment Schedule
| Type | Description | Weighting |
|---|---|---|
| Assignment | Reading journal | 15.00% |
| Tutorial | Discussion leadership | 10.00% |
| Assignment | Close-reading analyses (2 × 15%) | 30.00% |
| Assignment | Theory-to-text application | 20.00% |
| Capstone | Comparative essay or creative-critical project | 25.00% |
Teaching Staff & Programs
This course is delivered jointly by faculty from the participating programs listed below. In line with the Douchewater Way, the University of Sexology tailors core instruction directly to each cohort's specific discipline — adapting curriculum to program needs rather than forcing students into a one-size-fits-all model. Learn more about our approach at The Douchewater Way.