Course syllabus for Fiction for engineers

The course aims to promote and enhance the creative and argumentative strengths of engineering students through relatively advanced studies of literature in English. The literature is often inspired by the perspective of engineering as well as science and technology in a broad sense in relation to the surrounding society. The course also introduces alternative ways of thinking and values and the discussion of of the role of art and literature in society.

The course is one of the courses in the MTS cluster and meets the guidelines of the MTS requirements mainly by emphasising different epistemological and ethocal perspectives and different world views and values as they are placed in relief in the course literature and relate to the readers' educational contexts or their future professional contexts. The role and development of technology and science in a broad sense during the 20th and 21st centuries is discussed in novels by authors with a science or technology orientation whose novels tend to set potentially conflicting values against each other. The implicit views of science and technology can be posed against each other in for instance a novel set in a dystopian future or in a novel exploring the advances of modern medicine. Alternatively, the role and function of technology and science in shaping societies or forming social structures is explored via novels from different eras or from different parts of the world. All these seminar discussions are pursued by students and documented in their reflective learning journals. The reflective documentation is subsequently used in assessment.

Analyse literary text and construct an argumentative interpretation of literature that is meaningful outside the immediate context of the course.

Effectively and appropriately use narratological terminology to promote analysis and interpretation.

Explore ways in which fiction comments on the man-technology-society nexus.

In the course, approximately seven novels or plays and poetry are discussed and compared in a student-oriented seminar. There are also elements of creative writing to inform discussions and analyses. The seminar discussions cover literary schools, narratology, reading strategies, and literary theory.

Three-hour-seminars once a week. Some seminars are conducted asynchronously online in canvas, zoom, or a blog.

The literature for the fall-run 2019:

Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

Jenny Diski. Only Human

Ian McEwan. Saturday

Jean Rhys. Wide Sargasso Sea

Tom Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Jeanette Winterson. The Stone Gods

Additional material, particularly poetry, is distributed during seminars or through the course web site.

If appropriate, the literature for 'One Book, One Chalmers' is also used in the course

All the titles will be ordered at Store.

Graded assessment (fail, 3-5) based on all the assignments of the course (seminar preparations, journal, and term paper) where the student makes a selection of assignments and presents a learning portfolio for final assessment. An oral exam can be conducted to add or complement it for a higher pass.