IP2XX/IP3XX Desirous Imaginings: Friendship and Desire
Module Overview
Everyone knows what a “love story” is — but what other kinds of stories can we tell about closeness and connection?
This course asks: how do we define desire? When does friendship morph into another kind of desire? What role does friendship play as a force in literature? How do understandings of gender and sexuality define or blur the boundaries of friendship? Can relationships with non-human entities ever be considered friendships?
Interested in studying this module? Register using the Liberal Arts Optional Module Choice Form
Module aims:
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- identify and analyse key arguments in critical perspectives and theories
- evaluate how critical perspectives and theories could be used as building blocks to create your own arguments and develop essays based on these ideas
- develop a shorter piece of writing into a longer essay
- evaluate and refine structures of argument in written work
- identify and understand thematic continuities between texts
- analyse changes in the framing of the same concept across different works
- express how such changes reflect shifts in intellectual and cultural history
Module Leader:
Dr Kate Travers
Optional module
Term TBC | 10 weeks
15 CATS
2 hour workshop per week
Available to Year 2 and Year 3 students in the School for Cross-Faculty Studies, and Year 2 and Year 3 external students.
Please note: Module availability and staffing may change year on year depending on availability and other operational factors. The School for Cross-Faculty Studies makes no guarantee that any modules will be offered in a particular year, or that they will necessarily be taught by the staff listed on these pages
Example syllabus:
Please note that this syllabus is purely indicative, and that actual module content may differ.
- Introduction to Desire and Friendship
- Love, Friendship, and Desire
- Difference and Sameness in Friendship
- Desire and Life Writing
- Friends and Frenemies
- The Sonnet, or: When is a Love Poem Not a Love Poem?
- Modern Desire: Animal Companions
- Queer Desire
- Friendship and Childhood
- Assessment Support
Assessments:
There are three assessments on this module:
| Assessment | Weighting | Description |
| Participation and Preparation | 10% | Contribution to learning activities |
| Portfolio | 30% | Responses to tasks |
| Research Project | 60% | Essay or podcast |
Illustrative reading list:
- Aciman, André. 2008. Call Me By Your Name. New York: Picador.
- Aristotle. 2020. Nicomachean Ethics. Edited by Sarah Broadie. Edited and Translated by Christopher Rowe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Augustine. 2014.Confessions: Volume I, Books 1-8. Edited and translated by Carolyn J. – B. Hammond. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Baldwin, James. 2013. Giovanni’s Room. New York: Vintage.Cicero, Marcus Tullius. 2018. How to Be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to Friendship. Translated by Philip Freedman. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Dante. 1992. Vita Nuova. Translated by Mark Musa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Dante. 2018. Inferno. Digital Dante. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries.
- Dante. 2018. Purgatorio. Digital Dante. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries.
- Ferrante, Elena. 2012. My Brilliant Friend. Translated by Anne Goldstein. New York: Europa Editions.
- hooks, bell. 2001.All About Love: New Visions.New York: William Morrow.
- Petrarch. Canzoniere. Selections.
- Shakespeare. Sonnets. Selections.
- Woolf, Virginia. 2017. Flush. London: Penguin.