Cardiff was awarded city status in 1905 when at its peak as a conduit for Welsh industrial exports. In recent years, Cardiff city centre has been altered beyond recognition with new commercial and residential developments at every turn. What does it mean to live in a city that has been reinvented, culturally, socially and aesthetically? And what does that reinvention do to the cultural imagination? This course will explore the way Cardiff has been imagined over the last century through literary texts, tracing the shifts in architectural regeneration and renewal, as well as recurring themes of loss, dispossession and disintegration.

• Read literature in a critical, reflective manner.
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the ways Cardiff has been imagined and constructed in literary texts.
• Use information from class and independent reading to construct an academically-sound argument.
• Compose coherent and well-structured essays and other assignments.

The module will be delivered through ten 2-hour sessions, made up of lectures, class discussions, small group work and debates. Class sessions will be supplemented by resources available to students via Learning Central.

• The ability to communicate ideas and arguments effectively, whether in class discussion or in written form
• The ability to work effectively with others in groups and to learn collaboratively through discussion and interaction
• The ability to think critically, analyse texts and ideas, evaluate arguments, and challenge assumptions.
• The ability to formulate and justify arguments and conclusions and present appropriate supporting evidence
• The ability to locate relevant resources in the library and online and use them appropriately in academic work
• The ability to use a range of information technology resources to assist with information retrieval and assignment presentation
• The ability to independently organise study methods, manage time effectively, and prioritise workload to meet deadlines

Formative assessment / feedback will occur on a weekly basis through class discussion and group work.

Type of assessment  % Contribution Title Duration (if applicable) Approx. date of Assessment  Submission

Assignment 1             30%  Exact nature of task will vary from year to year   300 words   Week 5

Assignment 2 (Close analysis)  70%    Exact nature of task will vary from year to year  1200 words 1-2 weeks after course completion

Topics to be discussed include:

• Cardiff and Poetry: selection (copies provided)
• Autobiography, Memory and Place: There was a Young Man from Cardiff
• Splott on the Landscape: Yesterday in the Back Lane
• Capital Crime: Cardiff Dead
• Immigration and Education: Gifted
• Walking the Streets: Cardiff Cut
• Regeneration and re-imagining the city: selection of short stories (to be provided)

Primary Texts

Abse, Dannie, There was a Young Man from Cardiff *Bridgend: Seren, 1991)

Finch, Peter, and Grahame Davies, The Big Book of Cardiff (Bridgend: Seren, 2005)

Nalwani, Nikita, Gifted (London: Viking, 2007)

Robson, Lloyd, Cardiff Cut (Cardigan: Parthian, 2001)

Rubens, Bernice, Yesterday in the back lane (London: Little, Brown and Company 1995)

Williams, John Cardiff Dead (London: Bloomsbury, 2000)

Secondary Reading

Aaron, Jane and Chris Williams, eds. Postcolonial Wales. University of Wales Press, 2005.

Anderson, Jon, ‘Towards an Assemblage Approach to Literary Geography’, Literary Geographies 1.2 (2016), 120-137.

Andrew, Lucy, and Catherine Phelps, eds. Crime Fiction in the City: Capital Crimes. University of Wales Press, 2013.

Carter, Erica, James Donald and Judith Squires, eds. Space and Place: Theories of Identity and Location. Lawrence and Wishart, 1993.

Edwards, Sarah, and Jonathan Charley, eds. Writing the modern city: Literature, architecture, modernity. Routledge, 2012.