Click here to download a list of undergraduate cross-listed units of study.
Please check cross-listing options before enrolling as some Departments place a cap on the number of ICLS units that may be cross-listed towards their major.
The information displayed above is indicative only as online information is subject to change without notice. The Faculty Handbook and the University of Sydney Calendar are the official legal source of information relating to study at the University of Sydney
Undergraduate Units of Study in ICLS are offered on a rotating basis. One Unit from each of the three thematic groups listed below is offered every year.
1. Great Books ICLS 2624: Great Books 1: The Human Condition ICLS 2636: Great Books 2: Innovations, Inspirations ICLS 2622: Great Books 3: The Twentieth Century These Units of Study introduce students to works of literature that have become canonical either through their particular treatment of the human condition, or because they are innovative or inspirational in some way. The twentieth century is treated separately as a particularly rich period in the world history of literary innovation.
2. Literature and Society ICLS 2621: Love in Different Languages ICLS 2633: Cities of the World ICLS 2634: Literature and Revolution These Units of Study look at how questions of society, history, culture and politics have been framed within literature from different traditions at different periods of time. It looks at the mainstream and the marginal, the visionary and mythical and the terre à terre, stories of hope and stories of loss.
3. Literary Genres, Movements and Styles ICLS 2626: Words and Pictures Across Cultures ICLS 2631: Popular Fiction and Culture ICLS 2635: Science Fiction: The Future is Now ICLS 2637: Film Adaptations and the Star System
4. Theorising Literature Across Cultures These units, while open to all Senior students enrolled in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, are designated "Special Entry" for intending Honours students, who must complete at least one of them for admission into fourth year. ICLS 3630: Comparative Sociology of Literature (available in 2010) ICLS 3631: Defining 'Literature' Crossculturally (available in 2011)
These Units of Study explore particular aspects of literary production from an international and comparative perspective: techniques, genres and schools of thought. Some focus on a particular period in literary history or a particular movement while others traverse time and encompass a range of literary debates.
Additional units of study
In addition to the units of study listed above, the following units may also be offered in future years.
ICLS2603 Literary Change and Innovation
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission by the .
This unit aims to study modernity as a trans-national European and Asian phenomenon, by combining historical and cultural analyses with methodologies relevant to the study of cross-cultural literary interaction. Focusing on a selection of literary texts from a variety of national literatures, it will compare a number of different manifestations and responses to the challenges of modernity and will examine the ideological and aesthetic assumptions implicit in literary change.
ICLS2622 Great Books of the 20th Century
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission by the .
What are the great works of literature of the 20th century? How does history leave its marks on them? This unit introduces some exemplary literary works translated into English from Asian and European languages. It studies them in the context of world history, national literatures and different narrative traditions.
ICLS2634 Literature and Revolution
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission by the .
This unit surveys the connection between literature and revolution by investigating the ways in which literary texts and movements across the world have influenced radical responses to the status quo, questioning, and provoking a re-conceptualisation of prevailing values and traditions. But how and when do literary experiments become revolutionary? Are they the same in different cultures? Could a pattern of synergies connecting literary with political and social revolutions emerge from a historical as well as cross-cultural investigation? This unit can be cross-listed with (counting for a major in) English.
ICLS2635 Science Fiction: The Future is Now
Prerequisites: At least 18 junior credit points from part A of the table of units of study, of which 12 credit points are from one subject; or special permission by the .
Science Fiction is one of the most interesting explorations of human future. Yet it addresses a number of social, political and existential issues that refer to the present: dilemmas, phobias and hopes of a world traumatised by war, disease and internal contradictions. Through the comparative study of novels and movies, this unit explores how the future, from a promised land of a great utopia, has become the dreadful exile into a dark dystopia.