Take-Home Exam & Essay Topics & Instructions

ICLS2633-Cities of the World

ESSAY INSTRUCTIONS (Please read the instructions carefully)

For your first essay (to be submitted in WEEK 8), you will answer one of questions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 16, 17.

For your second essay (to be submitted by WEEK 13), you will answer one of questions from 1 to 16.

Remember that you CANNOT write both your essays on the same Module or/and title/topic.

Your Essays also must have different topics (and based on a different Module) from your Presentation.

Your Essays must be analytical, use evidence effectively, structured logically and written in good academic style.

You must demonstrate you have read and understood the Required Readings and primary texts (i.e. short stories, novels, films, poems etc) studied in class.

Between 5 and 10 suitable secondary sources (i.e. scholarly articles, scholarly chapters, scholarly books) must be critically and appropriately used to support your argument (see Reading List).

In your Essay you must demonstrate some ability to make connections with themes and issues discussed in the other Modules of the unit.

Indicate the Reference Style. you have adopted in your essay (i.e. MLA, Chicago, Harvard etc). You must reference and acknowledge ALL your sources clearly, consistently and appropriately.

Word length for each essay: 2500wd (including Reference List, quotations and footnotes)

Upon submission, you may be required to attend a brief discussion with teaching staf to verify your work. This may include: explaining your thesis development process, discussing why you chose particular sources or arguments, elaborating on specific points from your essay, or connecting your argument to broader unit concepts. These discussions aim to confirm your authentic engagement with the assignment. If contacted by your tutor or coordinator you will be required to attend the meeting. Your essay won't be marked until meeting has happened.

Module 1: Naples

Q1. Discuss how Anna Maria Ortese’s unique literary style. shape the representation of ordinary experiences, social realities, and urban spaces. In what ways does her poetic vision challenge conventional depictions of Naples and offer alternative ways of seeing the city and its inhabitants?

Q2. Explore how Anna Maria Ortese’s stories narrate the interplay between interior and exterior spaces, and between the private and public spheres. How are these spatial and social boundaries connected in her writing, and what perceptions of Naples emerge through these relationships?

Q3. For Erri De Luca, Naples is a body “shaped by the multitudes, by the substratum, tried and retried and discovered to be greater than the attempt” (in Napòlide). How does De Luca’s portrayal of Naples in his novel reflect the city's layered social and historical complexity? Bring clear examples from the main text and discuss them with relevant secondary sources.

Q4. Discuss how Erri De Luca's vision of Naples informs his novel’s exploration of resistance and coming-of-age. How do the city’s layered histories, its marginal spaces, and its enduring spirit of defiance shape the protagonist’s journey toward self-discovery and moral awakening?

Q5. “Naples has always presented itself to those who desire to master it through discourse as a labyrinth whose secret resists being uncovered, as chaos of contradictions that refuses to be overcome” (P. D’Acierno, 2019). Discuss how Naples is experienced and represented as a city of secrets, contrasts, and paradoxes in the texts studied in class. How do these representations shape the narrative tone, the characters’ perspectives, and the broader cultural or historical understanding of the city?

Module 2: Beijing

Q6. Using Reginald F. Johnston’s Twilight in the Forbidden City and the visual materials from Week 6, discuss how the spatial and ceremonial structure of the Forbidden City embodies imperial authority and social hierarchy.

Q7. Examine how the early Republican period is portrayed in Twilight in the Forbidden City and the TV series The Age ofAwakening. How do these sources represent the transformation of Beijing into a hub of political and intellectual ferment?

Q8. In Lin Yutang’s Moment in Peking (Book III), how are the values of loyalty, family, and moral integrity tested during the Japanese invasion? Discuss how the novel uses elite characters to   reflect broader cultural and national dilemmas in wartime Beijing.

Q9. Drawing on Lin Hai-yin’s Memories of Peking and Harriet Evans’ Beijing from Below, analyse how personal recollection and ethnographic narrative capture the lives of ordinary citizens in Beijing. How do these texts represent cultural memory, childhood, gender, and urban marginality in a rapidly changing city?

Q10. Compare representations of Beijing in at least two texts studied in this module. How do these works construct or deconstruct the identity of Beijing across imperial, Republican, and post- Mao contexts?

Module 3: Buenos Aires

Q11. In one of Jorge Luis Borges’s  most famous poems, The Mythical Foundaing of Buenos Aires, the Argentine writer says “ Hard to believe Buenos Aires had any beginning/I feel it to be as eternal as air and water”. Contrast this nostalgic image of the city with the distinctive urban landscape emerging from the contemporary texts studied in class.

Q12. Discuss how myth, history and fiction enter the textual versions of the city created by Jorge Luis Borges and Manuel Mujica Láinez, and compare them with the dystopian world of The Eternaut.

Q13. Explore the theme of violence in relation to Buenos Aires’ urban and social transformation as depicted in texts studied in weeks 11, 12 and/or 13.  Draw comparisons between texts to substantiate your arguments.

Q14. Discuss how the city and literature are intertwined in the plot of Death and the Canoe by Claudia Piñeiro and The Merman by Samanta Schweblin by reflecting on how these enter in an intertextual dialogue with the works of Borges and Mujica Láinez.

Q15. Analyse how two texts of your choice from modules 10, 11, 12 or 13 use the city of Buenos Aires as a critical backdrop, shaping both the narrative and thematic elements of their respective plots. How do these depictions reflect broader cultural or societal commentaries inherent in Argentine literature?

Further questions for Final Essay

Q16. Discuss how notions and experiences of centre and periphery, inclusion and exclusion are documented or fictionalised in relation to two of the cities you have studied in this unit.

Q17. How do the quotidian and the ordinary define modern life and the modern subject in the city? Explain with reference to two cities studied in class.