Head of School co-publishes book on new approaches to literature

This book unpacks recent changes in the landscape of literature and language teaching, and aims to find new explanations for the altered relationships between readers and writers, the democratisation of authorship, and the emergence of new ways of using language. By examining topics as various as literature and technology, multimodality, and new Englishes, the authors take a fresh look at the use of literature as a tool in the teaching of English to second language speakers. More than simply a way of teaching aesthetic and ethical values and rhetorical skills, they argue that literature can also be used to help students to critically evaluate assumptions about society, culture and power which underpin the production and reception of texts. The book relates theories of language acquisition and literary criticism to examples of literary texts from a wide range of global literature in English, and discusses new ways of engaging with it, such as transmedia story telling, book blogs and slam poetry. It will be of interest to language teachers and teacher trainers, and to students and scholars of applied linguistics, TESOL, and digital literacies.

 

About the authors: 
Jeneen Naji is a member of Digital Media Faculty in the Department of Media Studies in Maynooth University, Ireland. 

Ganakumaran Subramaniam is the Head of School and Professor at the School of Education, University of Nottingham Malaysia. He holds a B.Ed. from Universiti Putra Malaysia and read for his Masters of Arts and Ph.D. in the University of Nottingham, UK. Prof. Gana is a Fulbright Scholar with attachments in New York city, Washington, D.C and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Currently he is the Head of School and Associate Professor at the School of Education, University of Nottingham, Malaysia campus. He is also the Executive Director of the Bangladesh College Education Development Project, which aims at improving the quality and standards of the higher education sector in Bangladesh. Before joining the University of Nottingham, he was Deputy Director of International Relations at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. He is the President of the Malaysian English Language Teaching Association and Vice President of AsiaTEFL. He advises on panels with the National Curriculum Development Division, the National Trust School programme, the National Teaching English Language and Literacy programme and Textbook Division. In 2012, he was appointed to the National Council of English Language Standards and Quality.

Goodith White retired as Director of the Applied Language Centre, University College Dublin, Ireland in 2015, and is currently Senior Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham Malaysia. 

It is available for sale from Palgrave Macmillan through this link.