English Language & Communication and History BA (Hons)

About the course

English Language & Communication

Where language comes from and how people use it is one of the big debates of our time. This subject looks at how the English language works, how we use it to communicate, how we acquire it in the first place, and how it varies according to social factors. The modules make extensive use of web based resources such as interactive exercises.

In the first year you explore language in use, in face-to-face communication and in the media, as well as looking at the role of English in the world. You will develop skills of grammatical analysis and explore questions like: Are humans the only species to use language? What does the language of stroke patients tell us about language and the brain? Does the way we speak influence the way we think?

History

The University of Hertfordshire has an international reputation for the quality of its research in history. History is one of the largest subject areas on the Humanities Programme. This means we can offer you a very wide choice of modules, focusing on the political, social and cultural history of the period since 1500. From the outset you are taught how to analyse historical text and to engage with the wide variety of interpretations historians offer us of the past. These are the historian's central skills and the modules you undertake in your second and third years are designed to develop these further.

Why choose this course?

English Language & Communication focuses on the English language itself, on how it is used to communicate, and on how we can teach it as a foreign language.

History undergraduates are taught by leading researchers who bring their evidence and investigations into the classroom.

Study routes

• Sandwich, 4 Years
• Full Time, 3 Years

Locations

• University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield

Careers

Our graduates have an excellent record of gaining employment in media, publishing, teaching and information management where their skills in analysis, communication and evaluation are highly valued. Many of our graduates go on to higher levels of study engaging in research in their chosen fields. Whatever your future career plans, what is important to your potential employers is the range of intellectual, transferable, personal skills and experience you have gained and can demonstrate. We ensure our programmes are relevant to the world of work through active links with regional employers across a range of industries and professions.

Teaching methods

The precise method of teaching varies according to each module. Most are taught via weekly lectures and weekly seminars. You may be asked to work with fellow students and produce some group work together. Sometimes you will have to present the findings of your research to your fellow students in the seminars. You will be expected to contribute to on-line discussions and to download and read lecture notes from StudyNet, our virtual learning environment.

Work Placement

You can choose to study for a year in North America or Europe through the SOCRATES-ERASMUS exchange programme during the second or third year of the degree. In some cases, you may be able to graduate with a degree from your partner university as well as from Hertfordshire. You may be eligible for a grant if you meet certain conditions.

Professional Accreditations

None

Structure

Year 1

Core Modules

• Engaging With The Humanities

  This module will give students in the School of Humanities the opportunity to develop a shared skill-set to enable them to thrive in their university academic environment. The content of the module is designed to foster a sense of community within the student cohort and an appreciation of the culture and history of Hertfordshire. This is a year-long module and students will meet with their personal tutor at regular intervals. They will research, discuss and write and/or present about a broad range of topics e.g. local history, literature, philosophy and other culture based themes and/or events. Students will also work on tasks designed to familiarise themselves with the resources offered by Information Hertfordshire.

Optional

• Acting: Text and Character

  In Acting: Text and Character you will be introduced to a variety of techniques and methods for creating character, for example: Stanislavski, Lee Strasburg and Mike Leigh. You will apply the theories you learn in practical acting workshops to a variety of texts. You will explore work on character development and role play and you will gain experience of working in the video studio. Group work is an important aspect of this module and you will spend time discovering ways you can contribute to a group and analyse how groups work effectively. You will be asked to analyse screen performances and you will be encouraged to critically appraise on screen and live performances. You will be asked to perform both text based and improvised scenes to your peer group at different stages during the module and to offer feedback to your peers. The practical nature of the module demands that you contribute fully to the taught sessions and that you read widely from the body of contemporary theoretical and plays texts.

• American History c1600-1850 B

  This module examines the development of American society between the 17th and 19th centuries, tracing its evolution from colonial origins to its emergence as an independent state. It seeks in particular to answer four key questions. First, what were the origins of the different colonies and how did these affect the nature and character of immigration? Second, what factors affected the economic development of the colonies, and what was their role in the transatlantic economy and in the British Industrial Revolution? Third, what was the impact of European settlements on native Indians and could European settlers and Indians have co-existed? Finally, how did the colonies develop an American 'identity'?

• Becoming a Writer

  This module is a practice-based course, taught by weekly two-hour workshop. Building on the study of the short story begun on 'The Writer's Art', the module will explore diverse examples of this genre from the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Writers chosen for study will vary from year to year but might include work by Kazuo Ishiguro, Raymond Carver, Angela Carter, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy and Henry James. The stories will be used as the basis for workshop discussion and activities including close analysis of literary techniques. You will be encouraged to develop your own creative writing through a portfolio of on-going work and by working towards the completion of your own short story.

• Britons: Who do we think they are? B

  This module asks why life in modern Britain takes the forms that it does. It encourages students to probe beneath the surface of today's society through examining the historical processes that have shaped everyday behaviour, economic relations and political institutions. Topics for discussion are selected either because they resonate with contemporary debates (e.g. around binge drinking, immigration, wind farms, rights to vote, overseas wars) or because they are taken for granted (e.g. features of the English landscape, the royal family, the financial power of the City of London).

• English Heritage, 1500-1900

  This module explores the historical origins of the modern heritage industry and offers a general introduction to its principles and practices. You will investigate the way in which key people, places and events covered in the companion module, English History 1500-1900, have been preserved, interpreted and presented to the public during the twentieth century. The work of leading heritage bodies in Britain, such as the British Museum, English Heritage and the National Trust, will be set in an international context and you will also be introduced to theoretical critiques that have arisen in response to the development of the heritage industry. The last section of the module comprises case studies of heritage in action, focusing on the city of St Albans.

• English History c 1500-1900 A

  This module investigates the history of England from 1500-1900 and aims to acquaint students with the broad social, political and economic contours of the period. Broadly thematic periods, such as the Tudors and the Reformation, the Stuarts and the British Civil War, the Hanoverian Succession and the reign of Queen Victoria, are discussed first in terms of their politics, then in terms of the broad social and economic history of the period, and finally, with particular reference to the plight of the poor. By these means, it is intended that the course will provide a rounded appreciation of British society across 400 turbulent years.

• French Route A - 4a

  This module will enable students to communicate in French at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about themselves and their daily life, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• French Route A - 4b

  This module will enable students to communicate further in French at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about past and forthcoming events, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• French Route B - 4a

  This module broadens and consolidates the students’ competence in French. Students will learn to talk about student life and travel, carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including, for example, video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• French Route B - 4b

  This module broadens and consolidates the students’ competence in French. Students will learn to talk about student life and travel, carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including, for example, video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• French Route C - 4a

  Emphasis will be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of French. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student’s linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex French. The course will be based on selected, complex carefully graded texts, online and audiovisual materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through StudyNet. Typical themes of study will focus on social, economic and cultural issues. Student will be expected to take part in discussions on the various topics studied.

• French Route C - 4b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of French. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student's linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex French. The module will be based on selected, more complex carefully graded texts and materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through Studynet. Students will participate in discussions on a variety of topics focusing on cultural issues, tourism and the world of work

• German Route A - 4a

  This module will enable students to communicate in German at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about themselves and their daily life, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• German Route A - 4b

  This module will enable students to communicate further in German at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about past and forthcoming events, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• German Route B - 4a

  This module broadens and consolidates the students’ competence in German. Students will learn to talk about student life and travel, carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including, for example, video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• German Route B - 4b

  This module will extend the students’ competence in German through the introduction of more advanced language structures. Students will learn to discuss work and future plans, studying and living abroad. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line TV news items, blogs and magazine websites.

• German Route C - 4a

  Emphasis will be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of German. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student’s linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex German. The course will be based on selected, complex carefully graded texts, online and audiovisual materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through StudyNet. Typical themes of study will focus on social, economic and cultural issues. Student will be expected to take part in discussions on the various topics studied.

• German Route C - 4b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of German. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student's linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex German. The module will be based on selected, more complex carefully graded texts and materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through Studynet. Students will participate in discussions on a variety of topics focusing on cultural issues, tourism and the world of work.

• Grammar and Phonology for Overseas Learners

  The module will be divided into two equal halves. It will begin with a self-assessment of your explicit grammatical knowledge, which it is acknowledged may range from very little to advanced. The majority of the first half of the module will be devoted to workshops in which you will work on specific aspects of English grammar, working in reference to a clearly prescribed mid-module in-class test: it will be your responsibility to use all resources to which you are directed by the tutor to ensure that you are capable of passing this assessment. The pattern will be repeated for the second half of the module, in terms of phonology.

• Graphics for the Web

  This module provides students with computing and communication skills which will form a basis for future study in New Media Publishing. The module is appropriate for students with little computing experience but it also provides those with prior knowledge with the opportunity of enhancing and extending that knowledge. The module content includes- -the production of a number of images using a graphics package; -the consideration of design issues; -the consideration of the way in which images convey ideas; -the restrictions and potential of using graphics on the Web; -the planning and evaluation of a graphics project.

• Introduction to English Language Teaching

  This module will introduce you to the ELT field, and begin a process of learning about language that proceeds through the whole set of ELT courses. Topics include the grammatical structures of English; the phonemes of English; methodologies of ELT, past and present; current professional practice; introspective enquiries into language learning.

• Introduction to Film Criticism

  This module introduces students to the close analysis of film texts. Students will engage critically with how meaning is communicated through film and how film texts work. Students will be introduced to some of the key moments in cinema history, from the Hollywood system in the first part of the twentieth century, through German Expressionism, Russian Formalism and to the New Hollywood of the 1970s. The module will equip students with an historical awareness of film and with the ability to critically analyse the technical innovations. Students will have a knowledge and understanding of some of the historical, theoretical and technological issues involved in the study of film and some of the ways in which film texts interact with wider cultural, historical, and political contexts.

• Introduction to Film Theory

  The module will introduce students to the study of film from key theoretical perspectives. It will explore some of the core ways in which theorists have approached the study of film. These include auteur theory, genre, psychoanalysis, feminism, mass cultural theory, screen theory and negotiations of realism. The module aims to allow students to gain an understanding of some of the theoretical and methodological issues involved in the study of film; to develop their ability in the analysis of form and content of particular films and to consider the way in which film interacts with wider cultural, historical and political contexts. Building on the critical work from Semester A, students will consider the interconnections and variants of film criticism and theory. They will also test the application and applicability of paradigmatic theoretical approaches from Film Studies (across its history) to works of cinema both classical and contemporary.

• Introduction to Literary Studies 1

  This introductory module is designed to give you an insight into some of the key elements of modern literary studies. Focusing on the nineteenth century you will be introduced to some of the major forms, genres and techniques of nineteenth century fiction (novels and short stories), poetry and non-fiction prose. The texts will include work by so-called `classic authors who have remained part of the literary canon, but also writers who have fallen from view and are now being rediscovered and re-evaluated. The module will explore the relations between the set texts and the wider cultural and intellectual history of the period, thereby encouraging you to explore the ways in which literary works can read in different contexts and from a range of perspectives. In doing so, we will consider range of issues which informed and shaped nineteenth-century writing (for example, industrialisation, 'Woman Question', urbanization, religion, crime, science, the British empire). Authors studied may include Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

• Introduction to Literary Studies 2

  Building on the work done in Semester A's Introduction to Literary Studies 1, this module is designed to develop further your knowledge of nineteenth and early twentieth century literature. We look at the second half of the nineteenth century and the transition from the Victorian to modern age by reading texts produced in the years leading up to the twentieth century. You will have the opportunity to read a range of texts from different genres (short stories, plays, novels) which, in their own ways, attempt to get to grips with a changing world. The module will explore the relations between the set texts and the wider cultural and intellectual history of the period and we will consider range of debates which informed and shaped nineteenth and early-twentieth century writing (for example, the British empire, the decline of rural life, technology, national identity, gender). Authors studied may include: Thomas Hardy, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle and James Joyce.

• Introduction to Media Communications

  This module introduces students to different theories on media culture. It addresses the different skills that are required for interpreting mediated information in various forms, whether written, pictorial or audio-visual. It also introduces key debates that have occupied the analysis of media culture in recent decades. Students are required to read and understand some of the foundational writing in the study of media culture and to appreciate the main ways in which it has been theorised. They are expected to begin applying these theoretical models to specific examples of mediated communication.

• Introduction to Philosophy

  You will gain a basic training in how to read and write essays in philosophy, while exploring perennial questions such as: Can we know right from wrong? How, if at all, can we tell a good act from a bad one? Is ethics merely a matter of personal opinion? What is knowledge? Can we reliably gain it, and if so how? Can we be certain of anything? What is pessimism? Is it justified? Are we really free? Do we need God in order for lives to be truly meaningful?

• Introduction to Poetry

  This module will introduce you to the study of poetry, and aims to develop greater understanding and enjoyment of the genre. We will examine selected works by a number of significant twentieth-century poets, in order to explore the use of some key poetic forms (for example the lyric, the sonnet, the dramatic monologue) and the ways in which twentieth-century poets engage with a range of social, political and intellectual ideas (for example, representations of nature and the urban environment, alienation and loss, gender and sexuality, war, violence and the experiences of marginalised groups). While the module offers a chronological overview of some of the major developments of twentieth-century poetry, it will also emphasise the close reading of a relatively limited number of primary texts, in order to give you time and space to develop a measure of confidence in relation to the genre, and develop the skills necessary for in-depth engagement with the material. Authors studied may include Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Mew, T. S. Eliot, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes and Carol Ann Duffy.

• Introduction to Public History

  This module will examine the ‘public’ dimensions of history, specifically the ways in which the past is represented, remembered and used. We will investigate how various national cultures have drawn on the past at specific historical moments, and the sometimes controversial politics of remembering, forgetting and reclaiming it. What role do institutions play in mediating histories to a wider population; how has the past been used to legitimate political and cultural movements; what place does the past occupy in cultural life today; where do professional historians stand in these processes? Themes will include: film and fictional representations of the past; museums and heritage; monuments and ceremonies; national curricula and text books; historical lessons for public policy makers; ethical issues related to memory and the keeping of artefacts. While most of the evidence will be drawn from Britain, case studies may cover material from anglophone Africa, North America and Australasia.

• Italian Route A - 4a

  This module will enable students to communicate in Italian at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about themselves and their daily life, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• Italian Route A - 4b

  This module will enable students to communicate further in Italian at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about past and forthcoming events, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• Italian Route B - 4a

  This module broadens and consolidates the students’ competence in Italian. Students will learn to talk about student life and travel, carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including, for example, video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• Italian Route B - 4b

  This module will extend the students’ competence in Italian through the introduction of more advanced language structures. Students will learn to discuss work and future plans, studying and living abroad. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line TV news items, blogs and magazine websites.

• Japanese Route A - 4a

  This module will enable students to communicate in Japanese at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about themselves and their daily life, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• Japanese Route A - 4b

  This module will enable students to communicate further in Japanese at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about past and forthcoming events, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• Journalism Skills: Print News and Features

  Workshops designed to simulate a newsroom environment will encourage students to explore newsgathering, news writing, feature writing and interviewing. The module will introduce students to a diverse range of publications including broadsheets, tabloids and magazines. Students will critically assess the material and identify the different styles and approaches taken to news articles and features. The fundamentals of practical journalism will be explored, including using English effectively and developing editing and proofreading skills. Skills taught will include: sourcing ideas, researching a story, employing a variety of methodologies, targeting the audience/market/readers, structuring news and feature articles, effective introductions and endings, headlines, using the 5 ‘Ws’, the ‘advertorial’ and personality profiles.

• Journalism, Law and Ethics

  In this module, students will be introduced to key laws impacting on journalists in the UK including defamation, copyright and Freedom of Information. They will also explore the Human Rights Act as it affects UK journalists and compare UK defamation with US defamation. Students will also investigate the ethical dilemmas that may impact on journalists in any Western liberal democracy and look at the codes of conduct that have been put in place to encourage ethical behaviour.

• Language Analysis

• Language and Mind

  The aim of this module is to enable you to gain insights into the relation between language and mind. The questions which the course addresses include a selection from: * is language human-specific? * does the language we speak influence the way we think? * how does the mind segment the sounds we hear into meaningful units? * how does our mind store and retrieve words? * do different writing systems present the same challenges? * what do slips of the tongue reveal about the way we produce language? * how do children acquire language? * does the mind apply the same mechanisms to the processing of different language modalities (speaking, writing, signing)? * what does the language of stroke patients tell us about the relation between language and the brain?

• Mandarin Route A - 4a

  This module will enable students to communicate in Mandarin Chinese at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about themselves and their daily life, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be delivered via on-line materials, including video clips and Chinese websites.

• Mandarin Route A - 4b

  This module will enable students to communicate in Mandarin Chinese at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about themselves and their daily life, carry out reading (pinyin) and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be delivered via on-line materials including video clips and Chinese websites.

• Media and Society

  This module considers the relationship between media institutions or products and their social context. Particular attention will be paid to the degree to which the media reflect or shape social attitudes. Through discussions of issues such as class, race and gender this module will consider how different social groups are represented in media institutions and by mediated images. This module will also examine the public role of the media and students will be asked to think analytically about concepts such as free press, media impartiality or bias, and the relationship of the media with commercial and political institutions.

• Philosophy of Film and Literature

  The central theme of the module is to investigate what it is possible for film and literature to represent. How do we establish what is true in a fiction? Can the impossible happen in fiction? How, if at all, do we manage to engage with fictions that we take to be metaphysically or morally problematic (such as H.G.Wells' The Time Machine or Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita)? In what sense can film and literature explore not only how things actually are but how things could have been? Is there a difference between what can be represented in film and what can be represented in literature? We tackle these questions by engaging with various films and works of literature to see how they fit within a philosophical framework for thinking about them.

• Reading Drama

  Running alongside 1HUM0142 Reading the Short Story, this module gives you opportunity to study a selection of very different plays and/or screenplays from different periods. The module will look at small number of texts, treating them as 'case studies'. Amongst other things, we will consider questions of genre, characterisation, setting, plot, and how the techniques used in different kinds of plays and/or screenplays differ from those used in prose fiction. Although this is not a practical drama module, it will also ask you to think how the writing in these texts implies particular ways of performing the text and how performance can be seen as an interpretation of the text. The set texts will vary from year to year but typically the module includes work by William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, as well as modern drama by writers such as Harold Pinter, David Mamet or Caryl Churchill. The module is intended to give you a good grounding for further dramatic study in your second year.

• Reason and Persuasion

  We live in a world of persuasion. Advertisers would persuade us to buy their products while politicians press their policies on us. In personal life too, others want us to see things their way. We, of course, want others (colleagues, friends and family) to agree with us, to be persuaded by our arguments. Rhetoric is the art of persuasive speech and writing. It has been studied both for academic interest and for its practical, business and legal usefulness since ancient times. This module will explore the reasons why some persuasive efforts work while others do not. It will develop your ability to judge when you ought to be persuaded by the arguments of others and to present your own views in a way that increases their persuasive force.

• Spanish Route A - 4a

  This module will enable students to communicate in Spanish at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about themselves and their daily life, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• Spanish Route A - 4b

  This module will enable students to communicate further in Spanish at a basic level in a range of everyday social situations. Students will learn to talk about past and forthcoming events, carry out reading and listening tasks and write short texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• Spanish Route B - 4a

  This module broadens and consolidates the students’ competence in Spanish. Students will learn to talk about student life and travel, carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including, for example, video clips, blogs and magazine websites.

• Spanish Route B - 4b

  This module will extend the students’ competence in Spanish through the introduction of more advanced language structures. Students will learn to discuss work and future plans, studying and living abroad. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line TV news items, blogs and magazine websites.

• Spanish Route C - 4a

  Emphasis will be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of Spanish. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student’s linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex Spanish. The course will be based on selected, complex carefully graded texts, online and audiovisual materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through StudyNet. Typical themes of study will focus on social, economic and cultural issues. Student will be expected to take part in discussions on the various topics studied.

• Spanish Route C - 4b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of Spanish. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student's linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex Spanish. The module will be based on selected, more complex carefully graded texts and materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through Studynet. Students will participate in discussions on a variety of topics focusing on cultural issues, tourism and the world of work

• Talk, Text and Patwa

  The focus of the module is "language in use". It sets out to maximise your awareness of language, to encourage reflection on your own and others' use of language, to observe language as used around you, and to provide you with basic categories of analysis. The content of this module is in three parts: first, face-to-face conversation between different speakers: native- and non-native speakers, child-adult, doctor-patient, etc. The second element is language in the media, looking at the languages of journalism, the new literacies (e-mail, texting), and advertising, with a view to distinguishing established and emerging styles and bias. The third element is changes in English - its structure, lexis, and functions - both as it has spread beyond the UK (typically, through an examination of a Caribbean patwa) - and as it has evolved as a dialect at the margins of UK society, originating in certain Black communities and subsequently gaining recognition as a widespread speech style.

• Talking to Others: Theory and Practice of Communication

  The module starts from analysis by you of your communicative range, as measured against an agreed template. It then presents a number of models of communication and assesses each according to purpose. Theory will typically include a consideration of animal/human communication, Hocketts Design Theory and Politeness Theory. It then examines (principally on film) a number of contrasting situations in which people succeed/ fail to communicate successfully, concentrating on face-to-face communication but also paying some attention to written language. Factors such as how topics are managed in conversation, how power is articulated in dyads, and in large and small groups, and gender, cultural and ethnic differences will be analysed. The second half of the module is devoted to improving your own communicative skills via largely practical exercises, role play, simulation and actual performance.

• The First World War A

  This module introduces students to a variety of approaches to twentieth-century history by focusing on the First World War. The first part provides a brief guide to the study of history (setting out, for example, the nature of historical analysis, and the different types of historical sources), before moving on to consider the causes of the First World War. The second part concentrates on the nature of the conflict between 1914 and 1918, with a particular emphasis on the concept of 'total war'. Part three examines the political, economic, diplomatic and social consequences of the war. Part four assesses how the First World War has been remembered, by historians, novelists, film-makers and the general public, from the 1920s through to the present day. Via seminars and coursework, students are introduced to key historical skills, including finding and investigating sources, oral and group work, and historiographical analysis.

• The Writer's Art: an Introduction to Creative Writing

  This introductory module aims to fire your creativity, as well as equipping you with knowledge of some important literary strategies and techniques. It is based on the notion that in order to be successful creative writers, we also need to be sensitive critics, interested in how other writers achieve particular literary effects and the devices they use. We will use a small number of set texts as starting points for thinking about these issues alongside other key elements e.g. plot, character, voice and setting, as well as doing work on grammar. In the weekly two-hour workshops out aim is to quickly get you thinking about the processes of writing creatively by keeping a notebook, learning how to 'workshop' your writing, doing quizzes and exercises which might include practising different styles of writing and techniques including presentation; imitation; re-writing the events of a story or poem from a different viewpoint; or transforming a previously published story or poem into a different genre, and trialling for yourself some of the methods used by published writers.

• Web Animation

  This module provides students with experience in the creation of computer animations which should prove useful in subsequent New Media Publishing modules. The module is appropriate for students with little computing experience who have completed Graphics for the Web but also provides those with prior knowledge with the opportunity of enhancing and extending that knowledge. The module content includes: · * the development of animations skills using an animation package· * storyboards * a further look at on-screen design issues· * the creation of a basic web site using a web editor as a vehicle for the animation/s created * the principles and terminology of digital animation * more advanced use of an image manipulation package

• Writing Performing and Dialogue

  In this module you will explore different working methods for producing dramatic scenes in films through the work of contemporary writers, filmmakers and directors. You will explore, through directed reading exercises and acting workshops, dramatic forms in terms of plot, character, narrative structure, setting and dialogue. You will write and perform short exchanges of dialogue in class and you will be expected to rehearse with your group outside class time. In workshop sessions you will look at case studies to examine how different directors and writers generate scripts for film. You will engage in exercises to help you analyse short sequences from films. You will gain an understanding of the misc-en-scene, some elements of cinematography and basic shot-to-shot editing. You will work in a group on developing ideas for a film and shoot some basic components.

Year 3

Core Modules

• Graduate and Information Skills 3

Optional

• Acting & Screen Performance Project

  In Acting & Screen Performance Project you will design, advance and realise a foundation plan to help structure your performance project. The project will be either a screen or live performance project in a professional or corporate context. In the first half of the module you will be introduced to a variety of models designed to assist in the generation of performance ideas. The module explores the different professional roles (actor, director and writer) and how they work effectively together. You will spend time exploring how effective group-work can engender innovative ideas. Skills in effective peer-review and feedback training are essential elements of the module. You will pitch your ideas and will be taught successful presentation strategies. The second half of the module focuses on self-managed group rehearsals designed to realise your plan. The final work will be shown at a performance event. The project demands that you contribute fully to the taught sessions and self-managed rehearsals; you are expected to read widely from across the spectrum of contemporary theoretical, screen-based texts.

• Adaptation: From Page to Stage or Screen

  Adaptations of source material constantly grace our stage and screen. For drama writers, writing adaptations can be a route to having your own original work staged or filmed. This module examines popular and critically acclaimed adaptations, such as Birdsong (stage version / BBC version), Brokeback Mountain and Trainspotting, comparing the merits of such work to less successful or appreciated stage adaptations. You will learn how to pull a story apart, considering the structure, central metaphor, characters, dialogue, dramatic action and themes from both source material and each accompanying adaptation. You will examine critically the decisions the adaptor has made regarding all of these elements. Equipped with this knowledge, you will select a piece of work you wish to adapt. The module will demonstrate how to write a treatment, how to write a scene-by-scene breakdown and how to plan each scene. Writing exercises will facilitate your understanding of this process, and you will create your own adaptation.

• Advanced Web Design

• Advertising

  This module will look at advertising and the ways in which they attempt to construct desire for specific products. It will analyse the social function of adverts in relation to certain social categories such as gender, race and sexuality. It will also look at the placing of advertising in specific media locations, asking students to consider why adverts for certain types of products are placed in specific locations. This will include a consideration of market segmentation and television scheduling in an attempt to link certain products to specific demographic patterns. This module will also consider the relationship between advertising and other media forms, especially film and television, to consider the degree to which advertising relies upon codes that are produced in other cultural products. This module will include a consideration of the use of advertising in the new media.

• African-American Literature

  This module will introduce you to some key works of African-American literature, from the late nineteenth century to the present day. You will study a range of genres, such as fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography, and nonfiction. We will trace how a unique African-American literary voice relates to a number of important modes of expression: oral culture, ‘signifying’, folklore, the visual arts, and music (such as spirituals, blues, jazz, work songs, gospel, and hip hop). We will identify several key themes and preoccupations in the work of African-American writers: freedom, identity, mobility (both geographical and social), and self-expression, amongst others. These will be mapped against historical events and developments, including slavery and abolition, segregation and the Jim Crow laws, the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement, the feminist movement, and the election of Barack Obama as President. We will also explore how issues of gender, sexuality, and class specifically inform these works.

• Aristotle P

  Is there a method to philosophy? Are we rational animals? Do all living things have a purpose? What is the good life or is there more than one? Is ethics primarily concerned with virtue? These questions, which are still of relevance today, will be explored by an examination of Aristotle's central works.

• Between the Acts: Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature 1890-1920

  This module studies texts written between 1890 and 1920 in order to consider the period of transition between the end of the Victorian age and the end of the First World War. Students will be invited to consider ways in which the set texts challenge 'Victorian' ideas of stability and respectability as well as their engagement with such concepts as heroism, the `monstrous', suburbia, marriage and sexuality, trauma, class and nationhood. The texts studied will include a range of different genres and styles, from the so-called `problem play' of the 1890s and 1900s, to the horror story; from the best-selling exotic romance to the literature of World War One. Authors studied may include Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Robbins, E.M. Forster, Ford Madox Ford, Rebecca West, Henry James, Elinor Glyn and Rudyard Kipling.

• Child Language & Communication

  This module provides a detailed investigation of how children acquire their first language and the theories that seek to explain the process. We will look at child language from the pre-linguistic stage through to the acquisition of words, morpho-syntax and inflections. You will also explore the relation between language and cognitive development, as well as the acquisition of communication skills. These topics will be considered for both monolingual and bilingual children.

• Children's Literature:Growing up in Books

  This module critically analyses works of children s literature published since 1950. Primary texts will range from picture books designed for very young children to works of cross-over fiction which aim to bridge the gap between the child and the adult reader. This will enable us to consider the ways in which children s literature works on the page and in culture to mediate and interpret the process of growing up in modern society. We will engage in close critical analysis of the primary material (considering, for example, questions of genre, narrative conventions and the relationship between words and illustrations) and this will be linked at every stage to a consideration of the ways in which literature for children interacts with wider cultural and historical contexts. You will be expected to engage with key theoretical and critical debates around children s literature. Authors studied may include Sendak, Seuss, Dahl, Lewis, Morpurgo, Rowling and Pullman.

• Clinical Linguistics

  This module examines the effects of developmental and acquired disorders of language and/or communication on the acquisition and use of language. Different kinds of linguistic disorders are presented in an attempt to explore the nature of language and communication. Topics include, for example, the study of: phonological disability, stuttering, grammatical impairment, semantic/pragmatic disorders, hearing impairment, Downs Syndrome and autism. The module also looks at other language modalities, such as British Sign Language and addresses issues concerned with the assessment of comprehension and production and the use of computer programs and databases in language analysis.

• Communication and Cultures

  The module gives you an opportunity to bring to the surface some of your personal / social cultural assumptions and working beliefs, and to see how they map onto those of other cultures, with specific attention to a specified domain of each student's choice. In particular, you are encouraged to look at inter-cultural communication, in the forms of face-to-face conversation, interviews, group encounters, formal situations such as conferences, e-mail and other forms of written communication, in order to see how other cultures, and especially a culture of your own choosing, articulate, disguise, hide and express beliefs.

• Community History in 19th Century England: Regional and Local History in Theory

  The course will begin with a survey of the development of local and regional history from the sixteenth century onwards, tracing the relationship between the amateur and professional branches. Particular attention will be paid to the Leicester school, the rise of urban history, the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, quantitative history and historical computing, the 'new social history', and collaborative and microhistory. The remainder of the course will focus on the practice of local and regional history through a series of case studies, to include topics such as demography, social structure, farm service, household and family, industrialisation, poverty, womens work, crime and religion. The course will be document based, will concentrate upon history from below, and will draw mainly but not exclusively upon examples from Hertfordshire.

• Corporate Advertising and Media Relations

  This module introduces the student to the general concepts of advertising and media relations at both functional and strategic levels. The functional component addresses the skills required to function at the required level. The strategic level provides a forum for understanding, exploring, debating and critically appraising the dynamics between these two disparate yet closely interlinked disciplines within the broader context of corporate communications. This module also introduces the student to a critical understanding of the principles of corporate advertising and approaches to media relations through an appreciation of press, broadcast, publications and other new and emerging media of communication. It develops communication skills in writing, speaking and presentation and considers the role of design in communicating a message.

• Creative Writing: Independent Project

  This is an independent study module, which requires you to devise, plan and produce an extended piece of creative writing in a genre of particular personal interest (e.g. short story, poetry, drama). There will be workshops covering different genres allowing you to share ideas and feedback on their projects. You will also be asked to investigate outlets for creative writing as a means of further developing your sense of audience and genre.

• Dark Materials: Writing Young Adult Fiction

  One of the most significant recent phenomena in publishing is the remarkable success of young adult fiction – including Harry Potter, the Twilight series, and The Hunger Games – and its crossover appeal to adult readers. This module asks what constitutes compelling and aesthetically successful YA fiction, and asks what, if anything, distinguishes YA literature from its adult counterpart. It will study the history of the young adult genre, the contemporary role of YA fiction, and the psychological, emotional and social intensities that the genre addresses and fosters. Key questions of craft and motivation will be addressed: How might one capture a younger audience without talking down to the reader? What makes a memorable hero or heroine? How are contemporary publishing trends shaping the future possibilities for YA fiction? Authors studied may include J.D. Salinger, Russell Hoban, Lois Lowry, Jacqueline Wilson, Rosemary Sutcliffe, Margaret Mahy, Siobhan Dowd and Patrick Ness.

• Describing Language in Context

  This module presents an alternative to formal approaches to describing language - a functional, meaning-oriented model of language description called Systemic Functional Linguistics. We will start by exploring how language structures are employed for different communicative aims. Following this, we will consider how our lexical and grammatical choices can vary according to function and context, with the aim of understanding both the range of linguistic options available to us to express meaning and how particular choices are systematically associated with various text types. We will also consider ways in which communicative and systemic functional approaches to language description have been successfully applied in linguistic and professional fields such as speech and language therapy and education. This is a practical module in which we will analyse authentic texts and evaluate the usefulness of language description in real world scenarios and professions.

• Describing Language in Context

  This module presents a functional, meaning-oriented model of language description called Systemic Functional Linguistics. We will consider how our lexical and grammatical choices can vary according to function and context, with the aim of understanding both the range of linguistic options available to us to express meaning and how particular choices are systematically associated with various text types. We will also consider ways in which a systemic functional approach to language description has been applied in linguistic and professional fields such as critical discourse analysis, speech and language therapy, and language and literacy education, and can be applied to a wide range of texts and contexts of language use. This is a practical module in which we will analyse and interpret authentic texts and evaluate the potential usefulness of this approach to language description in applied contexts.

• Digital Histories: A Workshop in critical skills and practical applications B

  This module provides a broad introduction to 'Digital History', and seeks to give students the intellectual tools to critique the sources they are increasingly using for research online. It includes both an intellectual engagement with the underlying landscape of knowledge created by older knowledge systems, and the new forms of search and discovery made possible by the internet. At the same time, it will introduce students to the practical issues of how historical materials are presented online, and how that presentation impacts on their use by historians. It will also introduce students to the major technical processes involved in creating online historical resources, and the debates about how these resources are impacting on historical writing.

• Digital Media

  This module closely looks at emergent forms of media, particularly the influence of digital technologies on traditional forms of media, such as film and journalism. We will critically analyse the impact of the digital revolution, from HDTV to virtual realities, from citizen journalism to wikileaks and cyber-criminality, from music downloads to E-books. Using a range of critical theorists, we will discuss the challenges of these developments for old media as well as the creative opportunities new media forms provide.

• ELT Project

  In this module you will undertake an individual project. This will include: -Framing a tightly-framed research question or hypothesis in the ELT field. -Devising practical means of answering the question/testing the hypothesis. -Assessing relevant variables. -Devising planned interventions - eg tests, assessments, learner diaries. -Collecting results; analysis. -Writing up the results, paying due attention to 'central' and 'outlying' phenomena. -Potential pedagogical implications.

• East End Fictions: Interdisciplinary Studies of London's East End

  The East End of London has a rich cultural heritage. This module will examine literary, filmic and dramatic texts from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that were written in or inspired by this area. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, it draws on diverse literary texts, historical sources, pictorial representations and film. It questions the validity of the beliefs that underlie depictions of the area and its people. It will explore the concept of psychogeography, which seeks to analyse the effects of the physical environment on the psychology of those that live there. By focusing on the themes of class, community, crime and the immigrant experience, the course will trace how these reflect the social, cultural, historical and geographical context. The chosen texts may include fiction by Charles Dickens, Israel Zangwill, Peter Ackroyd, Iain Sinclair and Monica Ali and drama by George Dibdin Pitt, Arnold Wesker, Steven Berkoff and Tunde Ikoli.

• Eighteenth Century Bodies

  Gender and sexuality have histories; this module will explore some of the ways in which they were constructed in the shifting social contexts of the long eighteenth century and their intertwining with concepts of power, class, nation and ethnicity. By examining a generically broad range of textual materials - plays, poems, novels, medical and religious discourses, advice books - this module will analyse a variety of models of sexual behaviour and male and female identities, paying close attention to the historical moment in which the text was written. Possible topics for study include: Restoration libertinism as represented in the works of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Aphra Behn and William Wycherley; bourgeois sexuality as in Samuel Richardson's 'Pamela' and Henry Fielding's 'Shamela'; prostitution and the commodification of sexuality as in Defoe's 'Roxana', John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera' and John Cleveland's infamous pornographic novel, 'Fanny Hill; or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure'; the psycho-sexual anxieties of Gothic novels, for example William Beckford's 'Vathek' and Jane Austen's 'Northanger Abbey'.

• Employability and Careers Planning

  This module will enable you to develop your employability and careers. You will develop your occupational awareness to enable you to compete more effectively in the employment market. At the end of this module you will be able to produce an improved CV and/or job application and have been given the opportunity to develop and reflect upon your personal and developmental career goals.

• Film in the Global Age

  This module considers the forms and effects of the global age, as expressed in contemporary works of film. Opening up examples and debates of world cinema, it also addresses the concepts and realities of globalisation: of growth and unity, imitation and (a loss of) national identity, diaspora, fragmentation and isolation. These concerns are explored in terms of a series of contexts: national, industrial, socio-political. The module attends to recent films that deal explicitly, in form and content, with matters of the global age. It takes into account the changing relationship of US and world cinema: as one of distinction, bleeding, borrowing, translating, and as constantly shifting and reshaping. All of these ideas are addressed through the close analysis of a series of sophisticated and provocative films. Placing the emphasis on the films association with the global age, the module looks at some more familiar works from fresh perspectives, whilst making equal space for emergent and unexplored cinemas. Students are asked to cross and critique traditional theoretical and critical boundaries, and to question contemporary approaches to the study of film, seeking to see world cinema in a new light.

• Final Year History Dissertation

  Independent study and research based partly on primary sources. Under supervision and subject to approval, the student selects a topic to research and writes a dissertation of c.10,000 words.

• Financial Crises and Panics: A History of Financial Folly A

  The aim of this module is to investigate the causes and consequences of financial crises. Beginning with the Tulipmania of the 1630s, the module will examine a series of speculative episodes and the resulting panics and crashes. The module will investigate how and why crises emerge and examine the damage they can do to the national and international economy. The module will also consider how financial crises have been explained by historians and economists and will investigate the problems associated with regulation and control of the market. Topics to be covered might include: Tulipmania (1637); the South Sea Bubble (1720); the collapse of Overend Gurney (1866); the Wall Street Crash (1929) the collapse of the ERM (1992) and more recently the global banking and sovereign debt crisis.

• French Route A - 6a

  This module further improves the students’ competence and confidence from study at levels 4 and 5 in understanding and responding to more advanced written and spoken French. Students develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially and will be exposed to a wider variety of contexts and language registers. The module will enable students to participate more fully in discussions and develop logical argument. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line TV news items, blogs and magazine websites.

• French Route A - 6b

  This module enables students to improve further their competence and confidence from the previous semester in understanding and responding to more advanced French. Students continue to develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially. The module will enable students to play a more active and spontaneous part in discussions and to use a wider range of phrases which express different shades of opinion in speaking and writing. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line news reports, blogs and magazine websites.

• French Route B - 6a

  Emphasis will be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of French. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student’s linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex French. The course will be based on selected, complex carefully graded texts, online and audiovisual materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through StudyNet. Typical themes of study will focus on social, economic and cultural issues. Student will be expected to take part in discussions on the various topics studied.

• French Route B - 6b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of French. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student's linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex French. The module will be based on selected, more complex carefully graded texts and materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through Studynet. Students will participate in discussions on a variety of topics focusing on cultural issues, tourism and the world of work.

• French Route C - 6a

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on improving the student’s linguistic ability primarily through the study of selected themes taken from online newspapers,magazines,websites. Students will acquire a better understanding of contemporary France through the study of selected events of great importance to French society in the first part of the 20th century. Students will be expected to research their own materials and present them in discussions, analysing them and reflecting upon them. Complex and more subtle grammatical points will be analysed through the study of texts.

• French Route C - 6b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on improving the student’s linguistic ability primarily through the study of selected themes taken from online newspapers, magazines, websites. Students will continue to develop an understanding of the relationship between key aspects of contemporary France and historical facts which occurred in the second part of the 20th century. Students will be expected to research their own materials and present them in discussions, analysing them and reflecting upon them. Complex and more subtle grammatical points will be analysed through the study of texts.

• German Project

  This module provides students with an opportunity, under tutorial guidance, to choose a topic of interest to them related to an aspect of the social, political, economic or cultural life of a German.-speaking country, to research a topic, using authentic materials to write a project on the topic in German. Students are encouraged to conduct interviews with native German-speakers, having completed the necessary University formalities to obtain Ethics approval.

• German Route A - 6a

  This module further improves the students’ competence and confidence from study at levels 4 and 5 in understanding and responding to more advanced written and spoken German. Students develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially and will be exposed to a wider variety of contexts and language registers. The module will enable students to participate more fully in discussions and develop logical argument. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line TV news items, blogs and magazine websites.

• German Route A - 6b

  This module enables students to improve further their competence and confidence from the previous semester in understanding and responding to more advanced German. Students continue to develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially. The module will enable students to play a more active and spontaneous part in discussions and to use a wider range of phrases which express different shades of opinion in speaking and writing. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line news reports, blogs and magazine websites.

• German Route B - 6a

  Emphasis will be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of German. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student’s linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex German. The course will be based on selected, complex carefully graded texts, online and audiovisual materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through StudyNet. Typical themes of study will focus on social, economic and cultural issues. Student will be expected to take part in discussions on the various topics studied.

• German Route B - 6b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of German. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student's linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex German. The module will be based on selected, more complex carefully graded texts and materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through Studynet. Students will participate in discussions on a variety of topics focusing on cultural issues, tourism and the world of work

• History of the English Language

  The module studies the development of modern world English in the context of Indo European and Germanic families of languages. In addition, the influences of Latin, Old Norse, French, Greek and languages of the British Empire are discussed in terms of the relevant historical events. The theoretical input is balanced by the study of contemporary texts in Old English, Middle English and Early Modern English, concluding with a view of how present day English has changed within living memory.

• Hitler's War B

  This module will give students substantial knowledge of the origins, course and consequences of the Second World War in Europe. Beginning with an exploration of Hitler's foreign policy and the response to it of Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union, the module will investigate the course and conduct of the war in Europe from the attack on Poland to the fall of Berlin. This will provide a backdrop to an examination of selected topics, including the establishment of the Nazi 'new order' in Europe, the barbarisation of warfare, the exploitation and extermination of targeted groups, occupation, collaboration and resistance in selected countries and the German home front. The module will end with a consideration of the Potsdam Conference and the legacy of the Second World War for Europe. Primary sources to be used in translation will include audio and video materials as well as written materials.

• Independent Study Module A

  The Independent Study Module (ISM) is a closely examined and detailed analysis of a particular topic cast in the form of a 5000 word essay. It provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate their ability to use many of the skills developed over the course of the previous two years, and to explore an historical topic or theme in an extended format. The topic will be closely defined and it is anticipated that it will normally be based partly on primary sources. Students undertaking the ISM will work under the supervision of a member of staff- the range of topics available will naturally depend on the interests of individual members of staff in the University at any given time. Preliminary guidance will be given in the Level Two module, Historical Writing.

• Independent Study Module B

  The Independent Study Module (ISM) is a closely examined and detailed analysis of a particular topic cast in the form of a 5000 word essay. It provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate their ability to use many of the skills developed over the course of the previous two years, and to explore an historical topic or theme in an extended format. The topic will be closely defined and it is anticipated that it will normally be based partly on primary sources. Students undertaking the ISM will work under the supervision of a member of staff- the range of topics available will naturally depend on the interests of individual members of staff in the University at any given time. Preliminary guidance will be given in the Level Two module, Historical Writing.

• Independent Study and Research Project

  This is an independent study module, which requires students to plan, research and devise a short literature-based project on a topic of particular personal interest. The module will be taught in tutorial groups covering topics such as bibliographical research, including electronic resources and the internet; literature reviews, the use of literary theory in planning and completing a project; procedures for drafting and editing work. Students may choose a topic from any area of literary studies which they have not studied before. Students intending to graduate with a Single Honours degree in English Literature must take this module or the two-semester Literature Project as part of their programme of study.

• Independent Work Experience

  This module provides students with an opportunity to reflect on the experience they have gained in undertaking paid or voluntary employment outside their studies, to analyse the personal and key skills that work experience has helped develop and to articulate the ways in which it has enhanced their career development. Suitable work experience would include: student ambassadors, UH mentoring schemes and any part-time work. Students will compile a portfolio of evidence, which will include: evidence of the work undertaken, e.g. a letter from the company, the student's role within the company and the nature of the tasks undertaken, a reflective evaluation on the ways in which the work experience has enhanced the student's employability, and a current curriculum vitae.

• International Perspectives in Public History

  This module will examine how public history fields have emerged in different national contexts and the ways in which they have been shaped by national history and political culture. We will look at how public history relates to academic history and the different ways in which historians have become involved in debates, disputes and controversies. There will be a focus on public history in the USA and Canada and connections with partner institutions of the University in those countries will be used wherever possible to create an opportunity for online discussion and collaboration. Material from other countries including Germany, France, Australia and New Zealand will also be drawn on when we explore thematic areas. These will include: history, education and citizenship; the role of the historian; public history and the law; history in political debate and policymaking; history and business.

• Issues in English

  The module will begin with a brief recap of the rise and standardisation of English as a national language. You will then be presented with a range of perspectives on the language: for example, those of the native speaker, of writers for whom it is a Mother Tongue, of writers for whom it is a second language, of past and current learners of English, and of current teachers of English as a foreign language. The role of English as a national, international and educational language, and as a lingua franca, will be discussed. Finally, the module will examine some of learning and teaching styles by which English is acquired in different contexts: eg in language schools in the UK, in state systems in continental Europe, etc.

• Italian Route A - 6a

  This module further improves the students’ competence and confidence from study at levels 4 and 5 in understanding and responding to more advanced written and spoken Italian. Students develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially and will be exposed to a wider variety of contexts and language registers. The module will enable students to participate more fully in discussions and develop logical argument. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line TV news items, blogs and magazine websites.

• Italian Route A - 6b

  This module enables students to improve further their competence and confidence from the previous semester in understanding and responding to more advanced Italian. Students continue to develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially. The module will enable students to play a more active and spontaneous part in discussions and to use a wider range of phrases which express different shades of opinion in speaking and writing. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line news reports, blogs and magazine websites.

• Italian Route B - 6a

  Emphasis will be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of Italian. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student’s linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex Italian. The course will be based on selected, complex carefully graded texts, online and audiovisual materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through StudyNet. Typical themes of study will focus on social, economic and cultural issues. Student will be expected to take part in discussions on the various topics studied.

• Italian Route B - 6b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of Italian. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student's linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex Italian. The module will be based on selected, more complex carefully graded texts and materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through Studynet. Students will participate in discussions on a variety of topics focusing on cultural issues, tourism and the world of work

• Japanese Route A - 6a

  This module further improves the students’ competence and confidence from study at levels 4 and 5 in understanding and responding to more advanced written and spoken Japanese. Students develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially and will be exposed to a wider variety of contexts and language registers. The module will enable students to participate more fully in discussions and develop logical argument. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line TV news items, blogs and magazine websites.

• Japanese Route A - 6b

  This module enables students to improve further their competence and confidence from the previous semester in understanding and responding to more advanced Japanese. Students continue to develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially. The module will enable students to play a more active and spontaneous part in discussions and to use a wider range of phrases which express different shades of opinion in speaking and writing. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line news reports, blogs and magazine websites.

• Journalism Portfolio

  This module gives you a taste of the real-life world of journalism through working for a variety of different publications, mediums and in different environments. You will be encouraged to apply for and take part in relevant journalism-related work experience for a minimum of ten days or equivalent. You will produce reflective assignments documenting the experience of applying for and working in the relevant field and focusing on what they have learnt. You will also put together a varied portfolio of articles which you will have researched and written under your tutor’s guidance. These will be for a range of publications including newspapers, magazines and websites.

• Journalism, Government and the People

  This module explores the relationship between the press and the government. It will cover the structure and operation of government to include the principles of democracy, parliament and constitution. In addition, the module will cover such topics as: the role of the lobby correspondent; the reporting of parliament; parliamentary and European elections and the influence of journalists on government policy.

• Kant's Critical Philosophy

  "Kant made me sick." This was Bertrand Russell's reaction to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Much of the philosophy written in the Western tradition in the last two centuries is in some way a reaction to or development of Kant's 'Copernican revolution' in philosophy. Kant's main work, the Critique of Pure Reason, develops and defends two thoughts. First, our empirical experience is structured and conditioned by what we bring to it, so the problem of epistemology is the adequacy of our preconceptions. Second, there are limits to what pure reason can achieve, and much philosophy is a hopeless attempt to answer questions that lie beyond reason's powers. Kant argued that it is in the nature of reason to attempt more than it can achieve. Moreover, reason is sovereign over itself, and therefore must police its own boundaries. It is therefore always caught in a tension between transgressing its limits and enforcing them.

• Kierkegaard, Philosophy and Religion

  What makes a human life worthwhile? What form would philosophy have to take effectively to communicate genuine ethical or religious insight? What does it really mean to live an 'aesthetic', 'ethical' or 'religious' life? Kierkegaard tackled these questions through a series of literary-philosophical texts published under a variety of bizarre pseudonyms. This module considers central aspects of Kierkegaard's thought, focusing upon issues related to ethics, religion and philosophical communication. After an introduction to the importance of 'indirect' communication in existential matters, we shall investigate in some detail the 'aesthetic', 'ethical' and 'religious' modes of life. The central texts will be Either/Or and Fear and Trembling.

• Language & Communication Project

  In this module you undertake an individual project on a topic of your choice. The project is the opportunity for you to demonstrate your ability to use many of the skills developed over your previous studies, and to take those skills to a higher plane.

• Language & Communication Short Project

  You undertake an individual project on a topic of your choice. The project is the opportunity for you to demonstrate your ability to use many of the skills developed over their previous studies.

• Language Processing

• Language, Interpretation and Communication

  Pragmatics is the study of verbal communication. The module will cover the main areas in the field as well the key theories that have shaped the discipline. We will start by discussing the fundamentals of the discipline, including what pragmatics is, the 'code model' of communication, the Gricean approach, and the role of inference in communication. We will then examine in detail the relevance theory approach to cognition and communication, including its consequences for utterance interpretation and explicit/implicit meaning. Finally, we will apply the relevance-theoretic approach to disambiguation, irony, and metaphor, discussing its advantages and disadvantages. This module would appeal to those who are interested in how the human mind works and how this affects verbal communication.

• Literature Project

  The Literature Project is intended to give you the opportunity to carry out a substantial up-to-date research project based on a topic or author of particular interest. As well as enabling you to follow up particular enthusiasms, the module aims to further develop skills in planning, research, time-management and presentation. The module is taught via a programme of one-to-one tutorials with a designated supervisor. You may choose a topic from any area of literary studies but the choice of a topic must be agreed with the module leader before the end of Semester B preceding the next academic year in which the work will be undertaken. If you are taking 120 credits or more in English Literature at Level 3 (i.e. you are intending to graduate with a Single Honours degree in English Literature) your programme of study should include this module or 3HUM0231, the Independent Study and Research Project, but not both.

• Mandarin Route A - 6a

  This module further improves the students’ competence and confidence from study at levels 4 and 5 in understanding and responding to more advanced written and spoken Mandarin Chinese. Students develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially and will be exposed to a wider variety of contexts and language registers. The module will enable students to participate more fully in discussions and develop logical argument. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be delivered via on-line materials including video clips and Chinese websites.

• Mandarin Route A - 6b

  This module enables students to improve further their competence and confidence from the previous semester in understanding and responding to more advanced Mandarin Chinese. Students continue to develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially. The module will enable students to play a more active and spontaneous part in discussions and to use a wider range of phrases which express different shades of opinion in speaking and writing. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be delivered via on-line materials including video clips and Chinese websites.

• Marketing and Corporate Communications Management

  This module provides a broad understanding of the principles, techniques and strategies that underpin corporate communications, with particular emphasis on marketing communications at the brand level. It is designed to reflect the current awareness of, and the benefits that organisations can derive from, adopting integrated marketing communications. This module adopts a strategic approach to the study of corporate communications and builds an understanding of the variations in buyer/consumer behaviour, and how communication strategies and programmes can be developed, organised and implemented. The course also addresses critical issues relating to e-commence and the Internet.

• Meaning and Context

  This module is concerned with meaning in language and communication. It introduces students to different types of meaning and different theoretical approaches to studying meaning in the philosophy of language and linguistics. A key issue will be the distinction between semantics and pragmatics, where the boundary between them lies, and the way in which the two realms interact in the communication of meaning.

• Native American Literature

  This module will focus on literary works produced by the indigenous peoples of North America. The highly diverse linguistic, ethnic and tribal groups who inhabited the North American continent at the time of the earliest European settlement had one thing in common: the oral transmission of tradition, history and culture. Without a written language, and in the face of continual displacement, extermination, and disenfranchisement, Indians writers have faced unique challenges to articulate their culture and identity in the language of their oppressors, and to respond to modernity without betraying their heritage. You will consider their responses to these difficulties, employing varied theoretical approaches to texts from the eighteenth century to the present day. Writers who may be studied include: Samson Occom, William Apess, Black Hawk, Zitkala-`a, DArcy McNickle, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor, Joy Harjo, Louise Erdrich, James Welch, Sherman Alexie, and Thomas King.

• Nietzsche, Genealogy and Morality

  Nietzsche famously claimed that 'God is dead'. But what does he mean by this? What ramifications would the 'death of God' have for morality and human flourishing? What would a 'Nietzschean' view of self and world look like? And what religious responses to Nietzsche's challenge are possible? With these questions in mind, this module investigates key aspects of Nietzsche's thought. Typically, after an introduction to his styles of philosophizing, the 'hermeneutics of suspicion', and his 'moral perfectionism', we shall focus upon his influential critique of morality. We shall investigate his account of ressentiment, guilt and 'bad conscience', alongside central Nietzschean ideas such as the will to power, eternal recurrence and 'self-overcoming'. We'll also consider some possible critical responses to his worldview. The central text will be On the Genealogy of Morality.

• Online Journalism

  The course will consist of 12, two-hour seminars in which students will - through a mix of lectures, demonstrations, discussion and practical tasks - learn the basics of Online Journalism. This will include an appreciation of the massive impact that new digital communications technologies have had on the publishing industry, as well as a detailed understanding of how writing for the internet differs from so-called ‘off-line’ Journalism. Students will also learn, through the use of a Content Management System (CMS), how to upload and format content – both written and multimedia – which is suitable for publication.

• Oral History Project

  Independent study and research based partly on the collection and analysis of oral evidence. Under supervision and subject to ethics approval, the student selects a topic to research and submits a portfolio of c.10,000 words.

• Philosophy Project

  You will have the opportunity to develop your research skills through the largely independent study of a particular topic in philosophy of your choice, which must be approved by your supervisor. You will receive guidance from your supervisors in the form of suggestions about reading and about the structure and development of the project. Supervisors also provide critical feedback on material that is submitted. No conditions are placed on the choice of topic, so long as it falls within the general discipline of philosophy, and a member of the philosophy staff has the relevant expertise to provide the appropriate supervision. If you are intending to pursue a project you must identify your area of interest and are required to complete and submit a form by the end of the academic year prior to that in which you intend to begin your project.

• Philosophy of Information

  From laptops to iphones, from emails to GPS, we live in an ever expanding infosphere, which is posing unprecedented problems and reshaping old philosophical issues. What is knowledge in the age of Google and Wikipedia? What is the nature of personal identity after Facebook? Is it right to download copyrighted material? The philosophy of information (PI) provides the conceptual foundations to approach these and similar questions. It investigates the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilisation, and sciences, and elaborates information-theoretic and computational solutions to philosophical problems. The course offers an accessible approach to the foundations for this new philosophical subject. It describes what the philosophy of information is, its problems, approaches, and methods. It offers a grasp of the complex nature of the various concepts and phenomena related to information, and it seeks to answer several key theoretical questions of great philosophical interest, arising from the investigation of information. No previous knowledge of the topic, of any mathematics or computer science is required or expected.

• Philosophy of Language

  Marks, sounds and gestures can all have meaning. But what is it for them to have meaning and how do they manage to have it? Is the meaning of my words to be analysed in terms of my intentions to communicate with another or the conventions I subscribe to when using words? In what way is meaning related to truth and my being warranted in asserting what I say? What other things can we do with words than state truths? How should we understand metaphorical uses of language? How do names and descriptions in particular manage to pick out objects in the world? Are some things I say true solely in virtue of the meanings of the words I use? Is there anything that fixes what it is that I do mean when I use words, or is meaning, to some extent, indeterminate? Can a study of language tell us anything about reality?

• Placement for Acting & Screen Performance

  The module offers you the chance to experience aspects of professional role play or screen acting. Placements can take a variety of forms which include: working in an external organisation within a brief set by that organisation; working within the University on a commercial project or with a professional team (for example a CPD role play training project for School of Health and Human Sciences or a substantial acting role in a student film-making project in the school of Film, Music and Media). The brief must be generated outside the programme of study and be part of a real working context. There must be a professional work experience contact able to evaluate student performance. Where the work experience may present limitations on your work, it is possible for you to undertake the work experience and extend the project through independent study, further developing the placement. You will be required to make a short video diary reflecting on your work.

• Popular Protest, Riot and Reform in Britain, 1760-1848 B

  Britain experienced a period of tumultuous social and political upheaval in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This module will examine the development of extra-parliamentary social and political movements, and survey the causes and consequences of unrest in Britain, 1760-1848. Students will be expected to engage both with the secondary literature of the subject and with the varied primary sources, visual and written, which accompany the module. Topics will include: late 18th century reform campaigns; the impact of the French Revolution; Luddite and Captain Swing agitation; post-war reform movements and Chartism; the anti-slavery campaign and the causes and consequences of political and economic riots and trade union strikes.

• Postmodern Genders

  This module focuses on representations of gender in twentieth and twenty-first century literature. Of particular interest will be a selection of texts which mount innovative challenges to conventional understandings of gender difference as fixed and natural, treating gender instead as a variable and unstable cultural production. So, for example, primary texts may include: Virginia Woolf s Orlando and Angela Carter s The Passion of New Eve (both texts where the protagonist changes sex); Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body (whose narrator-protagonist never reveals whether s/he is a woman or a man); Iain Banks's The Wasp Factory (which interrogates hypermasculinity), Jackie Kay s Trumpet (about a woman who successfully passes as a man), Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex (whose protagonist is a hermaphrodite), and Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife (which offers playful new perspectives on gender relations). The module will also offer sessions which explore recent theoretical approaches to sex, gender and sexuality.

• Renaissance Tragedy

  This course considers a range of tragic drama produced during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It aims to introduce students to the diversity of the tragic drama written during this period and to its classical heritage and contemporary critical context. It will consider why tragedy dominated the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre and consider the ways in which the genre developed over time. It will examine the popularity of revenge tragedy during this period and seek to locate the contemporary fascination with revenge in political developments and debates of the period. Plays to be studied may include Kyd's 'The Spanish Tragedy', Shakespeare's 'Hamlet', Webster's 'The White Devil', and Middleton's 'The Revenger's Tragedy'.

• Representation and Consciousness

  Cognitive science seeks to scientifically explain, or at least shed light, on how and why agents behave as they do. Yet it has met with some serious obstacles in trying to understand the nature of representation and conscious experience. This module introduces and examines various proposals about how these phenomena might be scientifically understood, at least in principle. It asks such questions as: Is cognition really a form of symbol manipulation? Do these symbols have any representational content? Are they about anything in the world? If so, what accounts for this? Is there any real prospect for a scientific theory of consciousness or do all ‘objective’ accounts necessarily leave something out?

• Screen Acting

  In Screen Acting you will be introduced to the module with a series of lectures which will cover such topics as a historical overview of screen acting, casting character versus self, the different types of "shots" (close-up, long shot, etc), eye lines, basic problems of listening and reacting, soundtrack and music, continuity, the non-linear approach to film acting, the pressures and problems of location shooting (including issues of health and safety) and the relationship between director and actor. Following the lectures, in the workshop sessions you will work in groups to explore ways of integrating some of these ideas into your practical and written work. You will learn how to give and take direction. Some workshop sessions may be in a video studio and you may use recording equipment in class or on location.

• Spanish Route A - 6a

  This module further improves the students’ competence and confidence from study at levels 4 and 5 in understanding and responding to more advanced written and spoken Spanish. Students develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially and will be exposed to a wider variety of contexts and language registers. The module will enable students to participate more fully in discussions and develop logical argument. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line TV news items, blogs and magazine websites.

• Spanish Route A - 6b

  This module enables students to improve further their competence and confidence from the previous semester in understanding and responding to more advanced Spanish. Students continue to develop skills which will be of value both professionally and socially. The module will enable students to play a more active and spontaneous part in discussions and to use a wider range of phrases which express different shades of opinion in speaking and writing. They will carry out reading and listening tasks and write texts within the framework of the vocabulary and grammatical structures studied. The module will be largely course book based, supplemented by on-line materials including for example on-line news reports, blogs and magazine websites.

• Spanish Route B - 6a

  Emphasis will be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of Spanish. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student’s linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex Spanish. The course will be based on selected, complex carefully graded texts, online and audiovisual materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through StudyNet. Typical themes of study will focus on social, economic and cultural issues. Student will be expected to take part in discussions on the various topics studied.

• Spanish Route B - 6b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on ensuring that students have a grammatically sound command of both the written and the spoken forms of Spanish. A thematic approach to language learning will be used, improving the student's linguistic ability and knowledge of more complex Spanish. The module will be based on selected, more complex carefully graded texts and materials compiled from a variety of sources made available to students through Studynet. Students will participate in discussions on a variety of topics focusing on cultural issues, tourism and the world of work

• Spanish Route C - 6a

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on improving the student’s linguistic ability primarily through the study of selected themes taken from online newspapers,magazines,websites chosen specifically to illustrate contemporary issues in the Spanish-speaking world. Students will be expected to research their own materials and present them in discussions, analysing them and reflecting upon them. Complex and more subtle grammatical points will be analysed through the study of texts

• Spanish Route C - 6b

  Emphasis will continue to be placed on improving the student’s linguistic ability primarily through the study of selected themes taken from online newspapers, magazines, websites chosen specifically to illustrate contemporary issues in the Spanish-speaking world. Students will be expected to research their own materials and present them in discussions, analysing them and reflecting upon them. Complex and more subtle grammatical points will be analysed through the study of texts.

• Television Drama

  This module critically investigates the contemporary 'Golden Age' of television drama from North America and Europe, from 1990 to the present day. Through a close scrutiny of long-running serial dramas, we will explore notions of 'Quality' programming, and the particular impact of each series, as well as connecting them to wider understandings of television as a medium and art form. A number of methodological frameworks are considered in relation to the individual serials, allowing for work on aesthetic, thematic, institutional, socio-cultural, and generic aspects of significance. The emphasis of the module is on the close textual analysis of the particular forms and concerns of each serial drama, to assess the merits and achievements of individual works of television.

• Tell It Slant: Writing and Reality

  Emily Dickinson wrote ‘Tell all the truth, but tell it slant’. This module examines many aspects of writing from reality – the methods and reasons for doing so, the ethics involved, and whether or not it forms a ‘fourth genre’ of writing as has been posited by theorists such as Robert Root and Lee Gutkind. Degrees of ‘truth’ will be questioned: how much fiction can or should be introduced? Where does one draw the line between fiction and reality? Who has the right to draw this line? Does writing about a community, or writing with a community, alter the obligations of the writer? Authors studied may include James Frey, David Sedaris, Louisa May Alcott, Geraldine Brooks, Sei Shonagan, James Baldwin, Megan Abbott and Robin Soans.

• Texts and Screens: Studies in Literary Adaptation

  Literature and film have had a close and complex relationship since the beginning of the twentieth century when silent cinema adopted the novel as a fruitful source for its own stories. The cinema is still one of the most frequent ways by which we first encounter literary texts. By using a number of case studies this module aims to introduce you to some of the key issues involved in adapting literary texts for the cinema, including questions of narrative technique, concepts of genre, questions of representation and notions of 'fidelity' and 'authorship'. As well as close readings of the set texts (both written and cinematic) the module will also engage with recent theoretical approaches to film and literary studies. The texts chosen for study will vary from year to year but might include such notable examples as Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare; Zeffirelli; Lurhmann); Goldfinger (Flemming/Hamilton) and Trainspotting (Welsh/Boyle).

• The 1956 Suez Crisis: Causes, Course and Impact 1945-1962 B

  This module examines with the aid of contemporary documentation the origins, course and impact of the 1956 Suez Crisis, placing it within the competing contexts of European decolonisation, the Cold War and the Arab-Israeli dispute. The module falls into three parts, with the greatest weight given to the course of the crisis (defined as July to December 1956). This will enable students to analyse at close quarters both the nature of international crisis management in general and the controversial qualities of the Suez crisis, including the notorious pact of 'collusion' between Britain, France and Israel. Students will also consider why 'Suez' has attracted so much interest from historians and examine the difficulties inherent in analysing contemporary history. Student-led discussions of assigned documents and the issues which emerge from them are the central core of the course.

• The Golden Age: Victorian Children's Literature

  This module will examine the development of children's literature as a clearly defined genre during the so-called “golden age of children’s literature”, a period extending from the mid nineteenth century until the early twentieth century. Students will be invited to consider nineteenth-century children's literature in a historically contextualized way, as responding to debates about the nature of reading as a mass medium and its effect on young readers, a group regarded as particularly susceptible to its influence. Students will be encouraged to consider the disciplinary function of writing for children in relation to gender roles and class positioning.

• The Romantic Child

  This module explores images of childhood in writing of the Romantic period. We investigate some major Romantic writers who gave a special prominence to childhood: William Blake's beguilingly simple images of childhood in his 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' and a range of poetry by William Wordsworth, who focused on the peculiar responsiveness of children to nature and the revolutionary promise of the child. This module aims to contextualise such representations of childhood by introducing you to: the influential educational theories of Locke and Rousseau; the growth of literature for children (by Dissenters like Anna Laetita Barbauld, Evangelists such as Sarah Trimmer, and the Romantics Charles and Mary Lamb) and representations of childhood in fiction and non-fiction that present childhood as a less than idealized state, such as Mary Wollstonecraft's 'Original Stories from Real Life'. The module will conclude with an exploration of Gothic treatment of education in Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'.

• The Third Reich A

  This module will give students substantial knowledge of selected aspects of the Third Reich. The module will explore the Nazi 'revolution', the Nazi Party's take-over of the German state, and its relationship with it. Other aspects to be investigated include the German economy under Nazism, the use of terror and propaganda in the Nazi state, the impact of Nazism on selected social groups such as young people, women and the working classes and their reaction to it, the nazification of German culture, resistance to Nazism, and Nazi racism, in particular antisemitism. Primary sources to be used in translation will include audio and video materials as well as written materials.

• The United States' Rise to Superpowerdom 1918-1945 A

  Attention is focused both on the domestic American aspects of the development of US policy, and on the effects of the actions and policies of other nations, particularly Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union and Japan. The course falls into three parts. The first, covering 1918-1931, deals with the rejection of President Wilson's internationalism, and considers the extent and nature of isolationism. The second, 1931-41, deals with the US response to aggression in Asia and Europe, the debate over neutrality, and the policies of President F. D. Roosevelt relating to the US entry into the Second World War. The final section considers the role of the US in the war, relations with Britain and the USSR and changed attitudes towards collective security, and ends with a consideration of the origins of the Cold War.

• Themes in 20th Century People's History

  This module explores the impact of technology, war, new social ideologies and cultural re-imaginings on the experiences of ordinary women and men during the twentieth century both in Britain and in global perspective. Through a series of case studies that exploit the potential of visual sources (photographs, films, television), sound recordings (radio, oral histories) and the British mass observation archive, the module makes extensive use of forms of evidence that are inextricably linked to the social developments that they captured. Topics will typically be drawn from the following list: the changing face of war (eg Blitz; soldiers’ experiences); scientific and technological revolution ( eg man on the moon, the A bomb and nuclear weapons, mass media, the internet); the rise of mass culture; Popular culture; Sport; the changing role of women; Human rights; Religion; Migration and population movements; Environmental issues and conservation; Welfare; ‘Others’/ethnicity/nationalism.

• Thinking with History: Applying Historical Insight to Real-Life Issues

  This module will respond to contemporary issues, debates and controversies, inviting students to approach them through the lenses of public history and heritage. The module will be organised around four case studies selected annually for their topicality in Britain or internationally. Areas from which they might be drawn include: environment and climate change; conflict and war; the politics of restitution; education and citizenship; crime; family and sexuality; public legacy and heritage; media and celebrity. Can lessons be learnt from the past; what sort of lessons are they? What is entailed when current issues are placed in historical context? Students will compare different approaches to such questions and investigate the extent to which historical memory or scholarship has informed public discussions, cultural representations and policy around each of the case studies. Over the course of the semester students will contribute their own historical responses to specific debates and controversies.

• US Cinema: Studio System to Digital Era

  This module concentrates on US cinema within and without Hollywood from the 1930s to the present day, building on the Level 4 modules and the Level 5 module European Cinema. Particular attention is given to historical flashpoints of American film, to moments of significant change in terms of new aesthetic, technological, and institutional directions. The various generations of both Hollywood and 'independent' US cinema are explored from stylistic, industrial, and socio-cultural perspectives. While considering the particularly American sensibilities of US cinema, the module also looks at key influences from different forms of media and national cinemas, such as television and New Wave European films. The domination of the global market by Hollywood will also be considered, alongside significant developments in the age of digitalisation and media convergence.

• Understanding Minds

  What is the basis of our everyday ability to understand reasons for actions? Do we make sense of other minds by using theories, by imaginatively adopting the other's perspective, by creating narratives or by all of the above? Are such capacities built-in or acquired? How do they develop during childhood? These questions are central in much of today's philosophy of mind, cognitive science, anthropology, developmental psychology and a host of other disciplines. There is considerable debate about what lies at the basis of these so-called folk-psychological abilities. This module will introduce these debates and explore their relevance for philosophy and for other disciplines in the humanities and sciences.

• Video Essay

  This module complements and develops the practical skills attained at Level 5, and bridges to the MA programme in exploring an exciting and innovative development in film criticism: the video essay. This form of audio-visual analysis - using and adding to a film's footage, adopting and adapting sound and images to interpret a film's meanings - is emerging as an effective approach to critical appreciation of film and television, showcased in many acclaimed online journals and blog sites. Video essays also necessarily draw extensively on film theory, developing the students' understanding of the vital relationship between practical and theoretical approaches to the subject. The module will explore the forms, origins, and influences of the video essay, drawing on noteworthy examples and accompanying written students' reflections. The students' work on theoretical and critical frameworks then informs a practical project in which they work in small groups to produce a two-minute video essay.

• Virtues, Vices and Ethics

  There has been a revival of interest in 'virtue ethics' in recent decades, and it is typically presented as a third major approach to contemporary moral philosophy, alongside consequentialist and Kantian deontological theories of ethics. We shall briefly discuss this context and the work of some important recent virtue theorists. But the primary focus of this module will be a body of writing by contemporary philosophers on specific personal virtues and, where appropriate, corresponding vices. We shall thus bring philosophical reflection to bear on such 'everyday' issues as pride, humility, gratitude, love, compassion, hope, patience, forgiveness and trust.

• Web Design For Publishing

  During the workshops we will cover a range of topics such as usability, documentation and web design. Students will begin the module by learning HTML code because it forms the basis of all web design. We will then move on to Dreamweaver, a web editor, and Image Ready as a method of preparing graphics for the web. These packages will be used extensively, although students will be able to practice embedding a range of multi-media files e.g. text, image animation, video, sound into a web site. By the end of the module students will be able to edit and up-date a simple web site and be able to document the design process. The assessment will take the form of re-designing a real web site. Students will receive a project brief from the tutor, who in this instance will act as the client, and then they will go on to document the design process and produce a website. In addition the tutor will also set up a how to blog and encourage students to use it as a form of technical support.

• Wittgenstein's Philosophy

  Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. Much of today's philosophical thinking has been inspired by or has developed in response to his work. His first published work - the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - provides, for some, an inspiration for powerful anti-metaphysical programmes. For others, it offers refined tools for doing metaphysics in a new, more fertile way. He himself came to reject aspects of his early work. How his approach evolved can only be fully understood by considering his early programme in the light of his second great masterpiece, Philosophical Investigations. This module does just that by introducing important aspects of Wittgenstein's philosophy in their historical and ideological contexts. The module will explore a range of topics such as: the nature of language and thought and their relations to reality; meaning and use; understanding and intentionality; following a rule; the possibility of a private language; the nature of philosophy.

• Worlds Apart 2 : Science Fiction

  The module will build on knowledge gained in Worlds Apart 1: Utopian and Dystopian Writing and will allow students to further explore the genre of science fiction from its earliest form, the scientific romance, through to the cyberfiction of the late twentieth century. Students will examine the development of various forms of science fiction and its relationship to utopian and dystopian writing and the ways in which this literature addresses questions of personal and social identity, the fear and celebration of technological and sociological change, and ideas of extrapolation and estrangement. You will study a range of short stories, novels and films. Authors studied might include, H. G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Philip K Dick, William Gibson, Arnold Bester, Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree, Jr and J.G. Ballard.

• Writing for Radio: From Pitch to Production

  Radio plays often present a chance for writers to get work produced through outlets such as Radio 4’s The Afternoon Play, the most popular and available slot for radio plays, and Radio 3’s The Wire, which showcases work that aims to push the boundaries of drama and narrative. The module will consider and analyse successful radio plays. We will critically listen to extracts of radio plays in class, alongside the required ‘listening’ homework to gain an understanding of existing radio drama, such as Mike Bartlett's award-winning radio play, Not Talking. You will learn the craft of writing for radio. We will focus on how to create a soundscape or evoke a world, scene or location through sound effects. You will learn how to tell a story clearly to a radio audience, how to introduce characters and render them recognisable, how to move between locations, how to write for a specific time limit or slot, and how to lay out your work

Fees & funding

Fees 2013

UK/EU Students

International Students

Full time: £9,500 for the 2013 academic year

Discounts are available for International students if payment is made in full at registration

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Scholarships

• National Scholarship Programme

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Other financial support

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Living costs / accommodation

The University of Hertfordshire offers a great choice of student accommodation, on campus or nearby in the local area, to suit every student budget.

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How to apply