History and American Studies BA (Hons)

About the course

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. The wide choice of modules available to you in these years allows you to concentrate on those areas that you find especially interesting; you might focus on a particular region, such as Europe, or a particular period, such as the twentieth century.

American Studies

Students studying American Studies can follow a specified route through the Humanities programme, choosing interdisciplinary American topics at each level, whilst developing critical and analytical skills suitable to each of the component subject areas. At Level 1, you will study American History from 1600-1850, and an Introduction to Film course. At Level 2, you can study American Literature from the colonial period to the present day, the history of the transatlantic slave trade, and American history from the mid-nineteenth century to late twentieth century. Level 3 offers the chance to study Native American literature, and transatlantic literary relations; America's rise to superpowerdom; or American cinema from the last forty years. American Studies can be studied as a joint honours or a combined honours subject.

Why choose this course?

American Studies will develop your understanding of the social, political and cultural contexts of the USA, from the earliest settlement of North America by Europeans through to its current pre-eminent position as the world's only superpower.

Study routes

• Sandwich, 4 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, Europe, Australia or Singapore 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. American Studies students are particularly encouraged to take advantage of our many study-abroad agreements with partner universities across the United States and Canada.

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.

Fees & funding

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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Living costs / accommodation

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How to apply