Module |
Credits |
Compulsory/optional |
Renaissance Tragedy
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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'. |
Eighteenth Century Bodies
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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'. |
Literature Project
|
30 Credits |
Optional |
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. |
Between the Acts: Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature 1890-1920
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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. |
Postmodern Genders
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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. |
Children's Literature:Growing up in Books
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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 |
Native American Literature
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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, D'Arcy McNickle, N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Gerald Vizenor, Joy Harjo, Louise Erdrich, James Welch, Sherman Alexie, and Thomas King. |
East End Fictions: Interdisciplinary Studies of London's East End
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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. |
Worlds Apart 1: Utopian & Dystopian Writing
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
In this module you will study some of the fantastic, futuristic worlds created by writers to reflect upon their own societies and analyse the implications of these utopian or dystopian visions. The module will consider the set texts' engagement with major political and cultural movements of the late nineteenth century and twentieth century such as industrial capitalism, imperialism, fascism, totalitarianism, mass production and feminism. You will study a selection of late nineteenth-century and twentieth-century utopian and dystopian writings. These may include writers such as Edward Bellamy, William Morris, H.G.Wells, George Orwell, Yevgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Octavia Butler, Ursula Le Guin, Anthony Burgess, Margaret Atwood and Marge Piercy. |
Texts and Screens: Studies in Literary Adaptation
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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 Golden Age: Victorian Children's Literature
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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. |
African-American Literature
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
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. |
Generation Dead: Young Adult Fiction and the Gothic
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
All over the country in the world of young adult fiction teenagers who die aren't staying dead. This module will interrogate the new high school gothic, exploring the representation of the undead or living dead (werewolves, vampires and zombies) in dark or paranormal romance. Texts range from Twilight, Vampire Diaries and Daniel Waters's zombie trilogy to Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies and Eden Maguire's The Beautiful Dead. We'll also look at examples of werewolf fiction (Shiver) and at the folklore inspired novels of Marcus Sedgwick.
Y.A.F. has attracted some of the most gifted writers who address these themes as a means of confronting death or discrimination or to engage with Christianity or Mormonism and embrace the enduring power of love. We will be theorising folklore, investigating the ethics of writing for young adults, and grappling with undead issues such as the notion of free will, damnation and redemption, the sexualisation of early teens, the effects of prejudice and the politics of difference. |
Twenty-first Century American Writing
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
This module will survey contemporary American literature from the twenty-first century. We will investigate key literary texts and cultural movements from the period alongside historical contexts and new theoretical frameworks. Examining works of narrative, drama and poetry, we will look at a variety of textual strategies that contemporary authors use to investigate the contemporary world. Structured through six key themes--including 9/11, the transcultural, sexuality and race--the module will provide students with the change to explore new and diverse literary material that attempts to explore America in today's "globalized" world. Texts studied will vary but typically will include novels (Philip Roth's The Human Stain), poetry (Claudia Rankine's Citizen) and drama (Moises Kaufman's The Laramie Project). |
Euro-Crime on Page and Screen
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
The twenty-first century has seen a resurgence of interest in crime fiction, films and television dramas ranging from renewed interest in the "who-dunnits" of Agatha Christie to the more explicit violence of contemporary "Nordic Noir". This module examines examples of European crime writing beginning with the popularity of detective fiction in the early 1900s before looking at how successive European writers and film/programme makers have modified the form to suit their times, often using the crime at the centre of their narratives as a jumping off point for exploring questions of national and cultural identities. The written and filmed texts studied will take us to different European countries. Typical examples include, but are not limited to, stories from Britain's "Golden Age" (1920s and 1930s), novels and film adaptations of work by Georges Simenon (Inspector Maigret, France), Arnaldur Indriðason (Detective Erlendur, Iceland), Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Sweden), and Andrea Camilleri and Giancarlo de Cataldo (Inspector Montalbano and Romanze Criminale, Italy). Works will be read in translation. |
The Literary Professional
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
This module enables you to incorporate practical experience, and critical understanding of the workplace, into your study of English Literature and/or Creative Writing. It focuses on students' understanding of how 'literature' (the writing process, the marketing and retailing of texts, their critical analysis, or literary history) is encountered by a non-academic audience. You must find a suitable work placement by the end of the previous semester, with guidance from the module leader. Placements could range from a school or college to literary heritage sites, literary festivals; publishing companies; a bookshop; arts organisations or theatres. Placements should be for a minimum of 24 accumulated hours. In workshops, you will critically analyse the sector in which your work placement has been undertaken, reflect on your experiences, and develop a broader appreciation of how literature is engaged with outside higher education. Assessment comprises a presentation and a portfolio including the development of a new curriculum vitae.
Please note a) students must source their own work placement with the assistance of the module leader; b) students may not take this module at Level 6 if they have already completed the Level 5 'Literature at Work' module. |