BA English Literature and Film

Title:

Genre and Context

Code:

EN1GC

Convenor:

DR Chloe Houston

Summary:

This module is designed to provide knowledge and understanding of two formative pairings of historical moment and genre: the Renaissance stage and the Victorian novel. In the first term, students will study four Renaissance plays, with an emphasis on drama as a distinct genre with its own particular conventions, and with attention to key aspects of the Renaissance stage, from playing spaces to the use of stage props. In the second term students will study three major Victorian novels, engaging with contextual issues of urbanisation, gender, sexuality and identity. In both cases, students will be encouraged to analyse literature in relation to genre and context and will gain an understanding of their intersections at particular historical moments.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Poetry in English

Code:

EN1PE

Convenor:

DR Matthew Scott

Summary:

This module provides students with training in skills of close reading that are foundational to the study of English Literature, as well as an overview of the history of poetry in English. Students will be introduced to major movements and ideas in key periods from the early Renaissance up to the present; and to a range of genres including love poetry, political poetry, pastoral, elegy, satire, the sonnet, the ode, and the dramatic monologue. Poems studied later in the course will be drawn from the wider English-speaking world, including Ireland, the Caribbean and North America, and will include a diversity of voices.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Research and Criticism

Code:

EN1RC

Convenor:

DR Stephen Thomson

Summary:

This module provides a secure foundation in both the practical skills and theoretical literacy needed for the degree-level study of literature. It combines advanced training in reading, research, and academic writing with an introduction to debates around the core concepts of ‘reader’, ‘author’, and ‘text’. The set texts – a selection of short stories and literary essays from across the world – invite students to reflect on the complexities of these critical terms and to become more independent and more questioning as readers. A series of online screencasts equip students with subject-specific skills such as writing a critical precis and plot summary as well as general academic good practice like referencing and incorporating quotations.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Approaches to Film

Code:

FT1ATF

Convenor:

DR Adam O'Brien

Summary:

How do films tell stories, make meanings, and contribute to our culture? What questions can, and should, we ask of a film?

This module includes a mix of cinema screenings, seminars and lectures, exploring a range of fiction and non-fiction films. Class discussions and assignments will challenge students to explore the meanings and cultural significance of moving images, across the 20th and 21st centuries.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Approaches to Television

Code:

FT1ATT

Convenor:

DR Faye Woods

Summary:

In an era of intensified competition for audiences and technological innovation, the box in the corner has expanded to include a vast universe of televisual content that can be slipped into your pocket. This module will equip student with the tools to both analyse this wealth of programming and the industry that produces it. Considering contemporary developments alongside the extensive history of the form, it examines continuities rather than disruption. Centred on close analysis and critical reading, students will explore a range of viewpoints and frameworks through which to approach television.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Set exercise 40%

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Title:

Ancient Song

Code:

CL1SO

Convenor:

PROF Ian Rutherford

Summary:

This module introduces students to the lyric poetry of ancient Greece and Rome, studying authors from both civilisations and considering a range of thematic approaches to the surviving corpus of poetry. It is intended to be suitable for beginners and for those who have studied some ancient literature before; there is no language requirement, but there will be an opportunity for students who do have relevant skills to employ them in their coursework and exams.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Texts, Readers, and Writers

Code:

CL1TR

Convenor:

PROF Eleanor Dickey

Summary:

This module explores the history of texts, reading, and writing in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. We shall look at literature, papyri, inscriptions, letters, Linear B, etc. Attention will also be given to the invention of the alphabet and to ancient writing materials and technologies. No knowledge of Latin, ancient Greek, or the ancient world more generally is required.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 40%, Set exercise 10%

Disclaimer:

Title:

The Economics of Climate Change

Code:

EC110

Convenor:

DR Stefania Lovo

Summary:

The module will offer an economic perspective on the causes and consequences of climate change. It will provide an introduction to key theoretical concepts, such as externalities and public goods, and to the policy tools available to devise adequate responses to climate change, such as command and control measures, taxation and subsidies. The module will also introduce national and international policy approaches in dealing with climate change and provide an overview of their implications for economic development.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Class test 40%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Economic Policy and Social Problems

Code:

EC111

Convenor:

DR Vivien Burrows

Summary:

This module will explore a range of contemporary social problems and how economic policy can be used to address them.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Report 60%

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Title:

Revolutions in Human Behaviour: 4 Million Years BC to the Present

Code:

AR1REV

Convenor:

PROF Steve Mithen

Summary:

This module investigates the development of human society in the long-term, from our earliest hominin ancestors (c. 4 million years ago) through to the present day. We will look at key revolutions that have affected human behaviour in the long-term. Key themes include: human evolution, the development of complex societies, the spread of Christianity and Islam, the industrial revolution, and 20th century world wars. The module is taught by lectures, seminars and has a field trip.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Revolutions in Human Behaviour: 4 Million Years BC to the Present [10 credits]

Code:

AR1REV10

Convenor:

PROF Steve Mithen

Summary:

This module investigates the development of human society in the long-term, from our earliest hominin ancestors (c. 4 million years ago) through to the present day. We will look at key revolutions that have affected human behaviour in the long-term. Key themes include: human evolution, the development of complex societies, the spread of Christianity and Islam, the industrial revolution, and 20th century world wars. The module is taught by lectures.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Introduction to Management

Code:

AP1SB1

Convenor:

PROF Julian Park

Summary:

This module provides a contemporary and comprehensive introduction to management science and its relevance to businesses. Interactive in-class activities and the use of online apps will help you learn techniques for inspiring teamwork in an organisation context, discover the importance of strategic management design for achieving an organisation's goals, and understand the roles of the manager and the responsibilities this carries. You will also have a range of opportunities to gain hands-on practising decision making through case studies. Furthermore, develop your leadership skills to motivate and guide a team towards the achievement of an organisation’s objectives.  

Assessment Method:

Class test 100%

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Title:

Analysing Theatre and Performance

Code:

FT1ATP

Convenor:

DR Matt McFrederick

Summary:

How do theatrical stories allow us to examine and reimagine our impression of the world today?  What practical qualities do theatre makers return to - or reinvent - in creating meaning in performance?

In this introduction to theatre and performance, you will share your interpretations and expand the ways you see and think about theatre in relation to the world today. You will learn how to be a confident spectator and reader of theatre through a range of diverse and topical performances in local or in London-based venues - previous trips have included the National Theatre, RSC Live, Peking Opera, the West End and smaller, innovative fringe venues.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Comedy on Stage and Screen

Code:

FT1CSS

Convenor:

DR Simone Knox

Summary:

This module gives students the opportunity to study comedy on stage and screen, encompassing theatre, live performance, film and television. Students will engage with the relevant critical vocabulary and contextual knowledge to explore how humour is created, circulated and consumed, across a range of genres and practices. Case studies may include classic and contemporary film comedies (e.g. screwball comedy); musical comedies (e.g. The Book of Mormon); stand-up comedy (e.g. Ali Wong); sitcoms (e.g. Friends); or the work of specific creative practitioners (e.g. Joe Orton).

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

Title:

Exploring the Studio

Code:

FT1ES

Convenor:

DR Simone Knox

Summary:

This module offers you the experience of developing creative practical work, working in small teams. It introduces you to relevant facilities and equipment, processes of practical group work, and exploring how meaning is created in cultural media. This module is focused on the creative possibilities in the Film/TV Studio, a space which calls for projects that draw both on elements of staging a live performance and filming for the screen, involving decision-making processes concerning scripting, set design, costume, make up, lighting and/or sound. So, this module is suitable for you whether you have a particular interest in film, television and/or theatre.

Assessment Method:

Oral 40%, Project 60%

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Title:

Modernisms & Mythologies

Code:

FA1MM

Convenor:

DR James Hellings

Summary:

This module will provide a broad, introductory survey of key developments in the history, theory and criticism of art during the modern period. Its starting point will be theories of the development of modernity and its social, political and economic components, and the ways in which modern art functions in and on its historical contexts. It will continue to look at the retrospective modernist critical and theoretical accounts of modern art's development.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Intercultural Competence and Communication

Code:

IL1GICC

Convenor:

MS Joan McCormack

Summary:

This module is aimed at students who are keen to develop the skills they will need for working in the multi-cultural global workplace. The module will be delivered at the University of Reading Whiteknights campus. Drawing on expertise from Schools across the university, in the Autumn term it will consider intercultural competence and communication from a range of perspectives, including psychology, education, inclusivity, business, language and discourse, and anthropology. In the Spring term students will apply their knowledge to solve a real-world issue.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

Title:

Student Enterprise

Code:

MM1F10

Convenor:

DR Lebene Soga

Summary:

This is a dynamic module introducing students to key concepts of business start-up. Students work in a team to identify and develop a new business opportunity, and then seek to test their idea through ‘lean start-up’ experiments. Students will be introduced to key concepts of entrepreneurial management including design thinking, business model creation, entrepreneurial finance and marketing. This is a highly interactive and practical module, with a focus on experiential learning.

This module is delivered at University of Reading and University of Reading Malaysia.

Assessment Method:

Oral 18%, Set exercise 2%, Project 40%, Class test 40%

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Title:

Introduction to Linguistics

Code:

ML1IL

Convenor:

MR Federico Faloppa

Summary:

This module aims to familiarise students with principles in general linguistics, and to give students an overall picture of what a language is, how it works, and what its main structures are, with a particular focus on French, German, Italian and Spanish. It will also provide useful meta-linguistic competence which can be applied to the study of any other language.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Oral 20%, Set exercise 40%

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Title:

British Society

Code:

PO1BRI

Convenor:

DR Dawn Clarke

Summary:

The module draws on theories and approaches from Politics, Sociology, Psychology, History and Philosophy to consider some of the main contours of contemporary British Society. The module will explore a number of images of Britain including: Britain as a Welfare State, Multicultural Britain and Britain as a Class Society. It will also explore crime and deviance in Britain, the role of the mass media and the increasing power of the food industry. 

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Inequality

Code:

PO1INE

Convenor:

DR Jonathan Golub

Summary:

Inequality is everywhere around us: different individuals earn different salaries, people of different genders and backgrounds have access to different economic opportunities, and those at the top of the income distribution have radically distinct life chances than those at the bottom. What explains rising inequality, is it fair and what are the consequences? Should anything be done to reduce inequality, and if so, what?This course aims to answer these questions by providing students with the analytical tools and knowledge to understand and explain the evolution of earnings, racial and gender inequality over time and its variation across developed countries. It also considers the economic, normative and political implications of different forms of inequality, in particular gender and racial inequality. Is inequality at the top of the income distribution (i.e. the 1% v. the rest of us) the inevitable outcome of a well-functioning market system or does it suggest problems in the way our democracy work? Does inequality undermine democracy for instance by affecting political participation or increasing the appeal of non-liberal populist parties? Take the course and you will find out more about these fascinating questions and more!

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Oral 10%, Project 50%

Disclaimer:

Title:

The Science of Climate Change

Code:

MT1CC

Convenor:

PROF Nigel Arnell

Summary:

This module provides an introduction to the science of climate change, aimed at students who do not necessarily have a scientific background.

Assessment Method:

Exam 70%, Assignment 30%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Introduction to Psychology

Code:

PY1IPY

Convenor:

PROF Judith Ellis

Summary:

This module is delivered at the University of Reading, for students who are interested in but not studying Psychology.  

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

Title:

What the font? Making and using typefaces

Code:

TY1WTF

Convenor:

DR Matthew Lickiss

Summary:

You are surrounded by fonts. Social media, text messages, email, branding, advertising, websites, books, magazines … Human (and machine) communication relies extensively on fonts, but what do you really know about them? How and why are new fonts created? And is it ever OK to use comic sans?! This module will introduce you to the world of typeface design, exploring the history, theory, and practice of making and using fonts and giving you the opportunity to design a typeface of your own. No background in design is required.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

Title:

What the font? Making and using typefaces (10 credits)

Code:

TY1WTF10

Convenor:

DR Matthew Lickiss

Summary:

You are surrounded by fonts. Social media, text messages, email, branding, advertising, websites, books, magazines … Human (and machine) communication relies extensively on fonts, but what do you really know about them? How and why are new fonts created? And is it ever OK to use comic sans?! This module will introduce you to the world of typeface design, exploring the history, theory, and practice of making and using fonts. No background in design is required.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

Title:

Global Justice

Code:

PP1GJ

Convenor:

DR Shalini Sinha

Summary:

Global traditions of philosophy  from the Buddha and Confucius to Simone Weil, Frantz Fanon, Martin Luther King Jr., and African and Native American thinkers advocate ideas of justice and freedom that extend far beyond contemporary conceptions. This course shows how these thinkers question our  ideas of justice, and  transform how we approach injustice and freedom in the  context of race and colonialism, nature and  indigenous communities, identity  and sexuality, family and polity, through radically different conceptions of freedom and violence,  love, equality and harmony.

Some of the claims we will examine include: Justice is freedom from suffering!  Revolutionary violence is cathartic and emancipatory! Political justice  requires mental training! Nature is alive and has rights! Gender and sexual freedom are gained by  dissolving bodily boundaries!  Truth lies in pleasure! Justice is  love! Social justice comes with harmonising differences! 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 70%, Oral 20%, Class test 10%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Film Forms and Cultures

Code:

FT2FFC

Convenor:

MS Alison Butler

Summary:

The module Film Forms and Cultures is designed to broaden students’ knowledge of the variety of film forms in historical and contemporary global cinema, and to deepen their understanding of the relationships between films and their artistic, social and cultural contexts. The module is structured as two case studies, which will be chosen each year from an indicative list including: Art Cinema, Experimental Cinema, the Essay Film, Found Footage and Appropriation, Intermediality and Cinema, Ecocinema.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Exploring Location

Code:

FT2EL

Convenor:

DR Simone Knox

Summary:

Building on Part 1, this module gives you the opportunity to deepen your engagement with creative practical work, working on more advanced projects. You will explore the creative possibilities of working on location, for the purposes of staging a live performance and/or filming for the screen. In groups, you will choose a site and develop a creative project in response. You will develop your experience of Health and Safety practices, relevant equipment and processes of practical group work. You will be able to follow your particular interests in specific creative decision-making processes, such as scripting, set design, lighting and/or sound.  

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Project 60%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Identity, Performance and Culture

Code:

FT2IPC

Convenor:

PROF Anna Mcmullan

Summary:

On this module, you will explore the construction, representation and theatrical performance of diverse modes of identity such as gender, sexuality, class, nation, ethnicity or disability.  We will consider how these intersect with the performance of identity in culture more generally, asking how theatre and performance can both reinforce particular identity positions and stereotypes, and can also expose or contest narrow, oppressive or exclusionary identity positions. We will investigate the work of theatre practitioners in relation to specific socio-historical, theoretical and theatrical frameworks, and will consider a range of performance forums such as public installations. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Placements and Employment Skills (Twenty Credits)

Code:

FT2PE20

Convenor:

MS Sue Bartlett

Summary:

Through taught sessions you will gain relevant employment skills. You will then have the opportunity to apply these skills through self-directed study. You will either a) self-organise a placement to undertake in an industry or organisation of your choice or b) undertake a detailed examination of an industry, organisation or role of your choice. Students will develop their approach to the written assessment supported by workshop discussion, and tutor and peer feedback, and in doing so will also develop their pitching and presentation skills.  

In the summer term of the previous year, a session will provide advice on how to secure a placement.  

Assessment Method:

Portfolio 50%, Project 50%

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Title:

Performance Skills: Acting and Directing

Code:

FT2PS

Convenor:

MS Lucy Tyler

Summary:

By exploring historic and contemporary acting and directing modes from a global context, this module will enable you to develop a tool-kit of practical acting and directing strategies and approaches to inform your work and identity as an artist-practitioner. Through a case-study approach, you will engage with a diverse set of aesthetic forms of theatre and performance, exploring their associated directing and acting methodologies and critical ideas within them such as agency and expression. You will have the opportunity to test out these different modes of acting and directing in hands-on sessions, reflecting on their use and application in practice.   

Assessment Method:

Practical 50%, Oral 50%

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Title:

Screen Storytelling and Criticism

Code:

FT2SSC

Convenor:

PROF John Gibbs

Summary:

This module explores film and television storytelling, against the backdrop of different genres and historical periods. It focuses on a coherent selection of films / programmes, plus associated critical and theoretical writing. You will explore a range of narrative techniques, and develop your skills in close analysis. This work will be integrated with the study of videographic criticism. You will produce a series of short videographic exercises, and develop skills which will enable you to create video essays for assignments on other modules on your degree programme.  

Assessment Method:

Project 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Television and Contemporary Culture

Code:

FT2TCC

Convenor:

DR Simone Knox

Summary:

This module deepens your understanding of television form, industry and the complexity of the medium and its programming. It provides the tools to critically engage with issues of representation and identity, explores industrial concerns (who has the power to make television and how does that impact how and what stories are told) as well as global production and trade of television. It considers different approaches to television storytelling and representations of the world around us through a selection of television genres and forms, which may include reality tv, documentary, period drama and sitcom. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Project 40%

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Title:

Writing America

Code:

EN2WA

Convenor:

DR Sue Walsh

Summary:

The module is concerned with literary constructions of American identity in American literature, focusing on some of the ways in which imaginative writers have perceived and defined the New World in relation to the Old and helped to shape or contest the nation's sense of cultural distinctiveness. The module will examine both the diversity of American voices and the emergence of common preoccupations, including myths of the frontier, Manifest Destiny, personal and political liberty, and the the construction of race, gender and sexuality.

Assessment Method:

Exam 67%, Assignment 33%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Writing in the Public Sphere

Code:

EN2WPS

Convenor:

DR Mary Morrissey

Summary:

On this module, we study the literature written in order to prompt social and political change. We examine speeches, pamphlets, tracts, and political posters from the early modern period to the present, and we consider how they continue to shape debates about class, race, religion, nationality, and women’s rights across the four nations of Britain and Ireland. We study ideas of a ‘public sphere’ in which political and cultural debate are conducted, and we analyse the techniques used in political literature. We use our study of these texts to identify the rhetorical strategies necessary for successful political campaigning today.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Victorian Literature

Code:

EN2VIC

Convenor:

DR Lucy Bending

Summary:

The Victorian era is one of great diversity and tension. It is a period when authors began to think about man's place in a world without God; about the workings of the mind; and the role of class and gender in the construction of identity. This module will engage with these, nd other ideas, looking at some of the greatest works of Victorian literature. The module will include novels (Charlotte Bronte's Villette, and Hardy's Return of the Native), poetry (Tennyson's In Memoriam, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese) journalism (Thackeray's 'Going to See a Man Hanged'), short stories (Daughters of Decadence edited by Elaine Showalter) and plays (Wilde's A Woman of No Importance).  The module offers a broad and exciting sweep of different modes of writing, drawing on some well-known and canonical texts, and some texts that are less frequently studied in an attempt to understand what mattered to the Victorians.

Assessment Method:

Exam 67%, Assignment 33%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Renaissance Texts and Cultures

Code:

EN2RTC

Convenor:

PROF Michelle O'Callaghan

Summary:

Renaissance Texts and Cultures is a module in which students explore the ways that English literature was shaped by, and helped to re-shape, English culture in the years between the Reformation and the Civil Wars. It provides students with a training in historicist literary criticism, that is, the critical approach that stresses the interconnectedness between literary texts and the cultural and political processes current at the time when the texts were first written and made public.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Shakespeare

Code:

EN2SH

Convenor:

PROF Lucinda Becker

Summary:

The module is organised chronologically in order to focus attention on different stages, genres, and periods of Shakespeare’s career as a dramatist, and begins with a lecture on the contexts of Shakespeare’s theatre, including political and social influences. Close study of at least seven plays, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and The Tempest, will encourage students to explore aspects of tradition and innovation in Shakespeare’s use of theatrical modes. The module will allow students to integrate a knowledge of the intellectual, cultural and stage history of the period into their study of the texts.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

The Romantic Period

Code:

EN2RP

Convenor:

DR Matthew Scott

Summary:

The module will provide a broad introduction to the varied literary culture of the Romantic period in Britain by examining a diverse group of texts written between 1750 and 1850.

Assessment Method:

Exam 67%, Assignment 33%

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Title:

Modernism in Poetry and Fiction

Code:

EN2MOD

Convenor:

DR Mark Nixon

Summary:

This module examines the concepts of modernity and modernism, and relates them to the history of early twentieth-century poetry and fiction. Experimentation and innovation in poetic and narrative form are explored as responses to wider social upheaval and cultural movements.

Assessment Method:

Exam 67%, Assignment 33%

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Title:

Introduction to Old English Literature

Code:

EN2OEL

Convenor:

DR Aisling Byrne

Summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl0T_Gz-KWI&t=8s

This module introduces students to the period of English literature that is often the most unfamiliar: the Old English or Anglo-Saxon period (c.7th-11th century). Old English literature is richly rewarding, not just because it has been an important influence on many twentieth-century writers (most famousl, J.R.R. Tolkien), but because its literary techniques and themes (female heroes, battles with Vikings, dragons, voyages of exile) are different to much later English literature. This module allows students to explore the literature of a time when England was part of the culture of the North.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Contemporary Fiction

Code:

EN2CF

Convenor:

PROF Bryan Cheyette

Summary:

This module will provide the opportunity to study a selection of fiction in English from the 1980s to the present day. It will highlight the formal, thematic and cultural diversity of Anglophone fiction produced in this period. Students will encounter a range of authors, including but not limited to African-American, Irish-American, Anglo-Indian, Anglo-Japanese, Canadian-Trinidadian, black British and Nigerian – though the use of such identity categories will be subject to critical scrutiny.Texts will be studied in and against a number of social, political and historical contexts, including multiculturalism, feminism and globalisation. The module will also engage with many of the key critical/theoretical paradigms of the past four decades, such as post-colonialism, post-modernism, transnationalism and intersectionality.

Assessment Method:

Exam 67%, Assignment 33%

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Title:

Critical Issues

Code:

EN2CRI

Convenor:

DR Stephen Thomson

Summary:

Critical Theory is the philosophy of literary study and this module opens up theoretical ideas connected with language, ideology, ‘structure’, sex and gender, and race. In addition to the range of theoretical arguments discussed, a literary text (George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four) is used throughout the module to consider how the ideas can be used to read text and enhance critical analysis.

Seminars discuss the ideas raised in the lectures and use them in relation to Orwell’s novel; debates include what language is and how it creates meaning; how literature may be understood within ‘structures’ and conversely how structures may conceal invested frameworks; how ideology is transmitted, circulated and absorbed ; how race has been constructed via discourses of power; how the postmodern troubles previous faith in concepts such as ‘the real’, ‘truth’, ‘logic’ and ‘reason’. Seminar debate is lively on this module and the ideas we discuss can challenge prior beliefs as well as attitudes towards text and meaning (‘what it says depends on how you look at it: nevertheless, how you look at it depends on what it says’). This module informs all subsequent work at Part 2 and at Part 3 level and is particularly helpful to dissertation work.

The essays used on the module are available on Blackboard. Students are also given weekly ‘seminar preparation’ notes to help guide their reading and their preparation for seminar debate.

Students who are keen to extend their skills in critical thinking, and who are ready to challenge their own ideas and beliefs, will find this module extremely rewarding.

Assessment Method:

Portfolio 100%

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Title:

The Business of Books

Code:

EN2BB

Convenor:

DR Nicola Wilson

Summary:

This module will enhance students’ knowledge and understanding of the book as a technology and provide the critical skills with which to consider the history and future of the book as a form. Through a combination of theoretical, methodological and hands-on teaching sessions and workshops, we will study the role and function of books in a select number of different places, historical periods, and institutional contexts, including for instance in the library, in the book shop, the publishing house, and in the board room.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 70%, Oral 30%

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Title:

Literature, Language and Education

Code:

LS2LLE

Convenor:

MRS Suzanne Portch

Summary:

This module aims to provide students with an opportunity to apply their existing degree-based knowledge and learning and extend it within their chosen specialisation. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 45%, Oral 10%, Report 45%

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Title:

Performance & Design: Site, Scenography and Installation

Code:

FT3PD

Convenor:

DR Matt McFrederick

Summary:

Performance & Design will explore the scope and potential of theatre and performance design by investigating historical and contemporary approaches to scenography. In a mixture of practical and critical workshops, you will study the creative application of the visual, aural and spatial elements of design through a rich array of performance environments and a dynamic range of innovative and international performance practices, from digital experiments to site-specific performances. The module will support you in analysing the practice of pioneering designers (such as Jocelyn Herbert and Josef Svoboda), facilitate collaborations with the National Theatre Archive, and enable masterclasses on contemporary approaches to design with visiting designers and/or scholars. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Portfolio 60%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Identity, Agency, Advocacy: Diversity and Representation in Film, Television and Theatre

Code:

FT3IAA

Convenor:

DR Lisa Woynarski

Summary:

This module is taught twice to two different cohorts of students, one in Autumn and one in Spring term.  The 200 contact hours are listed for the first iteration of teaching in the Autumn term, and these same contact hours are repeated for the second iteration of teaching, in the Spring term.

In this module, we explore questions concerning diversity and inclusion that are currently receiving much high-profile attention and debates in a number of different contexts, within and across film, television and theatre. We undertake close analysis of screen and stage representations that pertain to the complex interconnection of issues such as class, disability, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexuality. We combine our intersectional approach with an examination of relevant industrial, political and socio-cultural contexts and debates, and we explore how diversity and inclusion work intersects with the process of making. We pay particular attention to different kinds of minority and/or marginalized identities, as well as the efforts made by campaigners and advocates to push for equitable and meaningful representation. Films, programmes and plays to feature on the module may include: Fresh Off the Boat; Get Out; Goodbye CP; Jubilee; Kiss, Marry, Kill; The Slave; Transparent.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

Title:

Practice as Research Project

Code:

FT3PAR

Convenor:

PROF Teresa Murjas

Summary:

It is a practical cross-disciplinary module and focuses on making research-led creative work. Under supervision, students will collaboratively produce a new, public-facing piece of creative practice. There will be contribution to the module from a professional practitioner. The module interlinks with an innovative, large scale research project called The People of 1381 (with reference to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381), funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC). This is based at the University of Reading and is being conducted in collaboration with the Universities of Glasgow, Oxford and Southampton: https://www.1381.online/ Students on the module will draw on the project research team’s findings in order to make creative work. Students will be assessed on the practice elements of the module and on connected written elements. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Project 60%

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Title:

Ensemble Practice

Code:

FT3EP

Convenor:

DR Lisa Woynarski

Summary:

This is a practical theatre module focused on ensemble making. You will form an ensemble, develop a working process and make practical responses to a series of case studies (national and global). You will examine general and specific working practices of ensemble theatre makers, such as conceptual and creative collaboration, rehearsal room and performance processes. You will also extend your knowledge of craft, technical, performance and creative skills in core areas of ensemble practice. This supports the work on FT3APT. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Practical 60%

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Title:

Dissertation: Film & Theatre

Code:

FT3DISS

Convenor:

DR Matt McFrederick

Summary:

This module represents the student's major piece of independent work, the culmination of their critical writing on the course. As such the module aims to test the student's ability to apply accumulated skills and knowledge to an area of individual interest in an extended essay on a topic not directly taught on the course, and which is initiated and developed independently but under supervision. Students will have the opportunity to develop core skills related to their dissertation through taught classes in the Autumn and Spring terms.  

Assessment Method:

Dissertation 100%

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Title:

Cinema, Spectacle and Technology

Code:

FT3CST

Convenor:

PROF Lisa Purse

Summary:

Cinema has a long tradition of seeking to guarantee its market share through the spectacular, but the spectacular is also frequently derided as ‘just entertainment,’ unworthy of sustained examination. In this module we will explore the ways in which film style, technology, economics, narrative and culture intersect at key moments in the history of spectacular cinema. We will also study how spectacular cinema has been understood and responded to, looking at key debates in film scholarship, film criticism, and in mainstream and trade press.  

This module is taught twice to two different cohorts of students, both in the Spring Term.

Assessment Method:

Project 100%

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Title:

Contemporary Documentary

Code:

FT3CD

Convenor:

MR James Kenward-Abdollahyan

Summary:

This module is taught twice to two different cohorts of students - first in the Autumn term and then repeated in the Spring term.  The 200 contact hours are listed for the first iteration of teaching in the Autumn term, and these same contact hours are repeated for the second iteration of teaching in the Spring term.

The module examines some of the fundamental issues in recent and current documentary film-making for film and television. The module does so by exploring a number of case studies that, individually and collectively, consider documentary in terms of the aesthetic diversity and complexity of existing practice, and particular attention will be paid to the relationship between production process and aesthetics as well as politics of representation. The case studies are drawn from both Anglophone and non-Anglophone contexts, and may include: animated documentary, Chinese documentary, docudrama, documentary and authorship, documentary and poetry, ethnographic documentary, mockumentary, and observational documentary.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

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Title:

Cities on Screen

Code:

FT3CAS

Convenor:

DR Faye Woods

Summary:

The city has long been a favoured subject of the cinema, which has shaped, influenced, mythologized, and invented the city. Television’s representation of the city, both its interiors and exteriors, has helped bring the world into our homes. This module explores film and television’s encounter with the city through a series of city case studies. It explores iconographic cinematic cities as well as less familiar spaces worldwide. It explores humans’ relationships with the city, the everyday routines, the struggle to survive and the flights of fantasy. This module will consider how the city is intertwined with class, race, migration, labour, architecture, geography and nation, along with wider concerns of space and place.   

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Project 50%

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Title:

Adaptations across Stage and Screen

Code:

FT3AD

Convenor:

DR Sarah Bartley

Summary:

You will explore contemporary practices of adaptation in performance and on screen through a series of creative experiments and case study analyses. You will also examine the politics and the disruptive potential of adaptation as a process. Areas of exploration may include: relocating narratives in time and space, Intercultural adaptation, queer adaptations, cultural appropriation, transposing stories across form and genre, retelling stories. You will be able to specialise in the discipline of your choice (film, theatre, television), thinking about adaptation in relation the particular area of practice that interests you.  

Assessment Method:

Practical 60%, Portfolio 40%

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Title:

World Cinema: Creative Peaks

Code:

FT3WCC

Convenor:

PROF Lucia Nagib

Summary:

‘World Cinema: Creative Peaks’ looks at film history and geography through a democratic and inclusive approach. Rather than separating Hollywood from the rest of the world, it frames World Cinema as a polycentric phenomenon with peaks of creation in different places and periods. Instead of establishing primacies and hierarchies, it identifies common tropes and cross-pollinations beyond national and cultural borders. Focusing on new realist movements and new waves from around the world, the module will analyse productions from France, Germany, Japan, Brazil, Iran, as well as from the Inuit and other indigenous populations, demonstrating how they compare and inter-relate.  

Assessment Method:

Exam 80%, Oral 20%

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Title:

Videographic Criticism

Code:

FT3VC

Convenor:

PROF John Gibbs

Summary:

Learn to make video essays (also known as audiovisual essays). This module gives you the opportunity to explore recent developments in videographic criticism, produce a series of short videographic exercises, respond to extensive feedback, and then create a video essay on a film or television programme of your choice. 

This module is taught twice to two different cohorts of students - first in the Autumn term and then repeated in the Spring term. The 200 contact hours are listed for the first iteration of teaching in the Autumn term, and these same contact hours are repeated for the second iteration of teaching in the Spring term.

Assessment Method:

Project 100%

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Title:

Television Industries

Code:

FT3TI

Convenor:

DR Faye Woods

Summary:

This industry studies module explores the current make-up and practices of the US and British television industries and related digital media forms. It will consider their place in the global marketplace alongside questions of power and agency – who gets to make television and what structures shape this? Through a focus on production and distribution cultures this module will analyse channels, streaming platforms and programming (which may include Channel 4, HBO, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Disney+ and Youtube). This module will explore how different outlets and their programming have developed and will track how the industry responds to the fast pace of technological, political and social change. We will chart trends and cycles of programming, launches of new SVODs, delve into television history and explore breaking changes in the industry. Students will engage in long-form and case-study approaches to individual companies and their programming, responding to and charting real-time change, drawing on industry reporting as well as key concepts in academic work on television industries.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

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Title:

Three Films

Code:

FT3THF

Convenor:

MS Alison Butler

Summary:

This module takes a long, hard look at three complementary films. In an era of convenient access to proliferating screen media, we never need to watch the same thing twice. But ‘opening up’ a film through multiple viewings and discussions is vital – it can help us better understand how films work, and it gives more voice to diverse interpretations and debates. Rather than attempt to cover periods, genres or themes, Three Films is led by the practice and opportunities of close and cumulative study, and asks what it means to explore the same film from a variety of approaches (for example aesthetic, political and industrial).

Assessment Method:

Oral 50%, Project 50%

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Title:

Work Placements and Profiles (20 Credits)

Code:

FT3PL20

Convenor:

DR Veronica Rodriguez Morales

Summary:

This optional module aims to provide an opportunity for career development through reflective learning. Students will either a) self-organise a placement to undertake in an industry or organisation of their choice or b) undertake a detailed examination of an industry, organisation or role of their choice. Students will then construct a written assessment which provides the opportunity for critical reflection on their placement or selected portfolio. 

In the summer term of the previous year, a session will provide dynamic advice on how to secure a placement. Students will work collectively to self-organise a series of relevant industry speakers, and will conduct research on the industry sector that most interests them. Students will develop their approach to the written assessment supported by workshop discussion, and tutor and peer feedback, and in doing so will also develop their pitching and presentation skills.

Assessment Method:

Portfolio 100%

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Title:

Writing Women: Nineteenth Century Poetry

Code:

EN3WWP

Convenor:

DR Lucy Bending

Summary:

This module will explore writing primarily by (but also about) women in the nineteenth century. We will read some well-known and influential poems –Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, for example – as well as some by less well-known names, discussing the ways in which women responded to poetic tradition. We will ask how women found a voice in a predominantly patriarchal society; what subjects were deemed suitable for female poets, and how such poets overcame the limitations of expectation; how different verse forms could be used to different ends. Above all, the aim is to enjoy a wide-range of poems with women at their centre.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury

Code:

EN3VW

Convenor:

DR Madeleine Davies

Summary:

Virginia Woolf is a crucial reference point for women’s writing and feminist criticism.  This module provides students with knowledge and understanding of selected novels and essays by Virginia Woolf, and explores key issues including her challenges to concepts of boundaries, hierarchies, sex, sexuality and difference, and her attention to debates concerning the social, political, cultural and economic marginalisation of women in the early years of the Twentieth Century. The module emphasises Woolf’s novels, but seminars are also devoted to her critical essays and ‘political’ writing. Discussion of ‘Bloomsbury’ ethics and art weaves throughout the module. The debates included in the module connect with pacifism, the writing of the city, psychoanalysis, the challenge to heteronormativity, the body, and the tension between female creativity and procreativity.

Assessment Method:

Portfolio 100%

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Title:

The Bloody Stage: Revenge and Death in Renaissance Drama

Code:

EN3TBS

Convenor:

DR Chloe Houston

Summary:

This module explores the representation of revenge and death across a range of revenge tragedies performed on the Renaissance stage. The Renaissance is a period when bodies were mutilated and put on public display by the state. We will explore what spectacles of punishment can tell us about wider cultures of retribution and violence, including the tensions between private revenge and state justice. Since bodies in death are surprisingly articulate, this module will consider how to analyse the staging of death scenes and whether there are differences in the ways that men and women die on stage. These highly stylised revenge tragedies are deliberately provocative and raise important questions about the aesthetics and ethics of violence.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

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Title:

The Writer's Workshop: Studying Manuscripts

Code:

EN3SM

Convenor:

DR Mark Nixon

Summary:

This module provides a practical and theoretical introduction to the study of manuscripts and textual scholarship. Students will have the unique opportunity of drawing on the resources of the extensive range of manuscript materials held at the University’s Special Collections.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 80%, Report 20%

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Title:

Shakespeare on Film

Code:

EN3SHF

Convenor:

PROF Lucinda Becker

Summary:

Filmic adaptation of Shakespeare is a major component of the ‘Shakespeare Industry’. This module explores how the medium of film has treated Shakespeare, with a focus on how the written text can be used in depictions, interpretations and adaptations, and how film making techniques affect our perception of Shakespeare’s works. Alongside consideration of how plays have been interpreted on screen we will also consider key actors and directors, tracing changes and developments in both cinema and the ways early modern drama has been interpreted and appropriated by filmmakers in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Throughout we will work with an awareness of Shakespeare as a cultural icon.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 80%, Oral 20%

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Title:

From Romance to Fantasy

Code:

EN3RF

Convenor:

DR Mary Morrissey

Summary:

On this module, students will explore the role played by fantastical or wondrous elements in English literature from the middle ages to the present day. It will focus on a range of key narrative structures (such as the quest), persistent motifs such as magical objects, and influential modes, such as the gothic. It will present authors typically associated with fantasy, such as J.R.R. Tolkien, alongside authors less typically associated with this type of writing, such as Shakespeare and Jane Austen. It will also consider how romance narratives, like the stories of King Arthur, developed in the medieval period and were then revived and reworked in later centuries. It will explore the reinvention of the middle ages in subsequent centuries and consider what ‘medievalism’ tells us about the culture of later literary periods.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

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Title:

Psychoanalysis and Text

Code:

EN3PSY

Convenor:

PROF Karin Lesnik-Oberstein

Summary:

This module introduces and explores relationships between psychoanalysis and literary criticism, concentrating not on psychoanalysis as ‘applied’ to literature, but, instead, on thinking through the implications of psychoanalysis for literary criticism and theory. On the basis of readings from Sigmund Freud the students are introduced to central concepts from and about psychoanalysis, primarily the psychoanalytic ‘unconscious’, and then continue by examining the implications of this for ideas about authorship and intentionality, readership and response, and text and interpretation. After the initial readings from Freud, each group selects both primary and secondary literature to analyse closely.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

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Title:

Placing Jane Austen

Code:

EN3PA

Convenor:

DR Paddy Bullard

Summary:

Jane Austen once compared her art to that of the miniaturist: each of her novels, she wrote, was like a ‘little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour’. But the relatively small scale of her writing in terms of setting – its tendency to domestic portraits and family groupings – belies the expansiveness and mobility of her imagination. Austen had a vivid sense of the wider world in which she lived. Her meticulously realised interiors are set carefully within larger landscapes, and both are full of social, economic and aesthetic meaning. Her characters move between great houses and ordinary cottages, between city and suburb, between old agricultural estates and newly landscaped parklands, between familiar parishes and fashionable tourist destinations. Austen scholars have also explored wider backgrounds to her fiction: the ocean journeys of her naval officer relatives (and their equivalents in her novels); the colonial slave plantations that paid for those stately country homes. This module investigates Austen’s sense of space and place. It examines the movements of her characters through rooms and houses, the patterns of their dances in assembly halls, the paths of their journeys through town and country. It investigates how these movements sometimes represent changes of heart or class, of mind or fortune. It shows how they are always significant for the carefully drawn lines of her narratives.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Portfolio 50%

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Title:

Oscar Wilde and the World of Art

Code:

EN3OW

Convenor:

DR John Scholar

Summary:

Oscar Wilde, lover of beauty, sexual rebel, and socialist, was unique but he didn’t emerge from a vacuum. This module looks at how the Aesthetic Movement, the new celebration of art for art’s sake which swept across Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, inspired Wilde. We will look in depth at Wilde’s fiction, drama and poetry, through the lens of the pioneering painters, designers and art critics who motivated him, asking why words and images combined and collided in this period in new and controversial ways. The module will take advantage of digital technology to confront the most vivid images of this period, such as the Gothic buildings of Venice, the medieval maidens of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, and the smoky sexualities of French symbolist painting. We will examine a wide range of visual arts including painting, photography, fashion, architecture, and interior design. The module will also pose fundamental questions, such as, does a knowledge of the visual arts help us understand literature? And how in this period did literature and the visual arts differently register cultural, technological and political changes?

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

American Graphic Novels

Code:

EN3AGN

Convenor:

PROF David Brauner

Summary:

Through detailed analysis of a range of graphic novels and related scholarship, students will develop their skills of close reading sequential art and their understanding of the particular discourses that characterise graphic novels and academic criticism of the medium. There will be a particular emphasis on graphic novels that interrogate and complicate the relationship between autobiography, biography and fiction and that explore constructions of gender and ethnicity in the context of broader historical and political developments in contemporary America. 

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Black British Fiction

Code:

EN3BBF

Convenor:

DR Cato Marks

Summary:

This module examines a range of British texts (poetry, drama, novels, short stories, films) by writers of black and Asian descent. Beginning with the 1950s and progressing to the present day, we discuss what might constitute the (black) British literary tradition. The module reads its set texts alongside theoretical and historical material examining issues of cultural capital, national identity and minority communities. Documentary footage, blogs, and contemporary reportage will also be examined in order to trace the pressures that the terms ‘black’ and ‘British’ have exerted on each other in a variety of historical, social, and cultural contexts.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Portfolio 50%

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Title:

Hitchcock

Code:

EN3AH

Convenor:

DR Neil Cocks

Summary:

Through studying of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, this module offers students the opportunity to engage critically with a new medium. Through a detailed analysis of a range of films, students will be introduced to a variety of critical frameworks, from structuralist accounts of film grammar, to recent interventions from Queer Theory and Psychoanalysis. They will be asked to adopt a reflexive approach towards such theory, thinking through the demands it makes upon their reading.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Decadence and Degeneration: Literature of the 1880s and 1890s

Code:

EN3DD

Convenor:

DR Lucy Bending

Summary:

This module engages with some of the most iconic texts in English literature, including Stoker’s Dracula, Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, and Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. In it we will explore what is meant by these terms ‘decadence’ and ‘degeneration’, calling, amongst many other things, on portrayals of 1890s’ foppishness, Darwinian models of evolution, the emergent New Woman phenomenon, the Wilde trial, and the portrayal of prostitution. This module is very interested in contextual material as a way of understanding literary texts, and we will be looking at a wealth of magazine articles and medical and scientific texts as a way of recognizing the depth and complexity of literary works.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Dickens

Code:

EN3DIC

Convenor:

PROF Andrew Mangham

Summary:

An opportunity for the detailed and intensive study of the work of Charles Dickens, based on the close analysis of four works and exploring Dickens's innovations and developments of the novel form in his historical and cultural contexts.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Class Matters

Code:

EN3CM

Convenor:

DR Nicola Wilson

Summary:

What is class and why does it matter? This module considers both the idea of ‘working-class writing’ and the representation of the working classes in cultural forms. Structured chronologically and moving from the work of Robert Tressell and D.H. Lawrence through to the literature of the 1984 Miners’ Strike, the module introduces a variety of twentieth-century working-class writings including novels, short stories, essays, poetry and autobiography. Broadening our understanding of the literary and cultural history of the twentieth century, we consider the impact of unemployment, economic depression, im/migration, and changes in patterns of consumption and leisure on the production and reception of working-class writing.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 30%, Oral 20%

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Title:

Children's Literature

Code:

EN3CL

Convenor:

PROF Karin Lesnik-Oberstein

Summary:

This module examines issues around children’s literature and children’s literature criticism and questions wide-spread popular assumptions about how to read and write about children’s literature. Students who do not wish actually to challenge and develop their own thinking, reading and writing about children and children’s books should not, therefore, take this module! Through in seminars closely analysing a range of children’s literature from the twentieth century and later, the module questions and analyses critical assumptions and formulations around authorship, memory, observation, readership, and identity. Some of the texts will be set by the module convenor whilst further texts may be chosen by the seminar group. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

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Title:

Contemporary American Fiction

Code:

EN3CF

Convenor:

PROF David Brauner

Summary:

The module is concerned with American fiction published in the last two decades of the twentieth century and first decade of the twenty-first, focusing on some of the ways in which contemporary American novelists deconstruct and reconstruct traditional ideas of what the novel can and should be and do. Exploring key terms such as realism, postmodernism, metafiction and irony, the module will examine both the diversity of contemporary American voices and the emergence of common preoccupations among these writers, alongside the different socio-historical contexts in which they work.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Medieval Otherworlds

Code:

EN3MO

Convenor:

DR Aisling Byrne

Summary:

Magic and the supernatural play an important role in medieval English literature. In this module we will explore literary accounts of a range of fantastical locations where the ‘other’ is encountered in a particularly dramatic fashion. We will discuss romances where questing knights arrive in uncanny fairy kingdoms or where King Arthur travels to Avalon. We will analyse travel accounts which populate the fringes of the world with marvels and strange beings. In some narratives, heroes test themselves in hellish landscapes or search for paradise on earth. In other texts, sleepers confront the surreal world of their own dreams. Although depictions of these places can be sensational or escapist, authors also use them to explore very serious themes such as desire, death, gender and political authority.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Margaret Atwood

Code:

EN3MAT

Convenor:

DR Madeleine Davies

Summary:

Margaret Atwood is Canada's most influential contemporary writer. Atwood consistently engages with issues of power ('who can do what to whom and get away with it') and her work connects with a range of contemporary debates including ecological, feminist, and ideological discourses. On this module we discuss dystopia, speculative fiction, the uncanny, ideology, postmodernity and questions of language and narration, engaging with the texts via close analysis and critical/theoretical readings of the texts. The novel explores Atwood's novels (The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin and The Testaments) but her poetry and critical essays are discussed as appropriate. Students will demonstrate their engagement with the module in a summative Portfolio assessment which will be submitted by or on the final day of the term in which the module is taught (see below for assessment details). There is no exam on this module.

Assessment Method:

Portfolio 100%

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Title:

Literature and Mental Health

Code:

EN3LMH

Convenor:

DR John Scholar

Summary:

This module looks at how literature engaged with mental health in the first half of the twentieth century, a crucial turning point in psychology. Authors may include E.M. Forster, Wilfred Owen, May Sinclair, D. H. Lawrence, and Katherine Mansfield. In the nineteenth century people were becoming increasingly aware of the challenges to mental health posed by city life across Europe. But such challenges were soon overwhelmed by the destruction of the First World War. In its wake two young disciplines, psychiatry and psychology, gained credibility and resources. These disciplines arguably helped to destigmatize mental illness, laying the foundations for how we approach mental health today. But so did the literature of this period which famously turned inwards to record as faithfully as possible the mind in all its complexity. We will look at literary engagement with trauma, anxiety, and obsession, among other things, but we will also look at how literature inspired readers, helping them to feel positive about their minds and bodies, and depicting seminal moments of psychic and sexual liberation.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Holocaust Testimony: Memory, Trauma and Representation

Code:

EN3HT

Convenor:

PROF Bryan Cheyette

Summary:

The module introduces students to the most important works of Holocaust Testimony and, by reading these books critically, will develop an awareness of theoretical issues concerning the relationship between trauma, memory and narrative, and the connection, more generally, between literary and historical forms of narrative. The module will examine both the diversity of Holocaust Testimony and the emergence of common preoccupations among these writers, alongside the different narrative forms and socio-historical contexts in which they work.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

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Title:

The Eighteenth-Century Novel: Sex and Sensibility

Code:

EN3ECN

Convenor:

DR Rebecca Bullard

Summary:

The novel as we know it today was born during the eighteenth century. From the first, novels display an intense fascination with the human body, constructions of gender and sexuality, and the physical and emotional responses of readers to the words on the page. But why are eighteenth-century novelists so interested in sex and - to use a key word of the period - sensibility? What different kinds of response do they elicit from their readers? And how can contemporary and recent ideas about the body, gender, authorship and reading help us to interpret these innovative literary texts? 

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

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Title:

Global Literatures: Translation as Theme and Theory

Code:

EN3GLT

Convenor:

DR Nicola Abram

Summary:

This module engages students with the global scope of contemporary literature, from 1980 to the present. Applying a comparative critical approach, it draws on a range of novels, short stories, and literary essays from around the world (some of which will be read in translation). Its focus is on cross-cultural encounter, and the associated issues of communication and translation: these will be studied both as thematic content and as theoretical concepts. This module will therefore be of interest to students preparing to practice as translators, as well as equipping all participants to appreciate and articulate the ways in which language and literature make, unmake, and remake the world and its citizens. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Portfolio 50%

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Title:

Dissertation

Code:

EN3DIS

Convenor:

DR Stephen Thomson

Summary:

The Dissertation is a substantial (8,000-word) work of literary-critical argument, based on sustained independent research under the guidance of a supervisor, and written and presented in a scholarly manner. Prior to completing the dissertation students who take this module submit a 2,000-word portfolio of supporting documents, including: a literary review or bibliographical exercise; a sample of dissertation-level work; and a reflective piece, discussing rationales and research questions for the project. The module offers students the opportunity to explore in depth topics of particular interest, and to develop skills accumulated during their first two years of study.

Assessment Method:

Dissertation 80%, Portfolio 20%

Disclaimer: