Faculty of Arts English Literature Module Catalogue Study Abroad Students Semester Two 2017/2018 Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL1506
Critical Reading 2
15
1
Level 4
Amanda Boulter
Module Description:
This is the second of two related modules which together form a foundational introduction to the critical reading of literary texts. This module will build upon the first by giving students an opportunity to engage with selected literary, critical and theoretical texts, brought together in order to demonstrate the application of major critical theories to literature from different genres and periods. Students will acquire from this module the critical and theoretical basis for the remainder of their undergraduate work in English. It will follow a chronological scheme in order to show how literary criticism has changed through debate and controversy in relation to changes within society and the academy. It will incorporate the most recent developments in criticism, introducing students to key critical extracts alongside literary texts in order to familiarize them with the most significant ideas of the most influential thinkers for the study of literature.
Specific to:
Assessments:
002:
Weekly On‐Line Formative Assessment
Examination
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
001:
Semester
S2
0%
100%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL1507
Early English Texts And Contexts
15
1
Level 4
Nick Rowe
Module Description:
This module is designed to introduce students to a range of literary texts and genres from the medieval period up to the eighteenth century, opening consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of understanding these texts in relation to their historical contexts. This will include consideration of the following: the changing practices of publication and composition of audience; the historical, political and cultural contexts; contemporary conceptualisations of genre, gender roles and sexual identity; treatment of issues of colonialism, national identity, ethnic difference and religious affiliation. By tracing these topics across texts from different periods comparison and contrast in relation to historical change will be highlighted. Students will be encouraged to draw from the theoretical materials studied in Critical Reading 1 and 2 to develop their interpretations of these texts. The use of texts that have already received considerable critical attention will enable students to engage with existing critical discussion in these areas.
Specific to:
Assessments:
001:
002:
Annotated Bibliography
Essay
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
Semester
S2
40%
60%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL2306A
Nineteenth‐Century Romanticism
15
1
Level 5
Gary Farnell
Module Description:
An in‐depth examination of nineteenth‐century Romanticism is undertaken in this module. This proceeds through a periodization of later – ‘second‐generation’ – Romanticism in the nineteenth century, running from the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 to the Great Reform Act of 1832. Within this there is close analysis of a range of both canonical and non‐canonical writers (for example, Elizabeth Barrett; Lord Byron; John Clare; Felicia Hemans; John Keats; Percy Bysshe Shelley). Further, there is comparative assessment of different approaches to this kind of analysis.
Specific to:
Assessments:
001:
002:
Essay
Examination
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
50%
50%
Semester
S2
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL2402A
Shakespeare And Seventeenth‐Century Drama
15
1
Level 5
Nick Rowe
Module Description:
This module will introduce students to a broad range of dramatic texts produced in the seventeenth century. Students will study examples of plays written by Shakespeare, alongside those of his contemporaries such as Jonson and Webster. Drama of the later part of the century will be approached through a consideration of the response to Shakespeare as exemplified by Restoration adaptations and examples of Restoration comedy by playwrights such as Behn and Wycherley. The selected plays will be placed in their wider cultural and historical context and attention will be given to the institutional location of the texts within the practices of professional theatre companies, particularly the impact of women actors and playwrights.
Specific to:
Assessments:
001:
002:
Essay
Exam
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
50%
50%
Semester
S2
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL2504A
Gothic And Romantic Fiction
15
1
Level 5
Gary Farnell
Module Description:
An in‐depth examination of Gothic and Romantic fiction is undertaken in this module. The starting‐point, both historically and analytically, is Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto of 1764 (famously, the first ‘Gothic Story’ in its second edition, 1765). After this there is further analysis of individual works of Gothic and Romantic fiction (including Jane Austen’s ‘spoof’ Gothic novel, Northanger Abbey) through to the last years of the ‘first wave’ of Gothic fiction and of the Romantic period proper in the 1820s. This whole examination is structured in terms of a narrative of ‘genre war’ between Gothic and realist fictional forms. All this provides an opportunity for evaluation of different approaches to analysis of Gothic and Romantic fiction. Specific to:
Assessments:
001:
002:
Essay
Examination
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
50%
50%
Semester
S2
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL2507
Postcolonial Fictions
15
1
Level 5
Michael Jardine
Module Description:
This module will explore recent developments in the study of postcolonial literature as it has responded to debates concerning globalization and the concept of world literature. It will introduce the controversies surrounding the contested definitions of ‘the postcolonial’ and the major theorists and critics of postcolonialism. It will study selected key texts from Africa, South‐East Asia and the Caribbean, with a focus on prose fiction. Context for critical analysis will include the role played by colonial activity in the development of the modern age and the impact of imperialism upon global movements in the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries. Attention will be given to what the ‘post’ in postcolonialism might mean and the shifting significance of such key terms as hybridity, diaspora, nationalism, multiculturalism and the postcolonial exotic. The module will allow for the inclusion of emerging authors as well as founding texts, such as Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Specific to:
English with American Literature
English Language Studies Single Honours
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
Essay (2,000 Words)
Written Exam
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
Semester
S2
50%
50%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL2508
The Postmodern Age
15
1
Level 5
Dan Varndell
Module Description:
This module will explore a broad range of literary and cultural texts written between 1950 and the present day. It will explore how cultural texts reacted to and shaped our understanding of the horrors of World War Two, the rise of consumer culture, and the theories of postmodernism. It will introduce key concepts such as depthlessness, simulation, contingency, pastiche, performativity, the real and dissemination; it will explore how these concepts shape the form of the texts of the period and our experience of reading. The module will place the exploration of formal experimentation and the scepticism towards representation alongside the cultural and social changes of the period in order to suggest connections between postmodernism and a post‐modern age.
Specific to:
American Studies with American Literature
English with American Literature
English Language Studies Single Honours
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
Coursework (Essay)
Practical (Presentation)
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
Semester
S2
50%
50%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL2512
Literary Adaptations For Film And Television
15
1
Level 5
Dan Varndell
Module Description:
This module will use a number of case studies to explore some of the key issues involved in adapting literary texts for television and the cinema. The cinema is often the way that we first encounter literary texts and film adaptations are a crucial tool in marketing literary fiction. This raises questions about the relationship between these two texts. Throughout this module we will explore this relationship through questions of narrative technique, concepts of genre, questions of representation and notions of 'fidelity' and 'authorship'. It will introduce you to a range of set texts and some of the recent theoretical approaches to film and literary studies. Part one of the module will focus on Hitchcock adaptations, such as Rear Window and Vertigo, while part two will consider contemporary adaptations, such as the Sherlock TV series and Trainspotting. NOT TO BE TAKEN WITH AM2504.
Specific to:
English with American Literature
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
003:
Scene Analysis
Feedback Evaluation
Essay
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
Semester
S2
40%
0%
60%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL2532
18Th Century Performance And Censorship
15
1
Level 5
Chris Mounsey
Module Description:
This module Theatre of the Restoration and Eighteenth‐Century has all but disappeared from the repertoire of the contemporary British stage. The question of why is a vexed one, particularly when we are faced with the enduring popularity of Shakespeare. The module will address this most turbulent era of British Theatre: when a play could ruin the reputation of a Prime Minister, and a Prime Minister could effectively gag the stage for three hundred years. The same era in which the name of David Garrick shines out as the greatest actor of all times, and at one and the same time be known as the most hated wrecker of the British theatrical tradition. The era in which Shakespeare was canonized as the greatest playwright of all time, and in which better playwrights were damned as trivial.
Specific to:
English Literature
Assessments:
002:
2000‐Word Essay Or Performance/Presentation (+1000‐
Word Rationale)
2X1000‐Word Take‐Away Exam
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
001:
Semester
S2
50%
50%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3031
The Shakespeare Phenomenon
15
1
Level 6
Nick Rowe
Module Description:
This module offers the opportunity to study the nature and implications of the cultural centrality of Shakespeare within English society, with comparative reference to the cultural significance of ‘the Shakespeare Phenomenon’ in other countries. Students will investigate the cultural impact of Shakespeare and his plays with particular attention to representations and adaptation of Shakespeare in a popular context (e.g. tourism, advertising, journalism, theatre, TV and film). ‘The Shakespeare Phenomenon’ will be analysed in terms of the political contest for meaning within debates about national and global identity, educational and cultural institutions and postmodernism’s impact on traditional conceptions of high versus low culture.
Specific to:
English with American Literature
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
Folder Or Essay
Presentation
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
50%
50%
Semester
S2
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3042
Women's Writing In The Long Eighteenth Century
15
1
Level 6
Chris Mounsey
Module Description:
This module will consider the literary output of women in the long eighteenth century, from 1670 to 1820. Long gone are the days when eighteenth century studies centred on five male authors and two male poets. Now that most of the work of women writers is available through online databases, it would seem that we should be able easily to judge their contribution to literature at this important stage of development of English Literature. However, there is a lot of work to be done to ascertain biographies and even bibliographies in order properly to contextualize their work. The module will explore how women’s work was read, received and exploited by its contemporary audience. We shall also consider modern theories of gender representation, and explore to what extent these theories are a product of the writing of this period. Specific to:
English with American Literature
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
Availability:
Occ.
A
Coursework (Extended Essay Approx. 3500 Words)
Year
17/18
Semester
S2
100%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3503A
Consumer Culture
15
1
Level 6
Gary Farnell
Module Description:
An in‐depth examination of consumer culture represented in fiction is undertaken in this module. There is examination of modern consumer culture, stemming from the foundation of the Bank of England in 1694, as well as its representation in fictional forms. The world’s first department‐store novel, Émile Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise of 1883, is a centrally important reference here. As well as analysis of this particular text, there is analysis of a range of forms of fiction that relate to the whole span of modern consumer culture, from the late seventeenth century to the present day. Also, there is comparative assessment of different approaches to analysis of these forms.
Specific to:
English with American Literature
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
Essay
Examination
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
50%
50%
Semester
S2
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3511A
The City In American Literature 1868‐1925
15
1
Level 6
Jude Davies
Module Description:
The American city has provided the backdrop to quintessentially modern forms of identity ‐
of selfhood animated by desire, shaped by consumerism, and realised through performance – selves liberated from moral constraints but subject to new forms of alienation. The context for this module is the symbolic status of American cities, as the sites of hopes, dreams, desires, and danger. For contemporaries the city incarnated these themes through its spectacles of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, and its narratives of social mobility upwards and downwards. We look at various representations of the city from Horatio Alger’s promotion of the ‘American dream’ in Ragged Dick (1868) to F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925). We will study in depth Theodore Dreiser’s 1900 novel, Sister Carrie, focusing on issues of gender and sexuality, and the intersections of the world of leisure (shopping and consumerism) and the world of work. Specific to:
American Studies and History
American Studies and Politics
English with American Literature
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
Essay
Revised Essay
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
0%
100%
Semester
S2
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3513
Renaissance Poetry At The Court Of Elizabeth I
15
1
Level 6
Ruth Gilbert
Module Description:
This module will offer the opportunity to focus on English Renaissance poetry, especially that produced in the last decades of the sixteenth century and associated with the court of Elizabeth I. It will look at a range of material which may include sonnets by Wyatt, Philip Sidney, Mary Sidney and Shakespeare; court poetry by Ralegh and others; Ovidian narrative poems by Marlowe and Shakespeare: Spenser's epic, 'the Faerie Queene' and lyrics by Donne. Themes may include the influence of Petrarch and Ovid, religion, the influence of the court, the role of Queen Elizabeth, the construction of gender and sexuality, and the impact of early colonialism on the writing of this period.
Specific to:
English with American Literature
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
Coursework (Essay)
Written Exam (Exam)
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
Semester
S2
50%
50%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3521
Globalization And Contemporary Fiction
15
1
Level 6
Matthew Leggatt
Module Description:
Globalization is a term that seems to be on everyone's lips but, almost by nature of its constant use, its meaning seems increasingly vague. This module examines literary and film texts from the late 1990s until the present and asks how far these works of fiction represent globalization through their attempt to depict the world as a presentable object or set of relations. Throughout this module we will consider depictions of international migration, new communicative‐technologies, environmentalism, transnational corporations and the global division of labour. We will consider whether the fictional representations of these phenomena suggest particular ways of thinking about transnationalism and ask whether this improves our understanding of globalization as lived experience. During this module you will be asked to think about how the depictions of global phenomena within fictional texts compare with the presentation of globalization in political discourse and to consider how far fictional accounts of globalization clarify the diverse and contradictory meanings for the term globalization in daily use. Specific to:
English with American Literature
English Language Studies Single Honours
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
03:
Critical Review
Feedback Evaluation
Essay (2,000 Words)
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
Semester
S2
40%
0%
60%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3525
The Figure Of The Law In Literature
15
1
Level 6
Chris Mounsey
Module Description:
If detective fiction in English can locate its origin in Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) it is nevertheless true to say that the law, represented by a character in a literary fiction, pre‐dates the nineteenth century. This module will begin its survey of this character “the figure of the law” in early‐modern literature, and follow it as it transforms into its contemporary manifestations. We shall explore the function of the figure of the law in its differing contexts in terms of its cultural, political and philosophical meanings, demonstrating the way it performs a wider range of functions than merely discovering “whodunit”. We shall explore how the figure of the law is at the heart of religious debates in the eighteenth century, debates about sexuality in the nineteenth century, constructions of gender in the twentieth century, and the changing society of the twenty‐first.
Specific to:
American Studies Combined
English
English Joint
Assessments:
001:
002:
Draft Essay
Extended Essay (3,500 Words)
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
Semester
S2
0%
100%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3526
Post‐Structuralism: Theory, Text, Culture
15
1
Level 6
Dan Varndell
Module Description:
This module explores the 'post‐structuralist' theories emerging from Europe in the latter half of the twentieth‐century, as well as the philosophical concepts underpinning them. The module emphasises the fluidity of representation by looking at often incommensurate subject positions, textual openness, and cultural difference. With this in mind, the module has three orientations: 1) An interrogation of historical ‘post‐structuralism’. This includes a deeper understanding of thinkers whose ideas have already been encountered – for example, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida – as well as incipient thinkers whose work is currently reshaping the field – particularly Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Alain Badiou. 2) An exploration of ‘the text’ as an ‘unstable’ object of study, particularly with regard to the openness of the textual boundary and the multiplicity of textual centres. 3) The on‐going impact of post‐structuralism on contemporary thinking, particularly in relation to a twenty‐first century culture characterised by the prefix ‘post‐’ (‘‐ideology’, ‘‐
feminism’, ‘‐politics’, etc.) This module teaches a deeper understanding of post‐
structuralism by tracing the history of critical thinking since the 1950s, and its destabilisation of ‘the text’. It utilises key concepts to formulate research questions, in order to better understand contemporary culture. Specific to:
English
English Joint
Assessments:
002:
Forming A Research Question (Formative)
Long Essay (4000 Words)
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
001:
Semester
S2
0%
100%
Module Code:
Module Name:
Module Credits:
No. of Periods:
Level:
Module Tutor:
EL3527
Utopian And Dystopian Fiction
15
1
Level 6
Matthew Leggatt
Module Description:
The study of utopian and dystopian thought is not only of creative interest but can also have a real bearing on today’s geo‐politics. It is, therefore, important that we interrogate texts which deploy such structures and consider how these most fundamental of ideological world‐views both shape and are shaped by culture. On this module, students will engage with utopian and dystopian texts – the line between which is often blurry – across a range of cultural forms. Although focusing primarily on literary responses to these ‘grand’ themes, we will also consider responses in other forms such as drama, film, television, and video games, challenging students to adopt and develop an interdisciplinary approach to their work. Students will engage with key utopian theorists such as Plato, Jameson, Moylan, Baccolini, Sargent, Sontag, Foucault, and Dyer as a means to help guide their interrogation of the spaces between utopia, dystopia, and anti‐utopia. They will also be encouraged to consider the limitations of not just the human imagination but the medium against which the creative force behind the work struggles in its attempts to critique the present, to seek a better future, or even to critique the search for utopia itself. Students will learn to debate how key frameworks such as gender, sexuality, race, nationality, and ideology function in utopian and dystopian fiction. They will also be able to use their knowledge of these approaches, built up over the course of their studies, in order to deconstruct the operations of utopia and dystopia and to find patterns in the construction of these ‘other’ types of world. Specific to:
English Literature
Assessments:
001:
002:
1500‐Word Essay
2000‐Word Exam
Availability:
Occ.
A
Year
17/18
40%
60%
Semester
S2