2017/8 - AMAF4010B AMERICAN HISTORY II: THE AMERICAN CENTURY
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Emma Long
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Examination with Coursework or Project
Timetable Slot:B3,U
Exam Paper(hrs):2
Exam Period:SPR-02
This is an introductory survey module that provides students with knowledge of the broad
outlines of American history from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day. It
follows a chronological sequence with weekly topics on the major themes and events in U.S.
history in this period. Students will attend a weekly lecture during which they will take
personal notes, before participating in a seminar in which they will debate the key issues.
They will complete the required readings from the course textbooks before the seminar
meeting, including primary documents and articles. Students will interrogate the readings and
the key issues in the group, among peers and via structured activities.
2017/8 - AMAF4011B THINKING THROUGH AMERICAN HISTORY II
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Professor Jacqueline Fear-Segal
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Examination with Coursework or Project
Timetable Slot:C3,U
Exam Paper(hrs):2
Exam Period:SPR-02
This module builds upon the skills learned in "Thinking Through American History I" by
offering students a survey of the different ways in which historians have approached the
writing of American History. Focusing weekly on these different historiographical
approaches (progressive history, labour history, gender history and the “linguistic turn,” to
name just a few) students will learn how the work of historians has been shaped by the
context of their time and that the discipline of History itself has a history and a politics.
2017/8 - AMAH5002B GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN THE NEW REPUBLIC
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Fraser
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B1*B2
This module examines the social construction of gender and sexuality during the period
1789-1861 and will primarily focus upon the northern and southern states. Following the
inauguration of George Washington as President in 1789, the United States underwent
massive changes, most notably industrialisation in the north accompanied by increased
immigration, the expansion and institutionalisation of slavery in the South, combined with the
expansion of the western frontier. Such transformations produced cultural, political and
economic changes, which profoundly altered the ways in which men and women perceived
themselves and each other during this period. The module will explore the emerging
gendered discourses of the post-revolutionary period, tracing their development up to 1861,
and addressing their significance to the formation of an American identity during this period.
It will address the ways in which discourses of gender and sexuality interacted with those of
race, class and ethnicity to produce competing definitions of masculinity and femininity. A
particular focus will be placed on the differences and similarities that emerged in the northern
and southern states regarding gender identity and will explore the possible reasons for, and
consequences of these differences. However, it will also address the fact that certain gendered
discourses did not cut across regional lines and in a number of ways, men and women of the
north and south shared distinct understandings of their role and the meanings of gender in the
development of the new Republic.
2017/8 - AMAH5050B BLACK FREEDOM STRUGGLES: THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B1*B2/C3*D4
This is the second of two modules examining the black freedom struggle in the United States.
This module examines the struggle from 1865 to Black Lives Matter. Students will study the
political activism of African American figures such as Sojourner Truth, Booker T.
Washington, Marcus Garvey, Mary McLeod Bethune and Angela Davis. Students will gain a
detailed understanding of the race, gender and class dimensions of the ‘long’ civil rights
movement, paying specific attention to the activism of black women organisers. Finally, the
module will encourage students to think through the diverse and changing nature of the civil
rights movement as black activists responded to specific political situations both within the
United States and abroad.
2017/8 - AMAH6005B NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORIES IN TWENTY FIRST
CENTURY PERSPECTIVE
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Professor Jacqueline Fear-Segal
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A5*A6*A7
Indian Halloween costumes, reservation casino wealth, Washington Red Skins, Cowboy and
Indian Alliance, powwow, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, and the Native tourist
industry are just some of the contemporary topics that will be analysed to open this module’s
explorations and discussions of the histories of Native Americans within the context of
United States’ settler colonialism. A wide range of sources will be studied: traditional written
texts; photographs; art; fashion; advertisements; museums displays. Students will learn the
techniques to conduct these analyses, and to participate in current historical debates, evaluate
the historiography, and define their own topic for the written assessment.
2017/8 - AMAH6007B NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORIES IN TWENTY FIRST
CENTURY PERSPECTIVE
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Professor Jacqueline Fear-Segal
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A5*A6*A7
2017/8 - AMAL4031B AMERICA LITERATURE II: MAKING IT 'NEW'
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Garland
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Examination with Coursework or Project
Timetable Slot:"E4,U"
Exam Paper(hrs):2
Exam Period:SPR-02
This module will provide you with a thorough introduction to American Literature from the
after the American Civil War, through the turn of the century and into modernism and the
early twentieth century, up to the close of World War II.
2017/8 - AMAL5009B AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS OF THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Garland
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D5*D6
The purpose of this unit is to expose students to a range of works by American women
writers in the 20th century. We will looks at some of the best known women writers in the
American tradition, as well as works or writers you are not likely to encounter in other units,
because either the author or the work is sidelined.
2017/8 - AMAL5011B 20TH CENTURY AMERICAN POETRY
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Professor Nick Selby
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Examination with Coursework or Project
Timetable Slot:E3*A4
Exam Period:SPR-02
This module provides a broadly chronological view of American poetry from the start of the
twentieth century to the present day. It wonders about what the consequences might be if we
consider seriously Emerson’s claim (made in 1844), that America might be seen as a poem.
2017/8 - AMAL5038B AMERICAN CRIME FICTION
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Tillett
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C5*C6
This module explores both America’s fascination with crime fiction, and crime fiction itself
as an American genre. From its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century writings of Edgar
Allen Poe, this module will investigate the ways in which American crime fiction has traced
and exposed a wide range of social and cultural anxieties in America. Moving through the
early twentieth century hard-boiled detective narratives of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell
Hammett and Chester Himes, and into the postmodern concerns of late twentieth and early
twenty-first century writers such as James Ellroy, Patricia Highsmith, Sara Paretsky, Carl
Hiaasen and Patricia Cornwell, we will examine the ways in which American crime fiction
asks a series of searching and troubling questions about contemporary American society.
Central to our analysis will be the ways in which crime fiction represents a range of
American concerns including individualism, the ‘hero’, race, gender, class, regionalism, the
city, and the environment.
2017/8 - AMAL6024B AMERICAN GOTHIC
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Sarah Garland
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C2*C3*D4/E2*E3*A4
American fiction began in the period of the European Gothic novel, which thus marked the
American tradition from the first. In this seminar module we will establish the meaning of
gothic conventions and consider their persisting effects in American fiction.
2017/8 - AMAL6025B CREATIVE WRITING-FICTION
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser:
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
In this course you will write original works of fiction and present them to your peers for
feedback in a workshop environment. The instructor will guide you in critiquing your peers'
writing, and advise you as you work your way through the drafting process. This module is
only available to students on U1T7W8401 American Literature with Creative Writing and
U1T7WV301 American Literature with Creative Writing (3 year). The aim of the unit is to
help students develop their potential as writers and to improve their abilities as editors and
critics of their own and other people’s work. Much emphasis will be placed on technical/craft
issues, as well as exploring both so-called literary and more genre/commercial ideas. It is
intended to provide a bridge between the study and practice of creative strategies at
undergraduate level and the study of writing as a professional activity encouraged at MA
level.
2017/8 - AMAL6026B AMERICAN GOTHIC
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Garland
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C2*C3*D4/E2*E3*A4
This module is a 20-credit version of AMAL6024B AMERICAN GOTHIC and is available
only to Visiting Students.
2017/8 - AMAL6050B EXPLODED FORMS: POST WORLD WAR II AMERICAN
FICTION
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Jonathan Mitchell
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
America post World War II is marked by great optimism and conversely an extreme sense of
foreboding over the absurd conditions of life. Picking up the threads of the transatlantic
discussions between continental philosophy and American fiction making, this module
explores the connection between American society, literature and experimentation in the
decades immediately following World War II. Authors studied may include, Joseph Heller,
Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, Kurt Vonnegut, Ishmael Reed, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol
Oates, Hunter S Thompson, Mary McCarthy, Susan Sontag, Robert Coover for example.
2017/8 - AMAL6051B EXPLODED FORMS: POST WORLD WAR II AMERICAN
FICTION
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Jonathan Mitchell
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
This is a 20 credit version of AMAL6050B Exploded Forms: Post World War II American
Fiction and is available only to Visiting students.
2017/8 - AMAM4021B STUDIES IN FILM HISTORY
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Eylem Atakav
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:D6*D7*D8,E1/E2/E3/A5/A6/A7/A8
This module provides an introduction to the history of film from the mid to late 20th Century,
familiarizing students with key points of reference in the field. However, the module is also
designed to familiarize students with a range of objects and methods within the practice of
film history and to use these to encourage students to start asking questions about the
construction of the established and accepted narrative of film history.
2017/8 - AMAM4031B Digital Media: Concepts, Technologies & Cultures
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Jamie Hakim
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:C1,C2/C3/D4/D1/D2/A3
This module introduces students to the study of digital media, focusing on both the
technologies and platforms that drive the 'digital age' and the cultures they have produced.
We will examine how scholars have theorized digital media since the early 1990s, mapping
how the production, circulation, and, consumption of new media has changed over the past
twenty years. Weekly case studies will allow students to apply theories to contemporary
cultural events and phenomena, which may include #blacklivesmatter, selfie culture, the Arab
Spring, and SciHub.
2017/8 - AMAM4032B BROADCASTING
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sanna Inthorn
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:E2,A5/A6/A7/A2/D3/C4
This module explores a range of audio-visual and audio formats, including television, radio
and new audio formats, such as Internet streaming, and podcasts. You will be introduced to
key theoretical approaches to the analysis of broadcasting content, programming, policy and
regulation and reception. Areas of interest will include topics such as narrative and
soundtrack, flow, seriality, liveness, innovation and funding, and domesticity.
2017/8 - AMAM4033B THEORISING MEDIA AND CULTURE
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sanna Inthorn
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:B1,B3/E4/C5/C2/D4/D5/D6
This module 1. Maps the core knowledge of the key theoretical approaches to understanding
and analysing media audiences, texts and industries and their role in reproducing and
challenging hegemonic power relations, creating communities and driving social change. 2.
Provides opportunity for students to study and apply theoretical knowledge tailored to a
specific, small empirical research project in the field of media studies. 3. Provides
opportunities for students to explore the use of different communication tools and styles for
effective communication. 4. Provides opportunities for students to participate in collaborative
research projects 5. Develops students’ teamwork, research and organisational skills via
providing opportunities for students to work independently and in groups on research
projects.
2017/8 - AMAM4035B WORLD CINEMAS
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rayna Denison
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
The concept of World Cinema pervades our everyday experiences of film. It is a category of
films that can be seen increasingly from cinema listings to the high street. Inherent within the
label are debates of resistance, industry, art, technology and aesthetics that have held sway
since the dawn of cinema worldwide. In this unit we will break down some of these
discourses and address the significant cultural, economic and political influences that world
cinema has had and indeed, still has, within cinema. There are innumerable cinemas that may
be contained within the notion of “world cinema,” but few are more long-lived, or as welldeveloped, as those we will investigate during this unit. Taking the conceptual frameworks of
“Middle Eastern,” “European” and “Asian” cinemas as starting points, World Cinemas will
break down the meanings that these regional, national and international definitions of cinema
share. We will focus, for example, on the cinemas of Europe, Turkey, Middle East, Japan and
America. This tightly focused definition of “world cinemas” is intended to introduce some of
the most significant of contemporary world cinemas, while also focusing on those which have
had the most influential global histories.
2017/8 - AMAM5025B RESEARCHING MEDIA
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Lisa Stead
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C1,C2/C3/D4/D5/D6/D7
The module is designed to provide students with the key concepts and methods necessary to
devise and execute an independent research project whether using traditional academic
methods or practice based research. As a result, it will cover the key processes involved in
devising and focusing a research project, reflexively undertaking the research itself and
writing up one's results. In the process, students will be shown how to position their work in
relation to an intellectual context; devise the research questions that are practical and
realistic; and developing research methods through which to address these questions. The
module will be taught by lecture and seminar.
2017/8 - AMAM5038B ADAPTATION AND TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Mr Peter Bloore
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D8*B9*B10,D1*D2/A3*B4/E1*E2
This module will introduce students to the key theories of screen adaptation and transmedia
storytelling, from the earliest ideas of ‘fidelity’ to the source, to later approaches emphasising
intertextuality, and the movement of narratives across different media. It will enable students
to examine a series of different examples of narrative adaptation across media and transmedia
contexts. Through the module’s engagement with screenwriting practice, it will also enable
students to explore the processes of adaptation from within, through working on their own
screenplay exercise adapting an existing work.
2017/8 - AMAM5042B THE HOLLYWOOD STUDIO SYSTEM
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Tim Snelson
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:C9*C10*BY, A1*A2/D3*C4
This module will develop students understating of how silent-era, classical and post-classical
Hollywood has developed as an industry, balancing the twin demands of creativity and
commerce. The module will encourage students to analyse how Hollywood works as an
industry, the kind of films it produces, and the ways in which they are consumed by domestic
and global audiences. Students will engage with a variety of Hollywood films and be
introduced to a range of theories and approaches for analysing how they are produced and
consumed.
2017/8 - AMAM5049B PROMOTIONAL CULTURE
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Alison Winch
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B1,C5/C6
The advertising and PR industries are central to public life: in business, politics and culture.
Branding strategies reach into our intimate lives, whether this is through the ways that we
promote ourselves in social media or how corporations collect, analyse and sell our data for
marketing purposes. The purpose of this module is to introduce students to these
developments, their histories, and the key ethical and political debates that surround them. It
may include how PR has informed politics and ideology since the 1920s, through the rise of
the advertising in 1960s Manhattan, to today’s flow of brands across digital platforms. It may
look at the promotional cultures surrounding the film and television industries, including
product placement, corporate sponsorship, celebrity. It could examine the ways in which we
are encouraged to become micro-celebrities, using promotional techniques online and offline
in order to market ourselves in an increasingly visual and commercialized culture. It may ask
to what extent brands are integral to our social lives and subjectivities, how far they forge
intimate relationships with and between users. It will use case studies that may touch on
vlogging, selfies, viral marketing, and issues or controversies affecting the promotional
cultures such as sexualisation, corporate social responsibility, greenwashing, sustainability,
and surveillance.
2017/8 - AMAM5050B Film-Struck Girls: Women and British Cinema Histories
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Lisa Stead
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B1B2B3,C5C6/C1C2
This module will take you behind the screen, exploring the roles that women have historically
played in the international film industries, from their work as early film pioneers to their
creative labours as adaptors, screenwriters, directors and producers. The module also takes
students beyond the screen, examining the way women – historically perceived as ‘filmstruck’ spectators and consumers – have shaped historical cinema cultures through their
writings, fandom, practices of reception and habits of cinemagoing. We will focus primarily
on case studies from British cinema from the late 19th to late 20th century. Moving across a
range of case studies and methodologies, students will have the chance to engage with a
variety of primary material, including film texts, fan materials, magazines, short stories,
radio, archival ephemera and historical cinema sites. We will encounter historical cinema
spaces in Norwich to consider histories of women’s cinemagoing, delve into the East Anglian
Film Archive, and make use of the media suite to look at alternative sites of women’s cinema
making and consumption. In examining relations between gender and cinema cultures, we
will consider interrelated and intersectional questions of class, sexuality, race, and national
identity.
2017/8 - AMAM6024B GENDER AND GENRE IN CONTEMPORARY CINEMA
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Godfrey
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:E8*C9*C10,A1*A2*D3
This module offers an overview of critical and theoretical approaches to gender and genre in
contemporary cinema, focusing particularly on North American cinema. Topics explored may
include: new women and new men - the articulation of gender in popular and 'independent'
American cinema since 2000; feminism and authorship; the response of mainstream and
independent cinema to the political and cultural contexts of postfeminism; race and the limits
of feminist representation; masculinity, homosociality and Hollywood genre. The module is
taught by seminar, tutorial and screening. THIS IS A 20 CREDIT VERSION OF THE
MODULE FOR VISITING STUDENTS ONLY.
2017/8 - AMAM6062B GENDER AND GENRE IN CONTEMPORARY CINEMA
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Sarah Godfrey
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:E8*C9*C10,A1*A2*D3
This module offers an overview of critical and theoretical approaches to gender and genre in
contemporary cinema, focusing particularly on North American cinema. Topics explored may
include: new women and new men - the articulation of gender in popular and 'independent'
American cinema since 2000; feminism and authorship; the response of mainstream and
independent cinema to the political and cultural contexts of postfeminism; race and the limits
of feminist representation; masculinity, homosociality and Hollywood genre. The module is
taught by seminar, tutorial and screening.
2017/8 - AMAM6086B CREATIVE WORK IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRIES
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Mark Rimmer
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:B1*B2*B3
This module offers students the opportunity to gain an understanding of the industries that
many of them may well wish to work in. The media industries are those that produce culture,
and so they naturally include television, film, music, publishing (books, newspapers and
magazines) and so on. People often want to work in the media since this kind of work offers
opportunities to be ‘creative’, to think independently and engage in activities which interest
them already. But what does ‘creativity’ mean in different kinds of media work and what
kind of conditions do those working in the media typically face? To explore such questions,
we reflect on changes in the nature of work itself in modern societies. That is, when so much
modern work is either temporary and precarious, with many in advanced industrial countries
working longer hours than ever before, is there a danger that work is detracting from the
quality of our lives rather than enhancing it? The module explores the potential to find
pleasure, fulfilment (and a steady income), as well as pressure, frustration and precariousness
in media work.
2017/8 - AMAM6088B CREATIVE WORK IN THE MEDIA INDUSTRIES
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Mark Rimmer
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:B1*B2*B3
This module offers students the opportunity to gain an understanding of the industries that
many of them may well wish to work in. The media industries are those that produce culture,
and so they naturally include television, film, music, publishing (books, newspapers and
magazines) and so on. People often want to work in the media since this kind of work offers
opportunities to be ‘creative’, to think independently and engage in activities which interest
them already. But what does ‘creativity’ mean in different kinds of media work and what
kind of conditions do those working in the media typically face? To explore such questions,
we reflect on changes in the nature of work itself in modern societies. That is, when so much
modern work is either temporary and precarious, with many in advanced industrial countries
working longer hours than ever before, is there a danger that work is detracting from the
quality of our lives rather than enhancing it? The module explores the potential to find
pleasure, fulfilment (and a steady income), as well as pressure, frustration and precariousness
in media work. THIS IS A 20 CREDIT VERSION OF THE MODULE FOR VISITING
STUDENTS ONLY.
2017/8 - AMAM6091B CELEBRITY
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Su Holmes
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:E1*E2*E3/A5*A6*A7
The module will explore the phenomenon of celebrity and fame from its origins to the present
day, moving across a range of different media, including film, television, print media and the
internet. In the process, it will examine key approaches to the study of celebrity, paying
particular attention to the cultural formation of celebrity and how it is bound up with
structures of power (e.g gender, class, ethnicity). It will feature a range of case studies that
will include Classical Hollywood cinema, the coming of television, the supposed
'tabloidization' of print media, the birth of Reality TV, the growth of the celebrity scandal and
the relationship between celebrity and the internet. THIS IS A 20 CREDIT VERSION OF
THE MODULE FOR VISITING STUDENTS ONLY.
2017/8 - AMAM6100B TELEVISION COMEDY
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Brett Mills
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C1*C2*C3/D5D6D7
Exam Period:SPR-02
This module explores key developments in TV comedy from the genre’s inception to the
present. We consider the status of the genre in television culture and broader debates
associated with TV Studies. We also map the ways in which the genre responds to and
reflects social and historical contexts and explore examples of the genre from a variety of
nations and cultures. The module will explore ways in we can study humour and comedy, and
how this has been theorised historically. Key topics related to television comedy will be
explored as case studies, including areas such as representation, industry and production, and
audiences. There will be a separate programme of screenings.
2017/8 - AMAM6103B TELEVISION COMEDY
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Brett Mills
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A9*A10*EY, C1*C2*C3
This module explores key developments in TV comedy from the genre’s inception to the
present. We consider the status of the genre in television culture and broader debates
associated with TV Studies. We also map the ways in which the genre responds to and
reflects social and historical contexts and explore examples of the genre from a variety of
nations and cultures. The module will explore ways in we can study humour and comedy, and
how this has been theorised historically. Key topics related to television comedy will be
explored as case studies, including areas such as representation, industry and production, and
audiences. There will be a separate programme of screenings. THIS IS A 20 CREDIT
VERSION OF THE MODULE FOR VISITING STUDENTS ONLY.
2017/8 - AMAM6108B INVESTIGATING AUDIENCES: PARTICIPATORY
CULTURES & IMMERSIVE MEDIA
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Emma Pett
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:D1*D2*A3
Students will investigate changing audience practices and cultures in the age of media
convergence. It will introduce some of the key research on, and theoretical debates around,
audience practices in relation to changes in distribution, technology and evolving forms of
engagement. The module will study social practices and fan cultures surrounding
stereoscopic technologies, transmedia storytelling, branding, streamed media, event cinema,
theme park attractions and other participatory cultures. Investigating Audiences will enable
students to expand their critical and analytical skills, and also to develop their abilities as an
audience researcher. They will evaluate and assess published academic writing on audience
research methodologies, which will then enable them to exercise critical judgement in the
design of their own empirical research project.
2017/8 - AMAM6109B INVESTIGATING AUDIENCES: PARTICIPATORY
CULTURES & IMMERSIVE MEDIA
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Emma Pett
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:D1*D2*A3
Students will investigate changing audience practices and cultures in the age of media
convergence. It will introduce some of the key research on, and theoretical debates around,
audience practices in relation to changes in distribution, technology and evolving forms of
engagement. The module will study social practices and fan cultures surrounding
stereoscopic technologies, transmedia storytelling, branding, streamed media, event cinema,
theme park attractions and other participatory cultures. Investigating Audiences will enable
students to expand their critical and analytical skills, and also to develop their abilities as an
audience researcher. They will evaluate and assess published academic writing on audience
research methodologies, which will then enable them to exercise critical judgement in the
design of their own empirical research project. THIS IS A 20 CREDIT VERSION OF THE
MODULE - ONLY AVAILABLE FOR VISITING STUDENTS
2017/8 - AMAM6111B MEDIA AND THE BODY
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Jamie Hakim
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:E2E3A4/A6A7A8
Over the past 30 years the body has been understood to be central to our experiences of
media cultures, by a variety of academic disciplines. This interdisciplinary module examines
the ways that different bodies are not only represented by and produced in relation to the
media but also the place of the body in the consumption of media texts. Using different
theoretical frameworks (Foucault, feminism, the sociology of the body, affect theory) this
module approaches the body as a key site in popular culture where power relations are
negotiated. It does this through a range of case studies – the body and digital media, music
and the body, bodies in consumer culture, fitness culture and the media, disabled bodies, the
posthuman body, trans-bodies, the pornographic body, racialised bodies and eating disorders
and the media – and therefore a range of different media forms. By the end of the module
students should be able to analyse and assess a contemporary mediated body culture of their
choice using one (or more) of the body theories that have been taught.
2017/8 - AMAP5124B DIGITAL MEDIA: THEORY AND PRACTICE
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Paul Gooding
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B5*B6
This module introduces students to the practical and theoretical study of representing media
in digital form. By exploring the historical and contemporary aspects of various media,
including text, audio-visual, creative software and games, it considers how the shift to digital
has affected media production and consumption. Students will gain awareness of the
technologies which underpin digital media, the interfaces for delivering media online, and the
cultural and social aspects of digitisation. The module also covers the issues surrounding
media archiving, reproduction and restoration in a digital age and the problems associated
with ephemerality, future proofing, metadata philosophies and a study of digital media
futurology. By the end of the module, students will be able to evaluate digital media in their
contemporary and historical contexts, and understand the principles which influence the
digital remediation of media forms. Students will be supported in gaining hands-on
experience of the process of creating digital media, and use these creations to support the
intellectual objectives of the module. These practical sessions will introduce students to:
digitisation of text and images; digital asset management and metadata creation; image
processing; digitisation of audiovisual media; and creating basic games. Each of these
sessions will serve to illuminate particular theoretical issues, allowing students to develop the
skills to understand the cultural and social impact of digital media.
2017/8 - AMAP6098B MEDIA PRACTICE PROJECT (SPRING)
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Paul Gooding
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:U
This module provides the opportunity to work on a practice-based project investigating some
aspect of Media, Film and/or Television studies. Projects are individually negotiated.
Students are also expected to build upon one of the areas of practice they have covered in
their course, (film-making, screenwriting, digital media, magazine or sound media). Students
are also expected to produce practical work that refers to, and makes use of, relevant
theoretical debates and issues. All projects will contain significant practical work, a
developmental portfolio and an element of critical evaluation. Team-centred projects will be
considered, but each team member must be able to demonstrate the validity of their
individual project. Students MUST have completed one of the following modules:
AMAP5124B Digital Media: Theory and Practice; AMAP5123A Film and Video Production;
AMAP5119B Television Studio Production; AMAM6032A Magazines; AMAM5038B
Adaptation and Transmedia Storytelling; HUM-5006B Sound Media: Interpretation,
Recording and Production; LDCC5002A Creative Writing: Scriptwriting (AUT);
LDCC5008B Creative Writing: Scriptwriting (SPR). ONLY AVAILABLE TO STUDENTS
REGISTERED WITHIN AMA FTM.
2017/8 - AMAS4037B AMERICAN STUDIES II: IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES
Spring Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser:
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Examination with Coursework or Project
Timetable Slot:"B4,U"
Exam Paper(hrs):2
The module develops and expands the research methods, writing skills, and oral skills
acquired in Reading Cultures I: American Icons. By continuing the exploration of
contemporary American culture and introducing cultural and critical theory as a means to
engage with current ideas and ideologies circulating around American cultural icons, the
module will encourage exploration of America’s changing position in the world. The module
is intended to further facilitate skills in reading, writing, analysis, synthesis, independent
thinking, and confidence as self-supporting learners in order to provide a strong foundation
for work at levels 2 and 3.
2017/8 - AMAS5024B LOOKING AT PICTURES: PHOTOGRAPHY AND VISUAL
CULTURE IN THE USA
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Professor Jacqueline Fear-Segal
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C1*C2/D1*D2
This module aims to introduce students to strategies and techniques for analysing
photographs and, more specifically, uses the visual record to study and illuminate the history
of the USA. Viewed here as sites of historical evidence, photographic portraits, family
albums, anthropological illustrations, lynching postcards, advertisements, food packaging,
fashion photos are just some of the pictures that will be "read" and evaluated. Students will
explore how visual texts can contribute to an understanding of nationhood, class, race,
sexuality and identity in the USA, with an emphasis on the nineteenth century. Opening
sessions will focus on ways of "reading" visual texts. [No previous experience of working
with images is necessary]. Most of the semester will be devoted to analysing how
photographic images both reflect and contribute to constructions of American identities and
culture.
2017/8 - AMAS5027B Exceptional States: US Intellectual and Cultural History (for
AMS students only)
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 0 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Jonathan Mitchell
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Exam Paper(hrs):
This is a compulsory module for all students on an American Studies related degree
programme. The module offers foundational understanding in US intellectual thought and
culture from the roots of democracy coming out of the Enlightenment through to the
contemporary moment of globalisation and biopolitics. In short the module maps-out the US
from its origins in the European imagination to its current position in a globalised world. It
address such important questions as: Does the US have a distinctive culture? What of the
melting-pot? How has the diversity of ethnic, racial, gender, class, and religious identities
shaped US intellectual and cultural history? How have the concepts and practices of related
disciplines such as history, sociology, economics and literary criticism influenced US
intellectual and cultural life? Should we speak of cultural imperialism? How has capitalism
and its various political-economic and cultural critiques shaped the US? And how can the
study of intellectual and cultural history help us understand the dynamics of power?
2017/8 - AMAS5042B DOING IT YOURSELF: PUNK AND AMERICA
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Ross Hair
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A7*A8
This module encourages students to consider how Punk—as a musical genre, an aesthetic,
and as a subculture—may be perceived as a vital part of a longstanding American tradition of
self-reliance and innovation. This interdisciplinary module attempts to define Punk and
considers what it means to be Punk by examining its influence on music, poetry, and fiction.
The module also explores the socio-political implications of Punk in terms of gender,
sexuality, and community, and questions Punk’s role in an increasingly globalised world.
2017/8 - AMAS5045B AMERICAN FRONTIERS
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Hilary Emmett
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A3*B4
This module explores the ever expanding concept of ‘American Frontiers’. Since Frederick
Jackson Turner’s influential ‘Frontier thesis’ of 1893, American identity has been
increasingly linked to the concept of the ‘frontier’ which has, in more recent years, become
subject to an ever-widening geography. Often referred to as the ‘transnational turn,’ this
critical and theoretical trajectory has constantly reinvented - and multiplied - what constitutes
the ‘American Frontier’. From violent clashes between colonisers and Native peoples to the
Space Race, from literary cosmopolitanisms to Hollywood in the South Seas, from America’s
own national borders to its internal racial and ethnic boundaries, to name just a few of the
possible ways of thinking about the Frontier, this module considers American geographies in
tandem with the critical movements that have shaped American Studies.
2017/8 - AMAS5047B THE AMERICAN CITY: READING CHICAGO
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Frederik Kohlert
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
This module is an in-depth exploration of the Chicago literary tradition that aims to show
how the city’s unique features have shaped the cultural and literary imagination of America.
Taking as its thematic starting point the city’s famous World’s Columbian Exposition of
1893, the course will trace the economic and cultural history of Chicago and show how the
city’s quick development from trading post to metropolis and its emblematic association with
capitalist modernity caused a significant formal and thematic shift in the American literary
imagination that would eventually find expression in literary modernism.
2017/8 - AMAS5048B THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Spring Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Emma Long
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
The legacy of the American Revolution reverberates throughout American history and
culture. In addition to representing the nation’s beginnings, the events and ideas of the
revolutionary era have fundamentally shaped the way Americans think about themselves,
their nation, and their history. Politics, law, popular culture, and literature have all drawn on
the legacy of the American Revolution. But what exactly is that legacy and how has it been
used? This module introduces students to the history of the American revolutionary era, from
the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, through war against the British, writing the
Constitution, to the election of Thomas Jefferson in the “revolution of 1800”. The Revolution
affected nearly all aspects of American life, including the political economy of slavery,
gender relations, economic development, and the pace and pattern of the expansion of white
settlement, all of which will be discussed in the module. The module will also consider the
extent to which the history of the Revolution is accurately (or otherwise) represented in
contemporary discussions and ask what such representations might tell us about
contemporary American politics and society.
2017/8 - AMAS6032B GENDER IN AMERICAN CULTURE
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Fraser
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:E2*E3*A4
Exam Period:SPR-02
The Statue of Liberty is emblematic of the democratic ideals espoused since the American
Revolution. Yet, the feminine figure that stands aloft in the New York skyline is also
symbolic of discourses of gender: the ideals and expectations shaping men and women’s lives
as gendered beings. This module will consider how traditional discourses of gender have
shaped the identity of Americans and the American nation. Focusing on a wide variety of
case studies including debates around the body, citizenship, representations of gender in
iconographical form and visual culture, in addition to reflecting on gendered rhetoric in the
political arena, the workplace, and institutions such as the military, the module will consider
how particular ideals of gender have been articulated in various contexts and how this has
informed wider discourses central to the American nation.
2017/8 - AMAS6033B GENDER IN AMERICAN CULTURE
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Fraser
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:E2*E3*A4
This is a 20 credit version of AMAS6032B GENDER IN AMERICAN CULTURE and is
available only to Visiting students.
2017/8 - AMAS6052B NEW AMERICAN CENTURY: CULTURE AND CRISIS
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Wendy McMahon
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D6*D7*D8
On the eve of the twenty-first century it appeared that the United States of America was
indeed entering into a new American Century with its role as global leader as strongly
defined as it was a century earlier. However, the last decade and a half has been witness to a
nation in turmoil and crisis, from the conflict between a universalising (Americanising)
globalisation and an introspective nationalism; the war on terror and the conflicts in
Afghanistan Iraq and Syria; environmental crisis and disaster; the conflict surrounding
immigration and national identity, to the present financial crisis. The renewed and vigorous
return to rhetoric of national ‘unity’ that characterised the campaign and election of Barack
Obama as President of the United States in 2008 serves to highlight the historical divisions
and crises of American society and underscores that contemporary America is in crisis
geopolitically, economically, democratically, environmentally, and culturally. This module
seeks to engage with these areas of crisis and examine a variety of cultural responses to the
America of the millennium. Through a variety of cultural texts, from literature, film and
documentary, political speeches and letters, to historical texts and pop culture, this module
examines the ways in which these crises have been culturally and politically constructed and
given particular sets of meaning.
2017/8 - AMAS6053B NEW AMERICAN CENTURY: CULTURE AND CRISIS
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Wendy McMahon
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D6*D7*D8
This is a 20 credit version of AMAS6052B New American Century: Culture and Crisis and is
available only to Visiting students.
2017/8 - AMAS6055B GO WEST! HISTORIES AND CULTURES OF THE
AMERICAN WEST
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Malcolm McLaughlin
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
The American West occupies both a geographical and social place within US history along
with a place in the mythic ideals of America. From the of the law of gunfighter to the promise
of the Californian gold-rush to the gay pastoral of Brokeback Mountain, the West has proved
to be a site of often violent transformation and liberation. This module will explore the West
as both history and myth. As an interdisciplinary module on the West, study may include
historical narratives, popular literature, song, comic-books and film.
2017/8 - AMAS6056B AMERICAN STUDIES DISSERTATION
Spring Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser:
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
This is an independent research project leading to a dissertation of 8,000 words to be
submitted at the end of the semester. A member of American Studies faculty will supervise
the dissertation.