2016/7 - AMAA4001A INTRODUCTION TO ART HISTORY
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 36 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Kajsa Berg
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D4*D5/D6*D7
This module provides an introduction to the academic study of art history by looking at how
writers primarily in the European tradition have sought to analyse, record and evaluate works
of art. We will examine texts from ancient Rome to the 20th century, and consider how
accounts of artists’ lives, descriptions of art works and attempts to trace a historical
development of art have all informed the way that art historians think about their subject. In
this seminar, we will also consider the problems of relating texts to visual art and ask what
themes are relevant to art historians today.
2016/7 - AMAA4002A MAKERS AND MAKING
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 49 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Helen Lunnon
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:E4*B4*C4
The process of making works of art – from objects to performances, bodies to buildings –
involves a range of materials, activities and ideas. Through a series of lectures by members of
ART staff, students on this module learn about the physical and technical properties of
different materials as well as their social, economic and symbolic significance. We also
consider the people involved in designing, crafting and creating such art, including their
working methods and social status.
2016/7 - AMAA4007A LEARNING ON SITE: THE SAINSBURY CENTRE FOR
VISUAL ARTS
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 57 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Joanne Clarke
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A6*A7*A8
Exam Period:SPR-02
This module helps equip students with the skills and knowledge they need to study objects
from around the world, from prehistory to the present day. Drawing on the collections of the
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and of the Castle Museum and Art Gallery, as well as the
architecture of Norwich, we will explore the ways in which materials, contexts and histories
affect how objects have been made and used. Through readings, discussions and object
handling, we challenge assumptions and preconceptions about different kinds of art. In the
process, students develop their abilities in library research, academic writing and referencing,
and oral presentations.
2016/7 - AMAA4023A INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Joanne Clarke
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B5*B6
This module is intended as a general introduction to archaeology. Seminars will examine the
concepts behind the study of archaeology, the way that archaeologists gather and record data
and the way in which they interpret those data. The first session is an introduction in which
you will be given the tools you need to complete the module. The next eight sessions will
focus on how archaeologists collect and analyse data, that is, the practice of archaeology. The
following three sessions will introduce some of the major theoretical issues of the last 30
years that have challenged the way in which we interpret the archaeological record.
2016/7 - AMAA5009A MATERIAL WORLDS
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Joanne Clarke
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:C5*C6
Exam Period:SPR-02
Recent research in archaeology and anthropology has begun to reframe questions posed by
the study of material culture and art. This module introduces some contemporary
archaeological and anthropological perspectives on the study of material culture. Case studies
are drawn from around the world.
2016/7 - AMAA5012A IMAGE, WORD AND MODERNITY IN BRITAIN, c.1800-1918
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 17 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Monks
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:D3*C4
Exam Period:SPR-02
In this module, we will examine the interaction between the visual and the verbal in British
culture during the nineteenth century, looking at images and/or texts produced by William
Blake, the Pre-Raphaelite circle, Algernon Swinburne, Edward Burne-Jones, the English
social realists, James McNeill Whistler, Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde, Walter Sickert,
the Bloomsbury group and artists/poets of the First World War. In turn, we will consider the
ways in which art historians, poets, novelists, literary critics and theorists have considered the
often-vexed relationship between image and word. Thus, while largely chronological in form
the course requires students to engage with the theoretical and critical literature on
image/word relations, and considers issues such as the title, the calligram, ekphrasis, visual
humour and the aesthetics of texts.
2016/7 - AMAA5089A THE LIVES OF OBJECTS
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 40 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Simon Dell
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:D4*A4,A6/B5
Exam Period:SPR-02
The main purpose of this module is to develop your critical skills as they pertain to thinking,
reading, writing and looking. To deliver this, the module falls into two main sections. The
first focuses on one particular methodology – object biographies – used in archaeology,
anthropology, museum studies and art history. We shall examine this methodology in detail,
breaking it down into its component sections. We shall then consider its strengths and its
weaknesses; that is, we will subject it to a thorough critical evaluation. Then, in the second
half of the module we shall focus more broadly on what critical thinking is, both in general
and within each of the four disciplines taught in the School of World Art Studies. Building on
this, the module ends by focusing on how you can apply critical thinking to your own
thinking, reading, writing and looking. The module is taught through a combination of two
weekly lectures and one discussion seminar. The lectures offer an introduction to the relevant
topic, and end with a question for us to discuss/debate in the final 10 minutes of the lecture
period. The discussion seminars will consider key issues in the previous week’s lectures and
the weekly class readings which accompany them.
2016/7 - AMAA5096A EARLY NETHERLANDISH ART, 1420-1550
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser:
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:AA/BB/CC/DD/EE
Between 1420 and 1550, the courtly and city cultures of the Burgundian Netherlands
underwent an extraordinary transformation, thanks to vigorous new forms of political power,
religious belief, trade and technology. Art played a central role in this process, which entailed
new forms of artistic technique, patronage and subject matter. Looking at the works of artists
such as Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, this module will
consider the major developments in painting, sculpture and the graphic arts (including
printmaking) in the Netherlands during this period, and situate those developments within
their historical context.
2016/7 - AMAA5097A RENAISSANCE RECONSIDERED
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 32 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser:
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:AA/BB/CC/DD/EE
Fourteenth and fifteenth-century Italy was shaped by the growth of urban centres and the
development of new political, social, and sacred institutions. New patrons and uses for
artworks prompted a wealth of artistic activity that responded to and also forged
contemporary values, beliefs and identities. Bankers, merchants, mercenaries, and religious
institutions exploited the power of art and architecture to promote their professional interests,
ambitions, and families. This module explores evolving forms and functions of painting,
sculpture and architecture made by a range of artists including Giotto, Donatello, and
Michelangelo.
2016/7 - AMAA5100A THE AFRICAN PAST: GLOBAL CROSSROADS AND
EMPIRES
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 22 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Professor Anne Haour
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:AA/BB/CC/DD/EE
This module introduces the history and archaeology of Africa in the past 1500 years. It
focuses on its art and artefacts, and explores case studies such as the medieval empires of the
Sahel, the Indian Ocean trade in cowrie shells and beads, trans-Saharan caravans and the
sumptuous graves of Egypt and Congo. Through the discussion of Africa’s past and its global
links, we can reach a better understanding of the continent past and present, and challenge the
false but popular notion that African societies have remained static over centuries and that the
continent’s role in world history was negligible, an idea underpinned by negative media
coverage of Africa today. Archaeology, anthropology, history, and oral tradition all inform
this module. And though our subject-matter in this course is African, the questions raised
apply much more widely.
2016/7 - AMAA5103A AMERICAN ART AND AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY 19001950
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 18 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Simon Dell
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B2*B3
This module examines the relations between art and photography in the United States in the
first half of the 20th century. The central debate in American modernism has concerned the
role of the medium and considering photography in relation to the other visual arts permits a
reassessment of this debate. Artists and photographers examined include Alfred Stieglitz,
Georgia O’Keeffe, Marcel Duchamp, Diego Rivera and Walker Evans.
2016/7 - AMAA6127A MAKERS’ MYTHS: THE PERSONA OF THE ARTIST
AFTER 1946
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 32 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Edward Krcma
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:BB/CC/DD
The figure of the artist has for centuries been the object of celebration, curiosity and mythmaking. Since World War II powerful narratives have developed around some of the most
prominent artists: Francis Bacon’s dark world of intensity, anxiety and sado-masochism; the
blank stare of Andy Warhol’s commercial indifference; Joseph Beuys’s redemptive
shamanism; Louise Bourgeois the child abused using her art to resolve inner conflicts; and Ai
Weiwei the great political dissident of contemporary China. This module explores the
construction of such “makers’ myths” and asks: How is an artist’s public persona constructed
and what bearing does it have on the interpretation of specific artworks? What idea of art’s
social role do different personae imply? How do these roles relate to our idea of what art can
or should contribute to the contemporary world?
2016/7 - AMAA6131A ALTERNATIVE MODERNISMS
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Daniel Rycroft
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A1*A2*D3
This module is about the role of modern art in the making of India’s national identity. It
addresses probing questions, notably ‘When was Modernism in Indian Art?’ Since the
beginning of the 20th century, artists and other cultural producers in India, such as filmmakers, educationalists and anthropologists, sought to dismantle the colonial concepts that
once framed their histories and identities. The module explores how artists such as Nandalal
Bose, Ramkinkar Baij and Rabindranath Tagore established cultural exchanges with diverse
national and international communities in the early- to mid-twentieth century. It considers the
many new artistic and cultural formations that emerged via the Bengal School and related
movements, raising important questions concerning the meaning of the relationships between
the local and the national, the future and the past, and the visual and the spatial. Including
debates on issues as diverse as identity/difference, visual display, internationalism, cultural
heritage, and the politics of representation, the module is of potential interests to students in
HUM (notably ART) including those with a specific interest in art history, anthropology and
museum studies.
2016/7 - AMAA6132A CLEOPATRA'S EGYPT
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 17 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser:
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A5*A6*A7
After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, Egypt became first a Hellenistic Greek
kingdom and then, from 30 BC, part of the Roman Empire. These political changes heralded
much broader socioeconomic and cultural changes as well. This module examines the art and
architecture of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, looking at the development of new styles and
technologies and the interaction of Greek and Egyptian visual forms. In the 'multi-cultural'
society of Graeco-Roman Egypt, how does artistic change relate to questions of selfpresentation and identity?
2016/7 - AMAA6133A TURNER: ART, THE ARTIST AND THE ART WORLD IN
BRITAIN, 1800-1850
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Sarah Monks
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:BB/CC/DD
This module will consider the range of artworks produced by Joseph Mallord William
Turner, within the context of the world in which he worked. It has long been recognised that
those artworks amount to one of the crowning achievements (Turner would probably have
preferred ‘the crowning achievement’) in the history of British art. Some of his
contemporaries would see Turner’s work in similar terms, describing him as an ‘Old Master’
even within his own lifetime, in a process of apotheosis which Turner fuelled by buying back
his own paintings and then loudly leaving them to the nation. For much of the period since
his death in 1851, this has remained the dominant vision of Turner: an isolated and
untouchable ‘genius’ whose works transcend history and full interpretation. Recently
however, art historians have started to think again about Turner and the real character of his
achievement, situating both within the emergent modern art world of early nineteenth-century
Britain. . This module will introduce students to this body of scholarship through a close
analysis of Turner’s own works – paintings, drawings and prints; landscapes, seascapes and
historical/mythological images – read alongside set texts (including both primary sources and
recent secondary literature), and within their artistic and historical contexts. We will look
closely at a wide range of Turner’s output and consider its interpretation, not only by
ourselves but also by contemporary commentators including John Ruskin.
2016/7 - AMAF4008A WE THE PEOPLE: HISTORY I
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 100 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Fraser
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B3,U
The compulsory module will offer a fundamental challenge to the opening lines of the
American Constitution, "We the People", and consider the question of inclusion: who did
"the people" refer to and who was excluded from this term of reference? The end of the
eighteenth century saw a marked shift in how people understood the political structures they
lived under. Starting with an examination of revolutionary movements that were taking place
throughout Europe and the Americas, this module will examine how these political upheavals
shaped the history of the United States up until 1865. Lecture and seminar discussions will
include the radical underpinnings of the creation of the American Constitution; the Second
Great Awakening; the reconfiguration of gender identities and ideals in the postrevolutionary period; Native American resistance to white settlement during the first half of
the nineteenth century.
2016/7 - AMAF4009A THINKING THROUGH AMERICAN HISTORY I
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 20 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D7*D8
This module will enable students to master the basic practical and intellectual skills required
for studying history at university. This will be done through the close study of a key historical
text, the literature and debates surrounding it, as well as dedicated skills sessions. The course
will provide an overview of major historiographical currents relating to US history, discuss
different methodological approaches to the subject, and provide students with training in
primary source research, analysis and interpretation.
2016/7 - AMAH5043A Black Freedom Struggles: Slavery, 1619-1865
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 33 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Fraser
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C1*C2
This is the first of two modules examining the black freedom struggle in the United States.
The module will follow a chronological sequence, allowing us to trace the course of racial
slavery in North America, reflecting on the roots of racism that flourished during the
antebellum years and beyond. Through engaging with the developing historiography of
slavery in the United States students will gain a deeper understanding of contemporary (then
and now) debates concerning race and racial identity as well as American slavery per se. We
will be interrogating various sources found in the Morgan Reader alongside representations
of slavery in novels, cinema, and oral histories.
2016/7 - AMAH6009A US INTERVENTIONISM, THE CIA AND COVERT ACTION
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Kaeten Mistry
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Examination with Coursework or Project
Timetable Slot:C2*C3*D4
Exam Paper(hrs):3
Exam Period:SPR-02
The covert activities of the CIA represent arguably the most notorious face of US foreign
relations. Yet to what extent is clandestine American interventionism consistent with official
overt policies? And how do we come to understand covert action campaigns? This module
will introduce the main conceptual and historic debates relevant to the analysis of covert
action as a tool of US foreign relations. In so doing it will consider the institutions and
processes behind covert action, especially the role of the CIA. It also considers the mediums
that narrate and explain American covert action. This will provide a fuller and richer
understanding of the United States’ place in the international system since World War II, its
relationship to other states and non-state actors, and discussions about American identity and
the nation’s role in the world.
2016/7 - AMAH6041A AFRICAN AMERICANS AND EMPIRE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 14 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A6*A7*A8
This module will examine the transnational nature of U.S. history through black thought and
protest. African American writers, politicians and performers have been at the forefront of
seeing U.S. history in global terms. Historically denied full citizenship rights in the United
States, African Americans have often looked abroad in order to forge political alliances.
Challenging ideas of ‘American exceptionalism’, this module will explore how African
American activists developed international alliances designed to promote civil rights on a
local and a global level. Covering the connections between African American activists and
movements for racial justice in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and beyond, this module
will explore the pioneering work of prominent black figures such as Carter G. Woodson,
W.E.B. Du Bois and Barack Obama, with seminars analysing a range of diverse themes
relating to black international activism throughout the twentieth and into the twenty- first
centuries.
2016/7 - AMAH6042A AFRICAN AMERICANS AND EMPIRE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A6*A7*A8
This module will examine the transnational nature of U.S. history through black thought and
protest. African American writers, politicians and performers have been at the forefront of
seeing U.S. history in global terms. Historically denied full citizenship rights in the United
States, African Americans have often looked abroad in order to forge political alliances.
Challenging ideas of ‘American exceptionalism’, this module will explore how African
American activists developed international alliances designed to promote civil rights on a
local and a global level. Covering the connections between African American activists and
movements for racial justice in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and beyond, this module
will explore the pioneering work of prominent black figures such as Carter G. Woodson,
W.E.B. Du Bois and Barack Obama, with seminars analysing a range of diverse themes
relating to black international activism throughout the twentieth and into the twenty- first
centuries.
2016/7 - AMAL4033A IMAGINING AMERICA: LITERATURE I
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 128 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Thomas Smith
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:"E4,U"
Imagining America: Literature I is a level one module designed to introduce the major writers
and themes of literature in the United States. For this module there will be a weekly lecture
and a two-hour seminar. Lecture Slot: Monday, 1200-12.50. Further information on the
timing of the seminar can be found in the published timetable.
2016/7 - AMAL5011A CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FICTION
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 45 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser:
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B3*E4
The purpose of this module is to expose students to a range of prose works by important
contemporary American writers. In particular, we will be concerned with some of the key
concepts associated with contemporary American fiction, including the definition of the
contemporary: postmodernism; metafiction; historiography; postcolonialism; and memory.
2016/7 - AMAL5076A THE BEATS AND THE LIMITS OF WRITING
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 48 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Professor Nick Selby
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C3*D4/E3*A4/A5*A6
This module covers the writers known as ‘The Beats’ in terms of their antecedents, the
literary and cultural traditions in which they worked, and the social and critical debates that
raged during their heyday. Students will be asked to read widely, to compare and contrast
different writers’ styles, and to make informed judgements about the writers’ relationships to
the times in which they wrote. The module aims to foster an understanding of the Beat
literary phenomenon in literary, political and social contexts. It will also examine the debts
Beat writers owed to ‘American Renaissance’ writers including Emerson and Whitman, to
wider ideas of the ‘avant-garde’ in the Twentieth Century generally, and to European
Romantic traditions. It will investigate how a Beat poetics developed as a response to Cold
War ‘consensus culture’, and sought to establish a countercultural (though distinctly
American) ‘tradition’.
2016/7 - AMAL5077A LIVING ON THE HYPHEN: Multi-ethnic American Literatures
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 32 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Wendy McMahon
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A1*A2
America has long been interpreted as the location of social possibility founded upon a desire
to assimilate and negate ethnic 'others'. This module traces the literary responses of distinct
'American' cultures: including Native American; African American; Asian American; and
Latin American. Each group of texts engage with the specific historical, cultural and political
relationships between the US and each author's country of origin or national/cultural history,
across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Topics will include race and racism, exile,
return, family, belonging, identity, language and memory, colonisation, imperialism, slavery,
segregation, immigration, and illegality/invisibility, with an emphasis upon contemporary
experiences.
2016/7 - AMAL6007A AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 0 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Rachael McLennan
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B2*B3*E4
This module aims to introduce students to the fascinatingly wide and diverse area of
American autobiography. It takes a broadly chronological structure in order to introduce key
narratives and writers in the history of American autobiography, and will also enable students
to engage with important theoretical debates influencing how we might understand
autobiography – debates which can perhaps best be described as attempting to determine
what is at stake in writing, reading and defining the autobiographical ‘I’. Questions to be
explored will include: What do we mean by autobiography? Why is it so difficult to define
autobiography? What is ‘American’ about autobiography?
2016/7 - AMAL6008A AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 0 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rachael McLennan
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B2*B3*E4
This is a 20 credit version of AMAL6007A American Autobiography and is available only to
Visiting students.
2016/7 - AMAL6044A CALIFORNIA DREAMING: NOVELS OF THE GOLDEN
STATE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 30 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Tillett
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D1*D2*A3
This module looks at the ways in which California has represented itself, or been represented,
in fiction. Beginning with the ‘first’ published Californian novel of 1854, The Life and
Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit, we will trace the
development of the Californian novel into the early twenty-first century. One particular
interest is the ways in which Californian novels engage with, dissect, and critique notions of
California as a ‘dream’ or ideal/idyll; and we will explore how novelists address crucial, and
often contentious, historical moments in Californian history. Topics include settlement and
‘removal’; migration and immigration; corporate interests and ‘big business’; Los Angleles as
the City of Dreams; and ‘global’ California. Writers will include some or all of the following:
Mary Austin, T C Boyle, Joan Didion, Chester Himes, Frank Norris, Kem Nunn; John Rollin
Ridge, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, Helena Maria Viramontes, Nathaniel West, and Karen
Tei Yamashita.
2016/7 - AMAL6045A CALIFORNIA DREAMING: NOVELS OF THE GOLDEN
STATE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Tillett
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D1*D2*A3
This is a 20 credit version of AMSA3L39 CALIFORNIA DREAMING: NOVELS OF THE
GOLDEN STATE and is available only to Visiting students.
2016/7 - AMAM4009A ANALYSING FILM
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 160 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Godfrey
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D2,E5*E6*E7,E1*E2/E3*A4/A7*A8/D3*C4/B5*B6/B7*B8
Analysing Film is designed to provide you with techniques and methods that can be applied
to the textual analysis of films, alongside core study and practical skills that will be used
throughout your university career. The module will cover a range of formal features and
frameworks including image and sound production (notably narrative, camerawork, editing,
soundtrack), and their relationships with the ways in which films construct meaning. You will
be expected to engage with the range of possible approaches to audio-visual analysis, and
apply the ideas under discussion to diverse examples from film. Key study skills include use
of the library and internet for research, note-taking, and the conventions of academic writing
such as essay planning, referencing, and avoiding claims of plagiarism.
2016/7 - AMAM4010A ANALYSING TELEVISION
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 119 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Su Holmes
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B1,B3*E4/C1*C2/C3*D4/D5*D6
This module explores the many ways television has been examined, explored, understood,
and used. It focuses particularly on the specifics of the medium; that is, how television is
different from (and, in some ways, similar to) other media such as film, radio, and the
internet. Each week will focus on a particular idea which is seen as central to the examination
of television. The medium will be explored as an industry, as a range of texts, and as a social
activity. While drawing on some examples from other countries, the primary focus will be on
British television; similarly while some history will be explored, the main focus will be
contemporary television.
2016/7 - AMAM4023A WHAT IS FILM HISTORY?
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 108 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Lisa Stead
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D7*D8*B9, A1/A2/D3/C4/B5
This module provides an introduction to the narrative history of film in the late 19th century
and early 20th century, as it is commonly understood within Film Studies. The module is also
designed to familiarise 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. The purpose here is not
to convince students of the rightness of this history but rather to familiarise them with the key
points of reference in the field. The module will be taught by lecture, seminar and screening.
2016/7 - AMAM4028A MEDIA INDUSTRIES
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 60 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Mark Rimmer
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A4,A6/A8/A1
This module is designed to provide students with an understanding of the structure of the
media industries and of the situation of media practitioners within them. It will therefore look
at their economic and political organisation and regulation and the divisions of labour
determined by these modes of organisation and regulation. In the process, it will cover a
range of different media industries in Britain and the US, including the press, radio, film and
television.
2016/7 - AMAM4029A MEDIA HISTORY
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 88 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Tim Snelson
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:D1,A3/B4/E1
This module will explore media history from the perspective of the AMA’s interests in
critical media studies, cultural consumption and historiography. It will highlight the material,
social and institutional contexts in which media forms have been produced, mediated and
consumed and the ongoing power struggles therein. By working through different
interpretations of how the media has intersected with long-term changes in society, the
module will allow students to contrast ‘top down’ histories of industrial organisation,
technological evolution and regulatory intervention with ‘bottom up’ histories of media as
social activity.
2016/7 - AMAM5020A CONTEMPORARY MEDIASCAPES
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 48 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Emma Pett
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D1,D2/A3/B4
This module is designed to provide students with an understanding of the spatial dimensions
of media access, production, participation and use/consumption. Module content is organised
around the notions of space and place, thereby enabling an engagement with issues including:
globalisation/the global; national media and media systems; regional and local media;
community and ‘grassroots’ media, domestic and ‘personal’ media. Over the course of the
module then, students will develop an understanding of the range and reach of media and the
multiplicity of factors determining how, when and where populations are enabled to access
and participate in media activities. Parallel to the above will be an exploration, through
selected case study examples, of media and cultural policy issues, spaces/places of media
production as well as a critical engagement with questions of power in relation to these. The
module will also be adopting a contemporary focus by incorporating debates about the role
and potential of digital media and communications technologies in enabling new forms of
media production, distribution and participation.
2016/7 - AMAM5024A ANIMATION
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 80 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rayna Denison
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:C9*C10*BY,E1*E2/E3*A4
Animation is one of the most popular and least scrutinised areas of popular media culture.
This module seeks to introduce students to animation as a mode of production through
examinations of different aesthetics and types of animation from stop motion through to cel
and CGI-based examples. It then goes on to discuss some of the debates around animation in
relation to case study texts. Example debates include: who animation is for (children?), the
limits of the term “animation” in relation to CGI, the industrial frameworks for animation
production (art vs commerce) and character vs star debates around animation icons. A range
of approaches and methods will therefore be adopted within the module, including political
economics, cultural industries, star studies and animation studies itself. The module is taught
by seminar and screening.
2016/7 - AMAM5030A FILM THEORY
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 112 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Christine Cornea
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:D4,A9*A10*EY,D5/D6/D7/D8
This module explores aspects of film theory as it has developed over the last hundred years or
so. It encompasses topics including responses to cinema by filmmaker theorists such as
Sergei Eisenstein; influential formulations of and debates about realism and film aesthetics
associated with writers and critics such as André Bazin, Siegfried Kracauer, Rudolf Arnheim
and Bela Bálázs; the impact of structuralism, theories of genre, narrative and models of film
language; theories of authorship; feminist film theory and its emphasis on psychoanalysis;
intertextuality; theories of race and representation; reception models. The module is taught by
lecture, screening and seminar. Students will work with primary texts - both films and
theoretical writings - and have the opportunity to explore in their written work the ways in
which film theories can be applied to film texts.
2016/7 - AMAM5031A GENDER AND THE MEDIA
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 34 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Alison Winch
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:B9*B10*AY,E1*E2/E3*A4
Providing a conceptual overview of feminist research methods, this module examines the role
of media in constructing – and challenging – contemporary gender relations and
understandings of a range of femininities and masculinities. The module explores both
theoretical and methodological issues and covers theoretical approaches from feminist media
studies, cultural studies, gender studies and queer theory. It explores a range of media and
visual cultures including television, magazines, sports media, music, digital media culture,
etc.
2016/7 - AMAM5033A FILM GENRES
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 38 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Christine Cornea
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B1*B2*B3,C5*C6/C1*C2
Film Genres introduces students to the range of theories and methods used to account for the
prevalence of genres within filmmaking. The module investigates historical changes in how
film genres have been approached in order to consider how genres have been made use of by
industry, critics and film audiences. Genre theories are explored through a range of case
studies drawn from one or more of a range of popular American film genres that may include
the Western, melodrama, romantic comedy, the road movie, the buddy movie, film noir, the
gangster film, the war film and action/adventure film. In exploring concepts and case studies
relating to film genres the module aims to demonstrate the impact of genres within
contemporary culture.
2016/7 - AMAM5035A RECEPTION STUDIES: HISTORY, THEORY AND
TRANSCULTURAL CONTEXTS
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Emma Pett
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:A1*A2/D3*C4
This module will introduce students to the key theoretical frameworks and approaches within
the tradition of reception studies. It will offer a critical exploration of the main debates and
studies that have shaped the field, exploring both historical and contemporary contexts of
media reception. In particular, in will consider the transcultural circulation of media, and the
issues that arise when film, television and other media transfer between cultures with
significantly different values and modes of reception. The module will encourage students to
critically evaluate existing reception studies and equip them with the tools necessary to
undertake their own small-scale reception study.
2016/7 - AMAM5045A DOCUMENTARY: HISTORY, THEORY, CRITICISM
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 34 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Mr Mark Fryers
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B5*B6,B7*B8
This module will introduce students to the key issues in documentary history, theory and
criticism. It will address definitional and generic debates; ethical issues; historical forms and
founders; different categories, models and expository and poetic modes of documentary
filmmaking; and social and political uses and debates. It will draw upon case studies from a
range of different national and media contexts and give students grounding in key historical,
methodological and ethical debates that they can draw upon in their future written and
practical work.
2016/7 - AMAM5046A POPULAR MUSIC
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Mark Rimmer
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A1*A2/D3*C4
This module encourages students to explore the ways in which popular music has been
understood by scholars in the field of media and cultural studies. The module will examine
the debates over popular music industries, texts and audiences, and incorporate an exploration
of a range of popular musical forms, including folk music, rock, pop, rap and/or hip-hop, and
dance music cultures. It will also examine the relations of popular music to other media, such
as television and the internet.
2016/7 - AMAM5047A THEORISING TELEVISION
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 26 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Su Holmes
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C3,D5/D6/D7
This module explores some of the key ways in which television has been theorised,
conceptualised and debated. It will offer students insight into how the discipline of Television
Studies has developed, as well as how television itself has developed – in terms of social
roles, political functions and aesthetic form. A key interest will in be what television is for,
for nations, societies, individuals and/or communities.
2016/7 - AMAM6032A MAGAZINES
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 32 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Jamie Hakim
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B5*B6*B7
This module will explore magazines both as cultural objects and consumer products from the
emergence of the medium in the 17th century to the present day. It will critically engage with
the rapidly transforming structure, nature and operations of the industry in an increasingly
digital age, understanding contemporary magazines as transmedia, multi-platform brands.
This module will explore magazines as key sites for the negotiation of contemporary power
relations. This will be examined through a series of case studies relating to the political
economy of the magazine industry; promotional cultures; digital media; and gender, sexuality
and the body. This module also contains a vocational strand that seeks to equip students with
knowledge of contemporary magazine production processes. The content from this strand
will be partially delivered by leading figures in the magazine industry.
2016/7 - AMAM6072A TEENAGE KICKS: MEDIA, YOUTH AND SUBCULTURE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 39 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Tim Snelson
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:E8*C9*C10,A1*A2*D3/B5*B6*B7
This module will address the historical development of the commercial youth market and
introduce key debates relating to young people and their uses of mainstream and underground
media. It will examine a range of theoretical approaches to youth culture, subculture and
post-subculture, employing case studies of popular and alternative music, club culture, film,
television, subcultural style and new digital technologies. It will address questions of
ideology, identity and representation, most significantly issues of class, gender, race and
ethnicity, and encourage students to discuss how cultural interests and practices are used to
construct individual and group identities. It will focus primarily on the British post-war
context – highlighting the influence of American popular culture, Black Diaspora and
technological transformation on British youth – but will also examine young people’s media
use and subcultures in other national and transnational contexts. The emphasis will be on
analysing the extent to which cultural power is negotiated and resisted through shared media
consumption and subculture formation
2016/7 - AMAM6077A TEENAGE KICKS: MEDIA, YOUTH AND SUBCULTURE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 4 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Tim Snelson
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:E8*C9*C10,A1*A2*D3/B5*B6*B7
This module will address the historical development of the commercial youth market and
introduce key debates relating to young people and their uses of mainstream and underground
media. It will examine a range of theoretical approaches to youth culture, subculture and
post-subculture, employing case studies of popular and alternative music, club culture, film,
television, subcultural style and new digital technologies. It will address questions of
ideology, identity and representation, most significantly issues of class, gender, race and
ethnicity, and encourage students to discuss how cultural interests and practices are used to
construct individual and group identities. It will focus primarily on the British post-war
context – highlighting the influence of American popular culture, Black Diaspora and
technological transformation on British youth – but will also examine young people’s media
use and subcultures in other national and transnational contexts. The emphasis will be on
analysing the extent to which cultural power is negotiated and resisted through shared media
consumption and subculture formation. THIS IS A 20 CREDIT VERSION OF THE
MODULE FOR VISITING STUDENTS ONLY.
2016/7 - AMAM6087A JAPANESE FILM: NATIONAL CINEMA AND BEYOND
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 15 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Rayna Denison
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D9*D10*CY, A1*A2*D3
This module explores the concept of Japanese cinema in relation to national, transnational
and global discourses and seeks to reframe discussions of modern and past Japanese
filmmaking. We will examine a variety of Japanese films and the ways in which they interact
with the history, techniques and culture of Japan. We will also consider the social and
commercial nature of Japanese filmmaking, including the ways in which Japanese films
circulate the globe.
2016/7 - AMAM6102A JAPANESE FILM: NATIONAL CINEMA AND BEYOND
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rayna Denison
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D9*D10*CY, A1*A2*D3
This module explores the concept of Japanese cinema in relation to national, transnational
and global discourses and seeks to reframe discussions of modern and past Japanese
filmmaking. We will examine a variety of Japanese films and the ways in which they interact
with the history, techniques and culture of Japan. We will also consider the social and
commercial nature of Japanese filmmaking, including the ways in which Japanese films
circulate the globe. THIS IS A 20 CREDIT VERSION OF THE MODULE FOR VISITING
STUDENTS ONLY.
2016/7 - AMAP5123A FILM AND VIDEO PRODUCTION
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 66 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Mr Roger Hewins
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:E3*A4/A5*A6/A7*A8,B1*B2/B3*E4/C5*C6
BEFORE TAKING THIS MODULE YOU MUST TAKE AMAM4009A OR TAKE
AMAM4010A
This module introduces the student to the grammar of film and television, particularly
questions of narrative, storytelling, framing, composition, movement, editing, sound and
lighting. In so doing, it will encourage students to engage in creative practices, in which they
can experiment with these elements of filmmaking (elements that they will have already
explored in Analysing Film / Analysing Television) and so gain a deeper and more practical
understanding of how film language makes meaning. Furthermore, it will encourage them to
understand the choices and decision making processes involved in creative practice and the
pros and cons involved in any creative decision.
2016/7 - AMAP6097A MEDIA PRACTICE PROJECT (AUTUMN)
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 28 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Paul Gooding
NAM- 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 an area of practice previously learned through
experience on practice-based modules in the areas of audio-visual work, sound production,
digital media or screenwriting, dependent on which type of practice module was previously
studied. 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. ONLY AVAILABLE TO STUDENTS REGISTERED WITHIN AMA
FTM.
2016/7 - AMAS4036A READING CULTURES I: AMERICAN ICONS
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 107 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B2,U
This module provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary research methods and writing
skills that are essential for students undertaking a degree programme in the School of
American Studies. Students will be encouraged to look at reading American culture across
disciplines and media, and to develop their own strategies for learning, from note taking and
planning, through locating and engaging with critical opinions, to producing and evaluating
academic writing. This module is intended as an introduction to interdisciplinary scholarship
and its transferable skills.
2016/7 - AMAS5019A FILMS THAT MADE US AMERICAN: THE 1980S THROUGH
THE MOVIES
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 39 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Jonathan Mitchell
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B1*B2/C3*D4,U
The module will examine America in the1980s. It will look at youth culture, post-Vietnam
revisionism and the ‘remasculinization of America’, yuppie culture, and the impact of both
AIDS and drug addiction. Core factors of study in this module are the effects of both New
Right morality upon the American socio-cultural landscape, and Ronald Reagan as
postmodern president administrating to a ‘celluloid America’ of his own fantastic imagining.
Overall, the module will offer the chance to analyse the tensions and contradictions of the
decade as they were played out in both the content and structure of contemporary American
film.
2016/7 - AMAS5023A AMERICAN MUSIC
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 20 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Thomas Smith
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D7*D8/D1*D2
The first book published in the New World was a hymn book. Music, sacred and profane, has
been at the centre of American lives ever since. Accordingly, this module will explore the
history of American music - but it will also examine the way that its development tells a
larger story. Focusing largely on the vernacular musical traditions we will encounter a wide
range of musical styles and musicians, each of which has something vital to tell us about the
shaping of America. After all, as Plato knew, "When the mode of the music changes, the
walls of the city shake."
2016/7 - AMAS5044A THE COLD WAR
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 36 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Kaeten Mistry
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C5*C6
What was the Cold War? How did it start, where and how was it fought, and why did it last
so long? This module analyses these issues by exploring the contest waged by the U.S. and
Soviet Union in every corner of the globe during the twentieth century. It considers nations
and peoples who aligned with the superpowers or, as was increasingly the case, with neither.
It looks at the multiple ways in which this unique ‘war short of total war’ influenced all
aspects of life, from diplomacy and politics, to economics, to culture and values, to bombs
and warfare, to societal norms, to questions of race and sexuality. With attention to a range of
state, private, and transnational actors, it analyses the global and international nature of the
Cold War. It explores the place of the conflict amid other transformative historical narratives
during the century and, finally, considers the changing ways that historians have written
about the Cold War.
2016/7 - AMAS5045A AMERICAN FRONTIERS
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 16 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Hilary Emmett
NAM- 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.
2016/7 - AMAS6040A THE AMERICAN BODY
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 30 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser:
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D6*D7*D8
Exam Period:SPR-02
This module reads the changing values, presentations and representations of the body that
move through and construct American culture. This module will involve pairing theoretical
perspectives with current and historical ideas of the body to allow us to interrogate
intellectual and popular meanings assigned to and played out through the body, reading
particular moments in American writing, art, photography and popular forms for the things
they might tell us about corporality and self presentation, but also about the wider structures
of the social and cultural environment. We will engage with canonical debates about race,
gender, sexuality and ideas of ‘representation’, but also with categories that cut across and
through these modes of reading – with the normal and the ideal, ideas of illness and wellness,
ability and disability, of the organic and the machine, of the body under servitude, or under
punishment, and with the whole idea of embodiment in itself. This module – like all other
modules at this level - requires a substantial, regular, reading commitment.
2016/7 - AMAS6041A THE AMERICAN BODY
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Garland
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D6*D7*D8
This is a 20 credit version of AMSA3S30 THE AMERICAN BODY and is available only to
Visiting students.
2016/7 - AMAS6049A AMERICAN VIOLENCE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 25 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Malcolm McLaughlin
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:E2*E3*A4/A1*A2*D3
“Violence,” the firebrand black militant H. Rap Brown infamously said, “is as American as
cherry pie.” Many Americans who lived through the turbulent 1960s understood what Brown
meant even if they disagreed with his politics. Writing in 1969, the liberal historian Arthur M.
Schlesinger conceded that, with the Vietnam War raging overseas and ghetto riots exploding
at home on a yearly basis, in the wake of the assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, and
Bobby Kennedy, and looking at the violent preoccupations of TV and movies, Americans
must surely be judged “the most frightening people on the planet.” Certainly, viewed from
the relatively orderly perspective of Europe, the United States appears to have an exceptional
relationship with violence – perhaps represented above all by a homicide rate far higher than
other comparable industrialised nations. This module explores key themes in the history of
violence in the United States. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on a range of
sources, including film, photography and music, in order to understand how violence has
shaped American society and culture.
2016/7 - AMAS6050A AMERICAN VIOLENCE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Malcolm McLaughlin
NAM- MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:E2*E3*A4/A1*A2*D3
This is the 20 credit version of AMSA3S27 AMERICAN VIOLENCE and is available only
to Visiting students.