2017/8 - AMAF4008A AMERICAN HISTORY I: AGE OF REVOLUTIONS
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser:
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?
2017/8 - AMAF4009A THINKING THROUGH AMERICAN HISTORY I
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
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.
2017/8 - AMAH5034A AMERICAN JUSTICE: THE SUPREME COURT
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Emma Long
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework and Project
Timetable Slot:D7*D8
The 20th Century saw a major expansion in the role of the Supreme Court in American
politics and society. Changing understandings of individual rights and liberties spurred a
constitutional revolution in areas of civil rights and individual freedoms. Legal and social
changes occurred alongside changing interpretations of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights
to fundamentally alter the way many Americans related to each other and to the government.
Following World War Two the Court became increasingly active in areas of public policy,
deciding cases involving freedom of speech, religion and the press, campaign finance, gun
control and the right to bear arms, the rights of criminal suspects and defendants, same-sex
marriage, abortion, and the death penalty, among many others. This module introduces
students to the role and operation of the Court as well as to the historic events it has been
involved with since the early 20th Century. From repeatedly striking down New Deal
legislation in the 1930s to halting the recount of votes in Florida in the 2000 election, from
holding the state had no responsibility for the protection of individuals in the first two
decades of the 20th Century to expanding understandings of “equal protection of the laws” in
the second half of the century, the module will encourage students to consider the role of law
in shaping and influencing American history and politics, as well as asking how and why the
Court ruled in particular ways. Through a combination of Court opinions and academic
studies, students will be asked to consider key issues in 20th and 21st Century US history and
the role of the law and Constitution in shaping them. Students are challenged to consider how
understandings of key legal “rights” have changed over time and what this tells us about the
Court, the Constitution, and about American society more broadly.
2017/8 - AMAH5043A Black Freedom Struggles: Slavery, 1619-1865
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser:
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.
2017/8 - AMAH6041A AFRICAN AMERICANS AND EMPIRE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
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.
2017/8 - AMAH6042A AFRICAN AMERICANS AND EMPIRE
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A6*A7*A8
This is a 20 credit version of AMAH6042A AFRICAN AMERICANS AND EMPIRE and is
available only to Visiting students.
2017/8 - AMAL4033A AMERICAN LITERATURE I: IIMAGINING AMERICA
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Thomas Smith
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:"E4,U"
American Literature I: Imagining America 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.
2017/8 - AMAL5011A CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FICTION
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rachael McLennan
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.
2017/8 - AMAL5077A LIVING ON THE HYPHEN: Multi-ethnic American Literatures
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Tillett
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.
2017/8 - AMAL6007A AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Rachael McLennan
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?
2017/8 - AMAL6008A AMERICAN AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 0 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rachael McLennan
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.
2017/8 - AMAL6025A CREATIVE WRITING-FICTION
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Alison Winch
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).
2017/8 - AMAL6048A COMICS: AN AMERICAN ART
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Frederik Kohlert
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
This module introduces students to the American art of comics, comic strips, and graphic
novels. Tracing the form's development from its inception in the popular newspapers of the
end of the 19th century through the birth of the comic book, the underground comix
revolution of the counterculture years, the birth of the graphic novel, and the current boom in
autobiographical comics by women, the course will give students a broad understanding of
the many cultural and formal issues surrounding the form.
2017/8 - AMAL6049A ALIENS, OUTSIDERS, AND EXPATS:WRITING AMERICA
OUTSIDE IN
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Hilary Emmett
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
The Module engages contemporary writing by expatriates and outsiders in the United States.
Considering novels by expatriate writers from Australia, Britain, India, and Nigeria alongside
writing by authors from states and protectorates beyond the bounds of the continental United
States (Guam, Hawaii, Samoa), this module considers how such writing has imagined key
American events, eras, and cultural practices from "the outside in." Authors may include
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Peter Carey, Sia Figiel, Brandy Nalani McDougal, Craig Santos
Perez, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, and Kirsten Tranter among others.
2017/8 - AMAM4009A ANALYSING FILM
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Godfrey
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.
2017/8 - AMAM4010A ANALYSING TELEVISION
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Su Holmes
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B2,C5*C6/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.
2017/8 - AMAM4023A WHAT IS FILM HISTORY?
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Lisa Stead
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D6*D7*D8, 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.
2017/8 - AMAM4028A MEDIA INDUSTRIES
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Mark Rimmer
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.
2017/8 - AMAM4029A MEDIA HISTORY
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Tim Snelson
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.
2017/8 - AMAM4034A MEDIA REPRESENTATION
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Hannah Hamad
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A4,B5/B6/B7/B8
This module explores the roles the media plays in the formation of identities and
subjectivities. It will ask students to think about the relationship between the media and social
hierarchies of power, by looking at the similarities and differences of representations across
media forms, genres and narratives. It will introduce students to approaches and issues
including gender identities and feminist theory, otherness and post-colonialism, discourse and
power, performative identity and queer theory, disability studies, posthumanism and animal
studies.
2017/8 - AMAM5020A CONTEMPORARY MEDIASCAPES
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Emma Pett
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 media access,
production, participation and use/consumption. Module content is organised around notions
of space and place, thereby enabling 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, 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 also adopts 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.
2017/8 - AMAM5024A ANIMATION
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rayna Denison
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.
2017/8 - AMAM5030A FILM THEORY
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Christine Cornea
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.
2017/8 - AMAM5031A GENDER AND THE MEDIA
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Alison Winch
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.
2017/8 - AMAM5033A FILM GENRES
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Christine Cornea
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.
2017/8 - AMAM5035A RECEPTION STUDIES: HISTORY, THEORY AND
TRANSCULTURAL CONTEXTS
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Emma Pett
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.
2017/8 - AMAM5045A DOCUMENTARY: HISTORY, THEORY, CRITICISM
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Mr Robert Manning
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B5*B6,B7*B8
Exam Paper(hrs):
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.
2017/8 - AMAM5046A POPULAR MUSIC
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Mark Rimmer
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.
2017/8 - AMAM5047A THEORISING TELEVISION
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Su Holmes
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.
2017/8 - AMAM6032A MAGAZINES
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Jamie Hakim
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.
2017/8 - AMAM6087A JAPANESE FILM: NATIONAL CINEMA AND BEYOND
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Rayna Denison
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.
2017/8 - AMAM6102A JAPANESE FILM: NATIONAL CINEMA AND BEYOND
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rayna Denison
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.
2017/8 - AMAM6113A GENERATION AND THE MEDIA
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Alison Winch
Module Type: Project
Timetable Slot:C2C3C4/D6D7D8
Generation is a key part of media discourse. Young people are represented as having fewer
opportunities that the generations before them. They portrayed as narcissists, obsessed with
brands and social media. Older generations, such as the ‘Babyboomers’, are represented as
selfish and as having stolen young people’s future. This module complicates these
stereotypes. It explores theories of generation and their relation to media texts and media use.
It asks, how are generations represented in the media, and what are the effects of this on
people’s experience and identity? It looks at how media is used and consumed in different
ways according to age, lifecycle and family structure. It explores the ways that generation
intersects with other identities such as race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, place. Students
will combine textual analysis and theory with an emphasis on personal experience and
autoethnography. That is, students are expected to engage with the academic debates around
generation but also to critically reflect on their own understandings of generation in relation
to their peers, family, the past and the future
2017/8 - AMAP5123A FILM AND VIDEO PRODUCTION
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Mr Roger Hewins
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.
2017/8 - AMAP6097A MEDIA PRACTICE PROJECT (AUTUMN)
Autumn 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 - AMAS4036A AMERICAN STUDIES I: READING CULTURES I
Autumn Semester, Level 4 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:B2,U
This course aims to introduce you to some of the basic tools you will need for a degree in the
School of American Studies. It is designed to provide you with the skills required for the
assessed work you will be doing in your other core modules; you are also encouraged to bring
in questions, thoughts and examples from those other modules.
2017/8 - AMAS5020A THEY CAME FROM OUTER-THE-CLOSET: GENDER,
SEXUALITY AND PANIC IN AMERICAN FILM
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Jonathan Mitchell
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:A1*A2
With its main focus on the 20th century, this module will explore key moments of change or
crisis in the century and consider the ways the panic caused by such changes is distinctly
gendered and/or sexualised. It will concurrently examine gender and sexual resistance to
dominant ideas of American identity and the subsequent creation and/or promotion of
liberationist discourses and alternative communities. Film will provide the focus for this
cultural study, and the module will range widely over a number of different genres including
the western, sci-fi, detective and LGBT themed works.
2017/8 - AMAS5023A AMERICAN MUSIC
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Thomas Smith
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."
2017/8 - AMAS5025A ADOLESCENCE IN AMERICAN CULTURE POST-1950
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rachael McLennan
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:C1*C2
This module will suggest that there is a preoccupation with adolescence in postwar and
contemporary American culture, and will explore why this is the case. It will do so by
introducing students to representations of adolescence in various disciplines, focusing
particularly on literature, film, psychoanalysis and cultural studies. Questions to be explored
will include: What is 'American' about adolescence? How do representations of adolescence
vary according to factors such as gender, race and region? Is there a particular discipline or
artistic form which is especially suited to depictions of adolescence?
2017/8 - AMAS5044A THE COLD WAR
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser:
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.
2017/8 - AMAS5046A AMERICAN RADICALS
Autumn Semester, Level 5 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Nicholas Grant
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
The module traces the history of the radical political activism in the U.S. from the late
nineteenth century to the 1980s. It shows how radicals, while often marginal or ostracised in
the United States, assumed pivotal roles as effective organizers in mass movements dedicated
to class, race, gender and sexual equality. Classes cover the trade union movement, feminist
politics, the black freedom struggle as well as the gay liberation struggle.
2017/8 - AMAS6027A NATIVE AMERICAN WRITING AND FILM
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Tillett
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D1*D2*A3
This module considers Native American writing and film as sites of cultural and political
resistance, analysing the ways in which a diverse range of Native authors, screenwriters and
directors within the United States respond to contemporary tribal socio-economic and
political conditions. Taking popular ideas of 'the Indian', this module considers the ways in
which stereotypes and audience expectations are subverted and challenged. Topics include
race and racism, indigeneity, identity, culture, gender, genre, land and notions of 'home',
community, dialogue, postcolonial theory in its application to those who remain colonised,
and political issues such as human rights and environmental racism.
2017/8 - AMAS6028A NATIVE AMERICAN WRITING AND FILM
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Rebecca Tillett
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D1*D2*A3
This is a 20-credit version of AMS6027A: NATIVE AMERICAN WRITING AND FILM
and is available only to Visiting Students.
2017/8 - AMAS6040A THE AMERICAN BODY
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 999 Students)
UCU: 30
Organiser:
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.
2017/8 - AMAS6041A THE AMERICAN BODY
Autumn Semester, Level 6 module
(Maximum 2 Students)
UCU: 20
Organiser: Dr Sarah Garland
MODULE - 40% PASS ON AGGREGATE
Module Type: Coursework
Timetable Slot:D6*D7*D8
This is a 20 credit version of AMAS6041A THE AMERICAN BODY and is available only
to Visiting students.