English Literature

The following modules are available to incoming Study Abroad students interested in English Literature.

Alternatively you may return to the complete list of Study Abroad Subject Areas.

ENGL4001: Literature in Time

Terms Taught: Full Year
US Credits: 10
ECTS Credits: 20
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to introduce students to a broad range of English Literature - from the Middle Ages to the 21st century - and thus to the study of literature in and through time. In particular, students examine how the English literary tradition continues to be rewritten and challenged in the increasingly globalised and postmodern era of the twenty-first century.

The module aims to introduce students to some of the major modes and forms of English Literature, as well as important innovations in theoretical thinking about literature. It also aims to instil study skills needed for the whole degree course, including the analysis, discussion and presentation of ideas, and thinking historically. The module aims to introduce students to how to structure, develop, and sustain complex arguments, and to use both primary and secondary material.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to:

Display knowledge of some of key forms, methods of interpretation, and periods in literary history
Ask well-informed questions about literary value, the canon, and the roles of text, author, and reader in the production of meaning
Read texts closely and draw connections between them
Display knowledge of and engagement with secondary resources
Present work according to scholarly conventions
Present ideas in collaboration with a team

Outline Syllabus

In this module you will encounter a broad range of literature from the Middle Ages to the 21st century, which may include authors from Geoffrey Chaucer to Alison Bechdel. You’ll read famous and infamous texts from a range of literary periods, such as the Medieval and Early Modern, Romantic, Victorian, Modern, and contemporary periods. The module will also explore diverse and varied approaches to reading literature. You will be introduced to key debates in literary studies and given a foundation in the skills, tools, and knowledge for new and exciting ways of reading. The module is taught through two lectures and one seminar per week. Topics addressed on the module may include empire, authority, revolution, gender, body, voice or signs.

Assessment Proportions

The module’s assessment strategy includes the essay form, which assesses students’ knowledge and understanding of the module materials and their capacity to close read texts in discussion the others’ responses to those texts via the use of secondary criticism. The assessment strategy also includes an online test that focuses specifically on close reading and a group presentation that assesses knowledge and understanding, as well as students’ ability to discuss and work collaboratively with their peers.

ENGL4002: Literature and Place

Terms Taught: Full Year
US Credits: 10
ECTS Credits: 20
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to introduce students to the relationship between literature, place and space. Students will engage with a range of topics that emphasise the importance of literature to our very sense of place and space. By the end of the course, students will have developed a keen understanding of the major literary critical approaches to place, space, and environments, and a greater awareness of space as a vital aspect of literary form. Students will also gain an understanding of ecological approaches to literature. The module will take a thematic approach that may include, for example, a focus on literary maps, border spaces, cities and rural environments. The module is offered as part of the programme because space and place are a vital element of contemporary literary studies across period specialisms.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to:

Demonstrate a knowledge of key concepts regarding the relationship between literature and place, including ecological readings of literary texts.
Articulate responses to a range of literary forms and genres.
Appreciate how a very particular spatial theme can unite otherwise very different texts.
Show skills of close, critical reading and make connections between texts.
Use scholarly conventions (notes; referencing; bibliographies) to present written work
Understand the role of literature in communicating and shaping the significance of place in culture.

Outline Syllabus

This module engages with literature through the frame of space, exploring a wide range of major ancient, modern, and contemporary texts, all of which relate to such particular places as, for example, books, castles, fields, mountains, seas, borders and railroads. Some of the spaces we will have in mind relate directly to the historic city of Lancaster itself and to its wonderful location near to both the Lakes and the coast, and some of the spaces will relate most directly to places far away.??The module will draw on contemporary discussion about environmental and ecological issues. Texts studied may include (but are not limited to), for example,?Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,?Margaret Cavendish’s?The Convent of Pleasure,?Emily Brontë’s?Wuthering Heights, Colson Whitehead’s?The Underground Railroad?and Ali Smith’s?How to Be Both.

Assessment Proportions

The assessment strategy for the module connects directly to its learning and teaching methods. The first piece of assessment an essay due at the end of semester one. The first of two pieces of assessment in semester two will focus on communicating ideas regarding place and literature to wider audiences: students will be given a choice between writing a blog post on a specific literary space (for example, a fictional location or a place associated with writing such as Dove Cottage in Grasmere) or a printed flyer on a similar theme. The final assessment is a choice between a long essay or Creative-Critical response to the module (for example, a short story or poem with a shorter critical reflection).

ENGL4003: World Literatures

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5
ECTS Credits: 10
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module highlights how literature crosses geographical, cultural, linguistic, generic, and conceptual borders. We will consider the production, circulation, reception, and recycling of world literary texts in a plurality of languages that includes English. We read texts in translation and consider translation as method, material effect, and metaphor. ENGL4003 encourages students to widen their literary, critical, and theoretical horizons. Key words that define this module include travel; translation; metamorphosis; adaptation; echo; labyrinth; library; palimpsest; borders; world.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of some key world literary texts and their history of production, circulation, and reception.

2. Demonstrate close reading skills in and across different literary forms and genres.

3. Demonstrate a willingness to consider literary texts conceptually, with reference to module keywords, as well as contextually.

Outline Syllabus

Topics:

1. Selected world literary texts produced in ancient and modern languages (available in English).

2. Translations and/or adaptations of selected world literary texts, i.e. their incorporation in other creative canons for other audiences.

3. Ways of conceptualising how literature represents and is represented in the world.

Themes:

Key words that define this module include travel; translation; metamorphosis; adaptation; echo; labyrinth; library; palimpsest; borders; world.

Indicative Primary Texts [subject to modification]:

-Various, Gilgamesh

-Sophocles, Antigone

-Ovid, Metamorphoses

-Various, The Thousand and One Nights

-Shakespeare, Hamlet

-Wu Cheng’en, Journey to the West

-Kafka, ‘The Metamorphosis’

-Borges, Labyrinths

-Ferrante, Troubling Love

-Shamsie, Home Fire

-Okorakor, ‘Africanfuturism Defined’

Assessment Proportions

Assessment:

Essay (2000 words, 100%). Students will be expected to draw upon lecture, seminar, and reflective journal work in response to thematic questions that require the comparison of at least two primary module texts.

ENGL5001: Critical Theory

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5
ECTS Credits: 10
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module introduces students to the field of contemporary critical theory. To summarise its aims, the module will provide students with a new theoretical vocabulary and toolkit to discuss literary, filmic and cultural texts. First, it will critically unpack and evaluate key concepts, debates and movements within the field of contemporary theory. Second, it will explore how theory can be applied to, or brought into dialogue with, specific textual examples, sites or issues. Finally, it will immerse students in larger questions about the meaning, value and use of English Literature in the twenty-first century. In conclusion, this module is ultimately designed to make students more critical, self-conscious and sophisticated readers/writers of literary, filmic and theoretical texts.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Grasp, deploy and critically evaluate a series of new theoretical approaches to literary analysis
Produce theoretically-informed reading and writing about texts
Participate collaboratively in ongoing critical debates about contemporary literary studies

Outline Syllabus

ENGL5001 introduces students to the field of contemporary critical theory. To summarise its content, the module poses questions such as: what are the major theoretical concepts, debates and movements that shape literary studies in the twenty-first century? How might theoretical concepts like the Anthropocene, biopolitics or neoliberalism be brought into dialogue with literary, filmic and cultural texts? To what extent might critical theory provide new insights into classic questions about the meaning, value and use of English literature? In order to explore these questions, lectures and seminars will critically unpack and interrogate a series of key contemporary theoretical concepts, apply these concepts to a selection of literary, filmic and cultural texts, and invite students to position their work self-consciously in relation to ongoing theoretical debates – and indeed to think of themselves as theorists in their own right.

Assessment Proportions

There will be two assessment points:

Term One: 1000-word essay in which students will give a detailed textual analysis of a passage of critical theory Term Two (end of): 1500-word essay in which students will discuss a theoretical concept in relation to a literary, filmic or cultural text of their choice. This project can take the form of a written essay, a series of blog post, a website or a podcast.

ENGL5002: Medieval to Early Modern Literature

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5
ECTS Credits: 10
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to introduce students to a wide range of literature and drama from the medieval and early modern periods in order to broaden their knowledge and deepen their engagement with a rich period of literary history. The module aims both to situate medieval and early modern literature in its relevant historical and cultural contexts and to equip students with a more detailed appreciation of the range of contextual factors that shape the way literature is produced and consumed. The module also aims to develop skills of close reading of medieval and early modern texts.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Display detailed knowledge and understanding of a selection of medieval and early modern texts
Display detailed knowledge of relevant historical, cultural and critical contexts which shape and are shaped by the course texts
Demonstrate proficiency in close reading of course texts
Engage confidently and discerningly secondary criticism related to course texts
Deploy critical thinking skills through considerably deep engagement with course texts

Outline Syllabus

This module introduces students to the literature and drama of the early periods, and asks how?medieval and early modern?conceptions of the environment, human and non-human identities, good and evil, the emergence of individual political rights and the beginnings of what we would now call globalization shape our world today. Authors, texts and genres covered may include, for example, Chaucer, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, romantic and devotional sonnets, Elizabethan drama and metaphysical poetry. No prior experience with early languages is necessary.

Assessment Proportions

The module assesses close readings skills and contextual understanding developed via both lectures and seminars through the first piece of work (take-home test). Building on this understanding of the period and skills of close reading, the second assessment is designed to assess students’ broader engagement with the materials introduced in lectures and discussed in seminars across the course. It assesses the development of critical thinking skills through discussion by providing students with a range of critical and creative options for demonstrating their engagement with the course materials. Seminar discussions and tutors’ office hours will provide informal feedback on students’ ideas across the course, and formal feedback will be given on for the two summative assessments.

40% Take-home paper: close reading of primary text extracts
60% Essay

ENGL5004: Literary Adaptation

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5
ECTS Credits: 10
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to provide students with detailed knowledge and understanding of the adaption of popular and ‘classic’ literary texts. This may include adaptation to other media forms such as graphic novels, film, television, music, and games; to other genres and styles within media forms; or to other cultures and historical periods. It asks students to reflect on adaptation as a powerful process, one that has contributed to the survival of literary works, one that interprets and critiques as well as reworks literature, and one makes important interventions in social, cultural, and theoretical issues.

Educational Aims

On successful completion of the module, students will have

a firm grasp of the theory and practice of literature’s relationship to other media forms and be able to analyse what those formal changes enable and they the ways in which adaptation adjusts to new social, cultural industrial, economic, and ideological contexts
knowledge of how adaptation critiques literary texts and contexts
For those who choose Assessment Option 1, they will be able to these aspects of adaptation in writing, demonstrating learned skills in intermedial and multimedial analysis
For those who choose Assessment Option 2, they be able to produce an adaptation and interpret its relation to its sources and cultural contexts in writing.

Outline Syllabus

This module examines how questions of how literary adaptation to other media forms and cultural contexts illuminates literary criticism, intermedial relations, and relations between media forms and their contexts. It includes adaptions of both popular and ‘classic’ literary texts to various media forms such as graphic novels, film, television, music, and games and to other cultures and historical periods. Literary texts include historical and dystopian fiction, Shakespearean theatre, and fairy tales; adaptive forms range from illustrations to theatrical performance to television serialisation to film animation to short video forms and music.

Assessment Proportions

Students will have a choice of:

100% Academic essay, ~2500 words
100% Creative-critical project (two-part creative project and critical essay)

ENGL5005: Critical Practice

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5
ECTS Credits: 10
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module gives students the opportunity to define their critical voices and refine their critical identities by engaging in self-conscious and sophisticated ways with the question of what it means to do literary criticism. The course will explore the value judgements and theoretical assumptions underpin acts of reading, and ask how we differentiate between academic and non-academic reading. It will review and explore approaches to literary analysis, from practical criticism and close reading to creative criticism and post-criticism, with an emphasis on how different acts of reading can produce different – even contradictory – versions of the same text. The module is designed make students reflective and ethically aware critical readers.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Grasp and critically evaluate a variety of approaches to literary analysis
Participate collaboratively in critical debates about texts and their means
Produce scholarly, self-reflective and critically-informed readings of texts

Outline Syllabus

ENGL5005 reflects on what it means to do literary criticism and be a critical reader of English Literature. How do we differentiate between academic and non-academic reading? What value judgements and theoretical assumptions underpin acts of interpretation? How might major modern theoretical concepts and debates, from feminism to postcolonialism, influence the way we read the plot of a novel, the structure of a poem, or the shape of a sentence? This module will explore these questions in relation to a range of approaches, from practical criticism and close reading to creative criticism and post-criticism. Lectures and seminars will explore the ways in which reading can construct different versions of the same text, and will invite students to position their work self-consciously in relation to ongoing critical debates – and indeed to think of themselves as critics-in-the-making.

Assessment Proportions

There will be two assessment points: Term 2 (mid-term): 15-minute group presentations in which students will adjudicate between two critical interpretations of the same text Term 2 (end of): 2000-word essay

ENGL5006: American Literature

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to introduce students to American Literature as it evolved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will engage with range of the historical, religious and cultural influences that shaped American writing in the period. For example, they will learn about the links between American literary texts, colonialism and the legacies of the slave trade. The module aims to foster an increasing understanding of different literary genres and modes as they connect with American culture (for example, the Gothic; autobiography; short fiction; realism). Students will develop skills of close critical analysis, research and both oral and written expression. The module is included because American writing is a vital element of the study of literatures in English in a variety of global and historical contexts.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Proficiently understand a variety of American literary forms and genres.
Demonstrate an understanding of the historical contexts that shaped American literature from 1800.
Engage with a range of critical and scholarly perspectives on American literature.
Formulate clear arguments about literary texts.

Outline Syllabus

What we call ‘American Literature’ and how we define America and ‘the American experience’ depend on who is writing and to whom. In this module we will encounter many different voices, many conflicting and contrasting views, a diversity of complex experience, and a great range of writing in form and style. And we explore questions such as: What role do different literary forms play in narrating the self? How does American writing seek to establish a new way of looking at the world? How and why does literature help shape forms of protest (for example, against slavery) and new critiques of modernity? The module will examine the work of a range of writers which may include, for example, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, Walt Whitman, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, and Willa Cather.

Assessment Proportions

There are two assessment points: the first, a choice between writing a 1,000 word blog or giving a pre-recorded presentation, will promote skills of research and communication; the second, an online, open-book exam, allows students to demonstrate close reading, comparative textual analysis and detailed knowledge of American Literature.

30% CHOICE
70% online, open book examination

ENGL5007: Postcolonial Literature

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module introduces students to a wide range of international literature in decolonising and postcolonial contexts. Primary material will generally be written between the mid-twentieth century and the present; it will include political and autobiographical as well as imaginative writing (fiction, poetry, drama), in English and translation. Students will be introduced to key contextual and critical/theoretical writings and other relevant creative media (such as films). Students on this module will refine their awareness of literature as a global phenomenon and of the contexts of decolonisation and postcolonialism that help to shape our discipline and world.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Independently compare literatures across national and international contexts.
Critically evaluate anticolonial, postcolonial and decolonial concepts, theories and debates.
Demonstrate analytical skill through close readings of primary and secondary texts.

Outline Syllabus

Rubric ENGL5007 Postcolonial Literature explores a wide range of anticolonial, postcolonial, and decolonial writing produced between the mid-twentieth century and the present. We examine autobiographical and political as well as imaginative writing (fiction, poetry, drama) in English and translation, and contextualise this work with reference to literary criticism/theory and other relevant creative media (such as films). The module demonstrates the rich diversity of modern and contemporary literature and the significance of anti-colonial, postcolonial, and decolonial frameworks for understanding global histories, geopolitical formations, and modern and contemporary literatures. Key Questions

What aftermaths and alternatives to European empire have creative writers imagined?
How has English and other literature contributed to and been transformed by decolonising goals?
Who is postcolonial writing by and for?
How does postcolonial literature, as well as critical/theoretical responses to it, enhance our understanding of history, geopolitics, and our discipline of English literature?

Themes

Colonial worlds
Anticolonial humanism and the question of violence
Nationalist imaginaries and realities
Postcolonial Britain
World Systems
Migration Modes
Horizons

Assessment Proportions

100% Essay, ~2500 words

ENGL5008: Victorian Literature

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to introduce students to the extraordinary range and variety of literature that was produced in the time of Victoria’s reign (1837-1901), a period of turbulent social change and remarkable literary innovation in which old certainties were being shaken and new global connections forged. With reference to the work of authors such as Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti and Oscar Wilde, it will examine the questions of class, gender, religion and national identity that haunted the Victorian imagination, and will show how some of the foundations of the modern world, and of modern imaginative writing, were laid in the Victorian period. The course will develop students’ skills in research, textual analysis and academic writing.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Provide well-informed explanations of some of the key themes and contexts in Victorian literature
Critically analyse some of the major literary forms that flourished in the Victorian period
Engage discerningly with scholarly perspectives on Victorian writing.

Outline Syllabus

This module engages with the questions of gender, social class, national identity and religious belief that haunted and energised the Victorian literary imagination. By means of a detailed engagement with a range of authors such Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, Henry Brown, Elizabeth Gaskell and Oscar Wilde, it will consider some of the most compelling examples of fiction, memoir, poetry and drama from the Victorian period, and examine the exciting and resourceful ways in which Victorian writers responded to an era of turbulent change. The course will show how ‘Victorian values’ are both reflected in and contested by Victorian literature, and will show how the vibrant diversity of Victorian culture foreshadows the plurality and diversity of the modern world. Assessment will be via essay (40%) and online exam (60%).

Assessment Proportions

40% Coursework Essay, ~1000 words
60% Examination, online

ENGL6001: English Literature Dissertation

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module gives students the opportunity to produce an ambitious, self-directed piece of research in the field of literary studies. It functions as a capstone module in which students will develop and showcase the skills they have acquired during three years studying English Literature at Lancaster – skills of textual analysis, literary interpretation, theoretical speculation, critical debate, self-expression and professional presentation. Working independently, under the guidance of a supervisor and supported by lectures on research and writing skills, students will identify a viable line of enquiry, frame a series of research questions, and produce projects that display both academic and professional excellence. For relevant joint honours students: This module offers the possibility for students, if they wish, to write a historicist/historiographical/archival dissertation at the interface of literary studies and history.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Work confidently and independently on a project they have conceived and planned
Display a strong command of critical and/or theoretical methodologies
Display excellent skills of planning, self-expression, proof-reading, annotation and scholarly presentation.

Outline Syllabus

The 6001 dissertation is the capstone module for students of English Literature. This module gives students the opportunity to pursue a substantially self-directed project from within the field of literary studies – to focus on topics and/or authors and/or texts and/or genres; to develop lines of enquiry that reflect their academic interests and enthusiasms; to build on and develop – and even experiment with -- critical and theoretical approaches to texts; to test, if they wish, both the boundaries of what counts as literature and the limits of traditional criticism; and to present their work in a rigorous, internally consistent, well-documented professional manner with proper regard for sources and for the intellectual and ethical norms of the discipline. Students will receive guidance from supervisors and lectures on research and writing skills. This module will eventuate in a project that will showcase the skills and knowledge that students have acquired during their time with us.

Assessment Proportions

Students will have two lectures and four individual supervisions. The lectures will cover: how to get started and to identify an exciting but viable project from within the field of literary studies; how to write a formal research proposal and an annotated critical bibliography; how to negotiate the challenges of constructing a sustained, independent argument; how to frame and finalise a substantial piece of scholarly writing. One-to-one supervisions will give students the opportunity, to discuss the specifics of their work in progress and receive feedback on their emerging ideas and arguments.

100% Dissertation, ~4000 words

ENGL6002: Contemporary Literature

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

What is the contemporary? How do writers respond to the challenge, excitement, pressure and novelty of the ‘now’? How is literature faring in the digital age? This module will pose these questions in relation to the work of such major authors as Ali Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro and Colson Whitehead.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

display detailed knowledge and understanding of a selection of contemporary writings
display detailed knowledge of relevant historical and critical contexts
critically analyse intricate and demanding works of literature

Outline Syllabus

The module examines the ways in which literature interacts with the contemporary world – whether by celebrating it, critiquing it or re-imagining it. The module will ask when the contemporary begins and when and how it might end, and will reflect on the ways in which our understandings of the contemporary world are framed and filtered by literary texts. With reference to the work of authors such as Bernadine Evaristo, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney and Zadie Smith, the module will focus on key issues such as globalisation, identity, consumerism and technology.

Assessment Proportions

This module will be taught via 1 x 1 hour weekly lecture and 1 x 2-hour weekly small group seminar. The lectures will typically provide historical and critical contexts, explore key concepts and issues in the text in question, offer exemplary close readings, and cue up key questions that will be covered in seminars. Seminars will take the form of guided discussion in which students are encouraged to articulate their own responses to texts and to respond constructively to those of their peers. Assessment will be via 1 x 3000-word essay.

ENGL6003: Romanticism

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to provide students with detailed knowledge and understanding of British Romanticism (1789-1833) as a unique period of revolution and turbulence that redetermined many forms and genres. The course necessarily contextualises British Romanticism in and through its response to the French Revolution. Core concepts will be explored across a range of authors of both genders – Wordsworth, Blake, Byron and Keats but also Barbauld, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. Focussing on themes of revolution; imagination; society and the self and darker Romanticism students will be taught to engage critically with texts and concepts. Students on this module will develop skills of critical analysis, background research, and oral and written expression.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

display detailed knowledge and understanding of major works by writers of the Romantic period
show an ability to understand and critically interpret core concepts and themes of the period
display detailed knowledge of relevant historical and critical contexts and integrate these with readings of texts and genres
be able to apply and transfer knowledge independently
critically analyse intricate and demanding works of literature
evaluate and proficiently apply different methods and approaches to literary works

Outline Syllabus

This module will focus on a major area of Romanticism, the writings of the Byron-Shelley Circle: Lord Byron and Mary and Percy Shelley. Famously, these three writers lived and worked together in Geneva during the summer of 1816, an episode that is best known as the origins of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Throughout their careers they engaged in a creative and critical conversation with each other that addressed major themes including: the heroic; the possibilities of political change; literary, scientific and biological creation; empire, slavery, and the East; transgressive love; gender roles; and the Gothic. We will study many of the great works of the Romantic period, including Lord Byron’s comic masterpiece Don Juan, Percy Shelley’s visionary poetic drama Prometheus Unbound and Mary Shelley’s apocalyptic novel The Last Man, in which Mary presents fictional portraits of Percy, Byron and herself.

Assessment Proportions

This module will be taught by means of 1 x 50-minute weekly lecture and 1 x 2-hour weekly seminar. The lectures will typically provide a larger context for understanding writers and text while bringing out key concepts and issues in the text that is to be the focus of seminar discussion. Seminars will take the form of guided discussion in which students are encouraged to articulate their own responses to texts and to respond constructively to those of their peers. A range of teaching approaches are used to initiate and encourage discussion with peers, analysis of key sections of texts and critical engagement with core ideas. The range of set texts will be both formally and culturally diverse. Assessment will be via a 1000-word essay and a 2000-word essay.

40% Essay (1000 words)
60% Essay (2000 words)

ENGL6004: Literature and Environment

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to introduce students to ways of reading literature in the light of environmental concerns and theories. The module’s literary scope ranges from early writing up to contemporary and postcolonial literature; its critical scope is drawn from the ecocriticism that emerged in the 1990s up to work in and around the Anthropocene today. It responds to the explosion of critical and cultural concern with what has been dubbed our ‘planetary’ predicament, while drawing on older archives for rethinking these issues.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Critically evaluate important ecocritical theories and theorists and their value in interpreting literary texts
Actively engage, in a critically informed way, in emerging debates in the interdisciplinary field of the Environmental Humanities, such as around the Anthropocene, the planetary, and climate crisis
Show mature understanding of the ways that literary texts from different contexts have developed or critiqued different ideas of the ‘environment’.
Independently interpret literary texts in the light of environmental themes and theories.

Outline Syllabus

What do we mean by the ‘the environment’? What experiences, meanings and values do we take from or discover in our surroundings??How has literature from a range of time periods reacted to and characterised the environment and in what ways might that be significant for contemporary environmental concerns??Encompassing a range of texts?and?authors from early periods to the age of climate crisis, this module will explore the ways in which literature shapes our perceptions of the world around us and will in turn consider the ways in which the non-human world is celebrated, championed and exploited by the literary imagination. Topics will typically include pollution and toxicity in the longue durée, enclosure and land, wilderness discourses and deforestation, Indigenous experiences of and challenges to extractivism, responses to weather and climate extremes, environmental violence and witness, and speculative thinking beyond the human (e.g. animals, plants, glaciers, the mycorrhizal, bacteria, viruses).

Assessment Proportions

This module will be taught via 1 x weekly lecture and 1 x weekly seminar. The lectures will introduce students to the guiding concerns of the module, introduce the literary texts and theoretical, environmental and historical contexts, analyse key debates and model arguments and critical positions, and describe key questions that will be covered in seminars. Seminars will take the form of guided discussion in which students are encouraged to articulate their own responses to texts and theories, to respond constructively to those of their peers, and to relate their learning on the module to the environmental crisis today.

20% entry for module lexicon (theoretical reflection, field report, post-critical intervention based on an EH keyword)
80% essay

ENGL6005: Special Topics in Theory

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module enables students to explore specific themes, debates and movements within the field of contemporary critical theory in greater detail. To summarise its aims, the module will enable students to explore one or more particular area with critical theory today in depth. First, it will critically unpack, interrogate and evaluate one or more specific concept, debate or movement within the field of contemporary theory. Second, it will explore how this concept relates to, or can be brought into dialogue with, their historical, philosophical, political or scientific contexts. Finally, it will enable students not only to immerse themselves within contemporary debates within critical theory today but to actively intervene in, and shape those debates themselves as part of the next generation of theory.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Grasp, interrogate and critically evaluate specific themes, debates and movements within critical theory
Produce creative, independent and theoretically-informed work that is capable of engaging with relevant contexts.
Participate actively and collaboratively in shaping ongoing debates about contemporary critical theory

Outline Syllabus

ENGL6005 Special Topics in Theory enables students with an existing interest in critical theory to explore specific themes, debates and movements within the field of contemporary critical theory in greater detail. To summarise its content, the module poses questions such as: what are the most significant concepts, debates and movements in the field of critical theory now? How might theoretical concepts be brought into dialogue with their historical, political, philosophical, and scientific contexts? To what extent might critical theory today provide new insights into contemporary debates around, for example, artificial intelligence, the climate emergency or the future of work? In order to explore these questions, lectures and seminars will consist of a combination of tutor presentations on, and seminar discussions of, contemporary theoretical concepts together with their relation to relevant contexts and invite students to actively intervene in, and shape those debates themselves as new theorists in their own right.

Assessment Proportions

First, the lectures will introduce students to specific themes, debates and movements within the field of contemporary critical theory as well as their contexts. Second, the seminars will consolidate and extend the lectures by discussing, interrogating and critically evaluating contemporary theoretical concepts. Assessment: 3000-word individual project in which students will discuss a theoretical concept in relation to a text, question or theme of their choice.

ENGL6006: Austen and the Brontës

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

display detailed knowledge and understanding of major works by Austen and the Brontës
display detailed knowledge of relevant historical and critical contexts
critically analyse intricate and demanding works of literature
evaluate different methods and approaches to literary works

Educational Aims

This module aims to provide students with detailed knowledge and understanding of the work of four giants of nineteenth-century British fiction: Jane Austen, Anne Brontë, Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë. Focusing on questions of class, gender, power, regional identity, environment and artistic technique, it will explore the tensions between Austen and the Brontës (south vs north, Regency vs Victorian, realism vs Gothic) and also trace the imaginative continuities between them. Students on this module will develop skills of critical analysis, background research, and oral and written expression.

Outline Syllabus

This module is an opportunity for students to explore and debate a selection of major works by four giants of nineteenth-century British fiction: Jane Austen, Anne Bronte, Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte. Via detailed study of texts such as Pride and Prejudice, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, the module trace how these writers, only modestly successful in their (short) lifetimes, won both critical esteem and worldwide popularity.

Assessment Proportions

Assessment will be via 1 x 3000-word essay which will give students the opportunity to integrate and analyse a wide range of knowledge and material from across the module.

ENGL6007: Gothic and Science Fiction

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to provide students with detailed knowledge and understanding of two major literary genres: Gothic and Science Fiction. It will place these genres within their literary, historical and theoretical contexts and explore how and why they are uniquely placed to comment on pressing issues in contemporary culture. The module will interrogate the opportunities and limitations of reading works through genre and encourage participants to question processes of canon-formation and cultural hierarchies of value and taste. Students on this module will develop skills of critical analysis, background research, and oral and written expression.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

display detailed knowledge and understanding of a selection of key Gothic and Science Fiction texts
display detailed knowledge of relevant historical and critical contexts
critically analyse intricate and demanding works of literature and film
evaluate different methods and approaches to literary works

Outline Syllabus

The module asks why and how Gothic and Science Fiction first emerged and examines their continued popularity and significance in contemporary culture. It is organised around two key themes which emerged through the work of the Byron-Shelley Circle in the early nineteenth century and which put the two genres into conversation: ‘mad’ scientists and their monstrous creations; and vampires, illness and disease. It investigates how these themes, given classic articulation in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819), are connected through their interest in monstrous bodies and in challenging the boundaries of life and death. The two halves of the module trace the development of ‘Frankensteins’ and ‘Vampires’ in literature, film and other media up to the present day, exploring how genre fiction contributes to topical debates on issues such as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and epidemic disease. It pays special attention to the processes through which bodies are constructed as monstrous or ‘othered’ and how these processes are informed by race, gender, sexuality, disability and class. Set texts will include a representative sample of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century works, of literature and film, and of authors and film-makers from a diverse range of identities and cultural backgrounds. Students will be given the option of assessment by academic essay or by creative-critical project.

Assessment Proportions

25% Literary passage/film scene comparison
75% Essay OR creative/critical project

ENGL6008: Shakespeare

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module will study a selection of drama and poetry written or co-written by Shakespeare as a platform in which early modern debates about identity, agency, government, family and national identity, were put into play. It will explore the power of texts we label ‘Shakespeare’ to shape thoughts and feelings in their own age and in ours through language (verse, prose, rhyme, rhythm) and through theatrical languages. It will consider Shakespearean texts manipulate genres of tragedy, history, comedy. It will show how the stage was and is a place in which questions of gender, class, race, gain immediacy through the bodies and voices of actors. It will consider how non-verbal languages such as staging, movement, costume, dance, music, props in early modern theatre and in later performance and film representations create meanings in Shakespearean scripts.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

show detailed knowledge and understanding of the complexities of Shakespeare texts and how they manipulate generic boundaries
show understanding of the theatrical and poetic registers used to convey meaning in Shakespeare texts.
Understand the historical, literary and theatrical contexts which shape and are shaped by Shakespeare’s texts.
Demonstrate skill in close reading Shakespeare’s language and its effects
Understand the textual transmission of Shakespeare’s texts.
Show skill in engaging actively in academic critical debates about Shakespeare’s texts
Show creative, analytical and teaming-working skills in staging Shakespeare (as and when resources allow).

Outline Syllabus

The course considers how, in the past and in the present, Shakespeare’s texts are a platform in which debates about identity, gender, family, national identity and government, are put into play. We will explore the power of Shakespeare’s texts to shape thoughts and feelings in their own age by considering their Elizabethan and Jacobean historical contexts, and in ours. We will consider Shakespeare’s manipulation of genres of comedy, history, tragedy) and the ways the texts make active use of language (verse, prose, rhyme, rhythm) and theatrical languages (costume, stage positions, movement, music) to generate meaning. The stage was and is a place in which questions of gender, class, race, gain immediacy through the bodies and voices of actors. The course will consider how, in the past and in the present, Shakespeare’s texts exploit the emotional and political possibilities of poetry and drama. Assessment for the course will include options to explore Shakespeare in production.

Assessment Proportions

3000-word essay

Creative output (e.g. reading, performance, artwork) PLUS 1500-word critical reflection

ENGL6009: Modernism

Terms Taught: Lent/Summer
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: None

Course Description

This module aims to aims to introduce students to literary Modernism between the years of 1900 and 1939. Students will learn about the historical, philosophical and artistic contexts in which literally modernism began and developed. They will also engage closely with a range of important texts within literary modernism. And they will learn to explore how those these texts reflect and/or refract the contexts in which they emerged. Students will develop skills of critical analysis, background research, and oral and written expression.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Give a detailed account of literary Modernism prior to the Second World War
Understand and interrogate the historical narratives within which Modernist texts were produced and read.
Use and evaluate critical writing on Modernism

Outline Syllabus

This module examines literary Modernism between the years of 1900 and 1939. It explores the various philosophical, historical and cultural contexts in which Modernism emerged and developed. It considers the ways in which Modernist literary texts nuance and complicate our understanding of such historical events as the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the emergent fascism of the 1930s. We explore major themes of Modernism such as fragmentation, non-realism, the city, collagism, and hesitation. Authors to be studied may include Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot and Zora Neale Hurston.

Assessment Proportions

The lectures will typically provide historical and critical contexts, explore key concepts and issues in the text in question, offer exemplary close readings, and cue up key questions that will be covered in seminars. Seminars will take the form of guided discussion in which students are encouraged to articulate their own responses to texts and to respond constructively to those of their peers.

20% take-home assignment, ~1000 words
80% essay. ~2000 words

ENGL7002: World

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: Student must have completed an undergraduate degree in a relevant field.

Course Description

This module aims to…

introduce students to processes of literary worlding and to the concept of ‘world’ as this is expressed in literary and other (for example, visual, critical-theoretical, and philosophical) texts.
explore representations of world at different scales, in different temporalities, and as an effect of diverse locations and orientations.
examine how creative work reflects and engages in worlding, unworlding and reworlding.
familiarise students with world literature as a sub-discipline and with key concepts such as worldliness, cosmopolitanism, globalisation, decoloniality, planetarity, and multispecies worlds.

The module speaks to colleagues’ research expertise in postcolonial literature, ecocriticism and environment studies, world literature, and literary theory/philosophy. It will complement our other core modules on Body, Spirit, and Place.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Demonstrate an informed grasp of how ‘world’ and related concepts have been defined, imagined and theorised in and beyond literary studies.
Provide persuasive critical and comparative analyses of literary and other creative texts that engage with worlding, unworlding and reworlding.
Demonstrate engagement with diverse human and other orientations toward the world at different scales and in different temporalities.

Outline Syllabus

How do humans and others conceive of ‘world’? How do literary and other creative and philosophical texts imagine processes of worlding, unworlding and reworlding at different scales, in varied temporalities and via multiple orientations? What does ‘world literature’ offer to our understanding of both the world, and literature, from diverse perspectives?

This module takes the recent reinvigoration of world literary studies as a spur to thinking through how we can conceive of world and related concepts, such as worldliness, cosmopolitanism, globalisation, decoloniality, planetarity, and multispecies worlds. Engagement with a diverse range of creative and theoretical work that issues from global majority as well as European contexts will both deepen and decolonise our thinking about (the) world.

Assessment Proportions

Assessment will be via a 3500-4000-word essay.

ENGL7003: Spirit

Terms Taught: Michaelmas
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: Student must have completed an undergraduate degree in a relevant field.

Course Description

This module aims to…

Introduce students to the concept of ‘spirit’ in its multiple different valences (for example, the numinous; religious ideas; Gothic hauntings; discourses of the immaterial; the politics of community and dissent; artificial intelligence and the soul)
Address the ways in which spirit and/or spiritualities inform different art forms (including but not limited to fiction, poetry, drama and film)
Examine the connections between the related concepts of the sacred and profane, the natural and supernatural, including explicit and implicit creative responses to a variety of religious traditions (including, but not limited to, Judaism, Christianity and Islam) and ‘secularized’ perspectives (for example, agnosticism and atheism)

The module connects with colleagues’ expertise in the fields of literature, culture, artificial intelligence and religion as well as the Gothic tradition. It will complement the optional module on ‘Body’ and the core module on ‘World’.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

critically evaluate the significance of ‘spirit’ in a range of literatures.
demonstrate understanding of the relationship between literature/filmic details and overarching concepts of the sacred, spirit or hauntings.
demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of critical and theoretical approaches to narrative and poetic treatments of the sacred and immaterial.
demonstrate effective written communication skills appropriate for postgraduate study.

Outline Syllabus

The module explores some of the ways in which literature has explored and expressed the complexity of ‘spirit’ in a variety of its iterations: for example, belief and doubt, redemption and apocalypse, the natural and supernatural or artificial. The so called ‘sacred turn’ within the arts and humanities has led to a reassessment of models of secularization that trace a straight line between an outdated world of naïve religious belief and a disenchanted modern world of technology and atheism. ‘Spirit’ will engage with different artistic forms (fiction; poetry; theatre; film) and multiple eras from Medieval and Early Modern to twenty-first-century narrative.

The module considers the ways in which moments, motifs and ideas indebted to the sacred and otherworldly can be found within the traces, margins, narratives and echoes in the literature of the modern world. Rather than the death of God, we find the death of worlds strangely indebted to biblical apocalypse; rather than a disbelieving world we find writers wrestling with the significance of the numinous. It may also consider how a range of cultural modes (the Gothic; political protest) reconceptualize ideas of ‘spirit’.

Assessment Proportions

Assessment will be via a 3500-4000-word essay which can, if the student so chooses, be written in a creative-critical style.

ENGL7004: Body

Terms Taught: Lent
US Credits: 5 US Credits
ECTS Credits: 10 ECTS Credits
Pre-requisites: Student must have completed an undergraduate degree in a relevant field.

Course Description

This module aims to

introduce students to current debates about the body and its literary representation
explore a selection of key works in literature and other media which engage with these debates
examine the meanings we discover in, and attach to, bodies
familiarize students with critical and theoretical perspectives on bodies

The module speaks to colleagues’ research expertise, and will complement our optional module on Spirit.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

Display an informed grasp of the significance of the body as a category of literary and cultural analysis.
Provide searching critical analysis of a range of body-related literary texts.
Engage ambitiously and independently with critical and theoretical debates around the body.
Independently develop a research and/or creative project and communicate their approach through a pitch.

Outline Syllabus

In the twenty-first century, human beings increasingly find themselves disembodied in global networks, virtual systems and digitised experiences. Arguably, then, it has never been more important than it is now to pay attention to bodies, their materiality and the ways in which lived experience can be communicated and understood. In Judith Butler’s words, which are the ‘bodies that matter’ to us and why? How do literary texts intervene in historical and contemporary debates about the body and how can thinking about bodies help us better understand the workings of literary texts? How might particular genres or modes of literature, such as Gothic and horror, science fiction, memoir, crime or romance, open up different approaches to thinking about bodies? This module explores a range of theoretical approaches to the representation of bodies, paying particular attention to how our understanding of the somatic and corporeal may be inflected by gender, sexuality, race, disability and class.

The first six weeks of the module will provide an overview of the subject, with topics changing from year to year to reflect current debates. However, students should expect to read primary texts from a selection of historical periods from the Middle Ages to the present and to encounter theorists such as Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, Judith Butler, Mikhail Bakhtin, Barbara Creed, Julia Kristeva, Sander Gilman, Ludmilla Jordanova, Alison Kafer, Frantz Fanon, Jack Halberstam and Jane Bennett. After the Easter break, students will spend five weeks addressing a single set topic in depth through project-based learning. Topics will rotate from year to year, but examples may include: narratives of illness and disease; the fashioned body; the senses in Victorian literature; sleeping and sleepless bodies; politics of death and the corpse; premodern Gothic bodies. Students will be given two or three choices of group project output, such as website, podcast, video essay, edited anthology, collective manifesto.

Assessment Proportions

Assessment will be via a 3500-4000-word project which can, if students so choose, be written in a critical-creative style. Students will have a choice of making the project (1) a critical essay in response to an independently-crafted research question, (2) a creative piece (up to 1,500 words) accompanied by a reflective essay for the remainder of the word count (2,500 words), or (3) a response to a mock professional brief for a creative practitioner to create work for patient outreach, accompanied by a reflective essay, following the same word count guidelines.

ENGL7005: Place

Terms Taught: Lent
US Credits: 5
ECTS Credits: 10
Pre-requisites: Student must have completed an undergraduate degree in a relevant field

Course Description

This module aims to

introduce students to the centrality of place to literary representation, cultural history, and indeed human experience more generally
explore some of the most compelling and evocative places in literature
examine the meanings we discover in, and attach to, places
familiarize students with critical and theoretical perspectives on place and space

The module speaks to colleagues’ research expertise, and will complement our core module on World.

Educational Aims

Upon successful completion of this module students will be able to…

To display an informed grasp of the significance of place as a category of literary and cultural analysis
To provide searching critical analysis of a range of place-related literary texts
To engage ambitiously and independently with critical and theoretical debates around place and space

Outline Syllabus

What is place? What kinds of inspirations does it provide for - and what constraints does it impose on - the literary imagination? To what extent are the places we see and inhabit perceived through the lens of literary tropes and cultural narratives?

This module takes the recent explosion in critical and theoretical work on ideas of place and space as an opportunity to revisit some of the most compelling and evocative places in literature - from the haunted house to the Romantic ruin; from the humdrum village to the sublime mountain; from the modern metropolis to the dystopian wasteland. Drawing on work by theorists such as Bachelard, Massey and Foucault, this module will consider a sense of place as a kind of sixth sense that has always been vital to the creative imagination.

Assessment Proportions

Assessment will be via a 3500-4000-word essay which can, if students so choose, be written in a critical-creative style.