This year-long module enables you to explore both what literary criticism currently is and what it may yet become. You will have the opportunity to consider a whole range of major theoretical and philosophical concepts, such as the body, race, gender, violence, ecology, God, time, death, war, self, and the animal, etc. We currently look at a range of fascinating modern thinkers, ranging from Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, through to more recent figures such as Simone Weil, Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, Fred Moten, Cornel West, and Sara Ahmed. You will have the opportunity to write in both short and long form, to present orally alongside fellow students, and to explore, if you wish, radically experimental modes of theoretical writing.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

This module explores American writing as part of a 'cultural declaration of independence' in the 19th century, with particular focus on literatures of dissidence and imaginative resistance including radical abolitionist writings.

What we call ‘American Literature’ and how we define America and ‘the American experience’ depends on who is writing and to whom. In this module we 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 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? And, how and why does literature help shape forms of protest and new critiques of modernity?

Key writers usually include Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Rebecca Harding Davis, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs.

This module examines how culture and religion impact on the national identity and political culture in Asian countries, and focuses on beliefs, values and ideas people have about their political system and authority. Political culture is built on shared historical (colonial) experiences, cultural symbols and collective memory, which unites as well as motivates people to participate in political movements and nation building. By using case studies, the course looks at how democracy is conceptualised and political authority legitimated in many Asian countries. In doing so, the module aims to generate a culturally-embedded understanding of the diverse political landscape in Asia. Students are introduced to political culture in Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Japan and China, and topics cover Asian values, colonialism, millenarian movements, religious fundamentalism, Sangkum socialism, Brahmanical kingship, state Shinto, Maoism, and the failure of democratic ideals of Aung San Suu Kyi.

This module explores colonial writing at the end of empire, the explosion of new national literatures in the era of decolonisation in the middle of the twentieth century, and contemporary writing that draws on and reinvents these decolonising commitments. Our interest throughout will be in how literature reflects and critiques imperial impulses and anxieties, and how literature undertakes the work of cultural, political, and psychic decolonisation. We read both exciting major writers, key to the canon of colonial and postcolonial literature, and new voices that grapple with the ongoing powers of empire and racism.

The module describes and analyses the modern politics of the Gulf in a number of ways. It offers a country-by-country analysis of the countries overlooking the Persian Gulf: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. It also applies the main approaches in understanding each country such as institutionalism (formal, descriptive analysis of institutions such as parliament, executive and legislative), structuralism (relations between these units of the political system), functionalism (how these units functionalise or de-functionalise such as relations between the president and the supreme leader in Iran), political culture (public opinion, receptiveness of politics, socialisation through interest groups, and historical approach (patterns of history, development of Gulf states from the Ottoman Empire, British occupation all the way to independence and moving closer to the US).

Migration is arguably the defining characteristic of the post-WW2 world. This module explores contemporary creative representations of migration in multiple modes - considering exile, expatriation, travel, urbanisation, and statelessness in literary genres that include fiction, memoirs, poetry and travel writing, as well as some visual media and philosophy. In particular, we critically examine the voluntary nature of migration, emphasising different kinds of displacement. The module, taught in a City of Sanctuary, draws on histories that encompass transatlantic slavery, the Holocaust, postcolonial and climate displacement, travelling cultures, globalisation, and an ongoing ‘refugee crisis.’

This course explores how American Literature has evolved from its colonial origins, with particular emphasis on key writing from the seventeenth to the nineteenth-centuries. What we call ‘American Literature’ and how we define America and ‘the American experience’ depends on who is writing and to whom.

We shall encounter many different voices, many conflicting and contrasting views, a diversity of complex experience, and a great range of writing in form and style. We pay particular attention to colonialism and freedom in the literature of early modern America, including rival ideas of self, nation, race and religion. And we explore questions such as: Why does the idea of America as a 'city on a hill' become so vital? How is the 'frontier' imagined? What strategies do writers use to challenge the hegemony of colonialism? Key texts usually include Native American Oral Literature and the writings of De Las Casas, Bradstreet, Rowlandson, Wheatley, Jefferson, and Franklin.

This course introduces students to the politics surrounding a key challenge of our time: climate change and environmental collapse. We will consider the how environmental concerns are reflected and framed in political debate and behaviour, as well as the unequal distribution of the effects of climate change and how domestic and international institutions have responded to the crisis. The module will consider both current and future environmental issues, as well as the policy making in this area.

This module focuses on the politics and international relations of the European Union. This includes a focus on the political systems of key EU member states (especially Germany, France and Poland) and the wider dynamics of European integration. The module will also offer an account of the activities of the various European institutions in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg (Council, Commission, Parliament, Court of Justice).

Religions as involving the control of symbolic and sometimes coercive power, thereby intersecting with politics, International relations and philosophy. Religions as involving values expressed in norms, laws, and institutions which exercise social and political power,

locally and globally. The crucial impact of religious identities, practices, values, arguments and multidimensional ways of life on politics, international relations and philosophical thought. Religions as diverse traditions in different regions of the world undergoing global changes in different ways. Globalisation of religion and its interweaving with social, political and philosophical developments

The module will introduce students to International Political Economy (IPE): the study of the interaction of economics and politics at the international level. It aims to discuss the political economy of the evolution of world capitalist by focusing on central questions, issues, and events that have shaped it. It examines the relevance and validity of different and competing approaches in the IPE, including, classical and neoclassical economics, historical materialism, critical approaches. We also examine key issues and concepts, such as globalisation, international trade, gender and race in global production, role of multinational corporations, and unevenness between and within countries.

The aim of this course is look at the main political and economic trends and security concerns of the Asia Pacific. The term, ‘Asia Pacific’ is a contested term but here it refers primarily to countries from both South Asia and East Asia. The course will introduce students to issues/debates in Asian politics and cover topics like Asian nationalism, Asian democracy, Asian regionalism, Asian bureaucracy and governance, gender and sexuality in Asia, Asian values and Asian security. The course takes a strong case studies approach and every lecture will be backed by a single case study from the region.

This module considers a range of issues currently being debated by political philosophers and political theorists. Specific topics may change slightly, but the current plan is cover the following, with attention to questions of freedom and justice throughout:

• Business corporations and employment
• Racism and sexism
• Democracy
• Climate politics
• Structural injustice and sweatshop labour
• Public health and state interventions

This year-long module explores the adaption of literature to film and other media. We currently focus on how Austen’s so-called ‘classic’ Pride and Prejudice is adapted to classical Hollywood cinema, and how Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been adapted to both postmodern Hollywood and Bollywood cinema. We also explore the trajectories between Carroll’s Alice books and film animation, and how Dante’s Inferno has been adapted to a videogame. We study a range of other literary texts and media, ranging from children’s fiction to horror, social realism to science fiction, poetry to graphic novels, and reverential adaptations to outright parodies. The module includes a creative project that enables you to produce your own work of adaptation. This may take many forms – written, (audio)visual, digital, or three-dimensional -- and/or take the form of a game, or production, or performance, etc.

The details of this module (for example, the materials studied) vary from year to year.

This module focuses on the ways in which early modern English literature understood and represented love, sex and death and the connections between them. Reading texts from the late medieval period through to late seventeenth century, we explore how ideas about love, sex and death were shaped by discourses of religion, science, gender, marriage and the body, and how these changed over time.

Our readings are mainly be focused on topics designed to provide us with ingress into the literature, culture and historical vitality of the period. Poetry, prose and drama will be explored, and readings will range from the earthy late-medieval play Mankind to Milton’s capacious epic, Paradise Lost, and from the love sonnets of Philip Sidney, Mary Wroth, and John Donne to the dark and disturbing theatre of John Ford.

This course explores ideas central to any understanding of politics. It focuses on two related themes: Equality, and Community. In the course we will explore the thought of thinkers who are associated with these ideas of equality and community (Rousseau, Marx, the Fabians, and Rawls). By the end of the course, you will have an understanding of the key ideas of the thinkers under review and be able to assess the contribution that these thinkers have made to our wider understanding of politics. You will also be able to recognise the relevance of these thinkers to our current political debates, and be able to employ their ideas within those debates. Additionally, you will be able to evaluate the key features of an argument, be confident to express your own views, and evaluate the responses of others.

Moral philosophy is the systematic theoretical study of morality or ethical life: what we ought to do, what we ought to be, what has value or is good. This module engages in this practice by critical investigation of some of the following topics, debates, and figures: value and valuing; personhood/selfhood; practical reason; moral psychology; freedom, agency, and responsibility; utilitarianism and its critics; virtue ethics and its critics; deontology and its critics; contractarianism and its critics; the nature of the good life; the source and nature of rights; the nature of justice; major recent and contemporary figures such as Bernard Williams, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Railton, Christine Korsgaard, Philippa Foot, Allan Gibbard, Simon Blackburn; major historical figures such as Aristotle, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, G. E. Moore.

This module examines some theoretical issues involved in gaining knowledge about human societies. We will look at the role of theories and models in economics and political science, the special nature of "social institutions," and whether economic and political knowledge can be separated from value-judgments:

• Rational choice theory and models based on it
• Social norms and cooperation
• John Searle’s theory of “institutional facts”
• The nature of money and different accounts of power
• Whether values can or should be kept out of economics and political science
• Some ways in which states and markets are related

In the few years that have passed, the Middle East has experienced momentous changes. Most notable of these changes are the so-called ‘‘Arab Spring’’ uprisings, which started in late 2010, and the following consequences of these uprisings on the international relations of the region. Topics include the early emergence of Arab states, origins and sustainability of authoritarian regimes, state types and personality cult, masculinity and constructions of identity and belonging, women’s movements, social mobilization and the Arab uprisings. The course offers students from a variety of backgrounds the opportunity to engage with the most important themes in the study of the politics of the Middle East and to locate and contextualise them within wider debates and scholarship of international politics.

This module will introduce students to the politics of Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Republic. It will give them a grounding in the historical events that lie behind key issues and controversies in present-day Irish politics, as well as showing how the memory and interpretation of those events is shaped and contested as part of present-day debates. It will explain the workings of the constitutions of both Northern Ireland and the Republic, as well as the political parties, and the interaction of politics with social and economic factors. It will look at the roles that nationalism, religion, and sectarianism have played in Irish politics. It will also explore the position of Ireland and the Irish in relation to the rest of the world, including the role of the Irish diaspora in other parts of the world, and the relationship of Ireland to Britain, the EU, and other international bodies.

This course explores British politics by focusing on the role of its central figure – the Prime Minister. Judging by media coverage, it would seem that the Prime Minister dominates the decision-making process, dwarfing other institutions such as the Cabinet, Parliament and the judiciary. But does this impression reflect reality? Does Britain really have a system of ‘Prime Ministerial’ – or, as some commentators have claimed – even ‘Presidential’ government? The course attempts to answer these crucial questions through case-studies of recent Prime Ministers and an examination of the sources of Prime Ministerial power, such as the ability to appoint ministers, to influence public opinion and to shape Britain’s foreign policy.

This module examines early modern literary representations of power, politics and place. We consider a broad range of genres (prose, poetry and drama), moving from the late medieval period’s interest in spiritual and earthly travel to the episodes of power, revolution and restitution that characterised Stuart rule (1603-1688). The module examines the literatures of political influence and change from the late fourteenth through to the seventeenth centuries, from John Mandeville’s marvellous journeys through Europe, Northern Africa, Asia and the Holy Land to the fantastical romances of Margaret Cavendish, and the brilliant and edgy theatre of Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson to the writings of revolutionaries such as John Milton and Margaret Fell and monarchist libertines like Aphra Behn.

The goal of this course is to introduce students to the key concepts of public policy both in theory and practice. The course is designed to give students a rich understanding of the actors, mechanisms and processes that underpin public policymaking, as well as a comprehensive overview of different public policies. The module will enable students to identify how and why public policy is made, the actors and factors that explain policy outputs and policy failures, and to be able to assess the explanatory power of different theories that seek to explain differences in policy outputs. Students will be able to assess policy outcomes associated with different policies and policymaking regimes. In addition, students will gain an understanding of a range of public policies as well a comprehensive understanding of a specific public policy arena, including the debates surrounding such policy, through their policy briefing assessment. The course will touch on a number of questions and themes related to public policy, including why does policy change? Who makes public policy? How can we explain differences in policy outputs? What explains the gap between policy outputs and outcomes (or policy failure)?

This module will explore how the religious process in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Tibet) was imbricated with the political from the ancient to the modern period. In particular we will look at issues that continue to impact contemporary South Asian culture and trace their genealogy, to see how ruptures and transformations shaped their long journey from the ancient to the modern. The issues focused on as having continued impact are (i) heterodoxies, heretics and religious others (ii) mythology and history (iii) ritual and power (iv) pilgrimages (v) religion, religious orders and state formation (vi) women and the religious economy (vii) the Goddess, gender and power (viii) caste, pluralism and identity (ix) gurus, matas and saints and (x) religion and sexuality. The understanding of these central issues of religious life and experience in South Asia today remains partial without a deeper understanding of their earlier backgrounds.

The module equips students with the skills they need to carry out independent research in politics. In doing so, it prepares students for their final year dissertations and significantly improves their employability by developing skills that are highly valued by employers. Students will learn how to come up with an original research question and will learn to employ one of the research methods taught on the course to answer their question. The course is designed to provide an accessible introduction to both qualitative and quantitative research methods. In the first part of the course, students will have the opportunity to use a large dataset on politics and explore the relationship between variables such as political ideology, class, voting behaviour and many more. They will learn how to analyse data and test for statistically significant relationships between variables using various regression methods. In the second part of the course, students will learn about three major approaches to qualitative research. They will learn how to conduct standard and elite interviews, how to analyse the discourse of political actors, and how to conduct case studies. At the end of the module, students will be asked to design their own piece of research and use one of the methods taught on the course to answer their research question.

We begin by understanding the full historical context of the French Revolution and the extraordinary impact this had on all areas of literature and thought. We examine revolutionary writing of the Romantic period, including the poetry of Anna Barbauld, William Blake, and William Wordsworth, and the prose of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Later we turn our attention to the emergence of the Gothic in the 1790s, and dives into this popular and lasting form.

The course aims to give students a sense of the diverse range of writers in this period. We use close knowledge of key texts to tackle broader, more abstract ideas such as: nature, the imagination, and the sublime. We will also consider literary ideas within a broader social, historical and philosophical context.

On this course we examine the relationship between politics and poetics for second-generation poets Anna Barbauld and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and then the remarkable and shocking slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, and the orientalism of S. T. Coleridge and Thomas de Quincey. Finally, the course moves inward to explore the core theme of subjectivity and the self, a theme that finds expression in both positive and negative ways in Byron, Keats, Clare, and Smith.

This module examines the domestic and the external sphere of Russian politics. At the end of the module students will better understand some doctrines of Russian politics and its wide-ranging effects on Russia’s engagement with the EU, the US, NATO, countries in the former Soviet space and the Middle East. It assesses Russia’s response to the Arab Spring and its engagement in the conflict in Syria.

The course introduces students to Russia, an actor which gained presence and influence over several issue areas and regions. It prepares students for more extensive analyses of conceptualising Russia as an actor in their future studies.

For some the free-market economy has produced the greatest levels of freedom ever experienced by human society while other see it as the source of social ills, poverty and crisis. How can we reconcile the needs of the masses, or the demos, with those of a profit-driven economy? Can the state balance the two? Can the state intervene in the economy without undermining it? How should the state respond to demands for greater equality? Do we need more state or more market? The module examines the various answers that have been given to these questions by historical figures within the tradition of political economy. It introduces students to the main political economy approaches to the relationship between the state the market and raises some key issues regarding the state’s governance of the market economy. The module draws from liberal and critical state theories of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries and discerns their implications for understanding main challenges facing the modern state today. The main themes scrutinised by the module are: (a) the theoretical evolution of liberal and critical approaches to the state; (b) the relationship between the state and the economy, (c) the relationship between liberalism and democracy; (d) the state management of market and democratic imperatives.

Knowledge is an essential aspect of our social lives. This module focuses on a range of real world social, ethical and political problems involving knowledge. Topics include: problems of epistemic injustice (where people are not believed because of identity prejudice); whether virtues of open-mindedness might provide a solution to epistemic injustice. A proper understanding of the ethics and politics of knowledge requires us to examine both doubt and ignorance. We consider whether systemic racism is sustained by an active kind of “wilful” ignorance. We explore how powerful corporations seek to deliberately engineer doubt to further their interests. We examine political deception and the idea of “Post-truth” politics. In the final section we turn to the limits of seeking knowledge and how to balance the interests that states and corporations have in knowing personal information, against our interests in keeping such information private.

This course serves as an introduction to the government of the United States and its historical foundations, ideologies, institutions, and political processes. Students will develop a detailed understanding of how the American government works, its development, and its challenges. The course will examine the founding ideologies of the United States, how the United States developed from a small colony into a global superpower, the three branches of the federal government, state governments, the influence of parties and interest groups, and the United States’ contemporary challenges. The course encourages students to think critically about the underlying assumptions about American politics.

This module aims (a) to provide students an introduction to issues within the philosophy and politics of higher education, and (b) to help students to reflect about their own position in, and aims while at the university. During the modules, students will consider key questions regarding the aims of university education and its political context and history, as well as dedicate time to thinking about how their own studies fit into those aims and context, and what they wish to achieve during their undergraduate degrees. Twice weekly lectures will be supplemented by seminars, but also by regular ‘keynotes’ in which those working within and alongside higher education will present their own views and approach to higher education. Invited figures may include senior figures from within Lancaster University, representatives of UCU, the Student Union, and local stakeholders.

This is a critical introduction to the underlying themes of development in the global South, such as debt, aid, inequality, migration; and how the state, the economy, national social movements and powerful external actors, including international NGOs, interact with each other. It begins by looking at how neoliberalism came to dominant development thinking and practice in institutions like the World Bank from the late 1970s onwards and its impact on development and then provides in-depth case-studies of recent alternative development models in Latin America and Syria. This course helps to broaden students’ understanding of Politics and International Relations away from a Western focus on the UK, Europe and the US in preparation for third-year modules such as PPR.336: The Global Politics of Africa.

Race has played a central role in shaping the political agendas of many nations around the world – and has acted both as a mechanism of political exclusion and as a form of politicised identity. In this module, we critically examine the notion of race, and its connection to other identities like gender, ethnicity and class. We examine the role race has played, and continues to play, in the determination of domestic policies and in the relations between states. We look at the way in which race is politicised and de-politicised and consider the nature of various forms of racism in politics and society. Taking a broad narrative arch from “race” to “post-race,” this course pursues three interconnected approaches to the subject: 1.intersectionality in that we analyse not only the multiple and shifting functions of racial classifications, but connect them to other forms of differentiation such as gender, class, sexuality, geography, the environment, and more; 2.interdisciplinarity in that the problem of race takes us directly to historical and ongoing processes of defining the human being and, as such, if we are to take race and its politics seriously, we need approaches from philosophical, historical, sociological, international relations literatures; and 3.the topics of each week together constitute an extensive toolkit of lenses through which to think about race, racism and the contexts of slavery, colonialism, exploitation, rebellion, expression, resistance and much more.

Given the extensive transformations experienced in the nineteenth century, it is no surprise that Victorian writers and thinkers reflected at length on matters of belief. These beliefs ranged from the public to the private, the collective to the individual, and included issues relating to politics, religion, economics, society, Empire, and so on.

In this module we explore: what people believed, why communities held those beliefs, and the experience of changing one’s beliefs and/or seeing those around you change their beliefs. We will think about such questions by looking at a range of material from the period, including fiction, poetry, and drama.

The authors we study will change from year to year but might include figures such as Oscar Wilde, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Christina Rossetti.

The nineteenth century saw widespread and rapid change across Britain. Responses to these changes varied enormously but looking back on the period it is noticeable how the Victorians were willing to experiment and test the boundaries of what was known.

In this module we explore that interest in experimentation by looking at a range of literature of the period, including novels, short fiction, and poetry. We think about experimentation thematically (e.g., science, spiritualism, vivisection) and formally (e.g., narrative perspective, fantasy, dramatic monologues, and sprung rhythm).

The authors we study change from year to year but might include figures such as George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, H.G. Wells, Charles Kingsley, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Browning, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Vernon Lee.

In 21st Century Theory, we will build upon the general introduction to critical and cultural theory given on ENGL201 by focusing on one specific theme in contemporary theory: biopolitics. To explore biopolitics – or the politics of life itself – we will examine a selection of classic theoretical works by Michel Foucault, Georgio Agamben and others and then read them alongside some key literary and filmic texts from Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go to the Batman Trilogy. This course will seek to address the following questions. What exactly is biopolitics? How have theorists, novelists and film-makers imagined such concepts as sovereign power, bare life, the state of exception and so on? To what extent might it be possible to resist the biopolitical hold over our political imaginary?

This course provides a historical and thematic introduction to the issues facing Africa in the international system today. The course is divided into two sections. The first section explores the historical incorporation of the continent into the emerging international system centred on Europe from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. It focuses on the impact of colonialism and independence in terms of the economy, the state and the politics of race and the implications these have for the region’s prospects for democracy and development today. The second section looks at key contemporary issues and agents shaping the continent. The latter includes ‘top-down’ actors such as the Chinese state, as well as grassroots actors such as unionised South African workers.

This course examines the interaction between society & the visual arts, whether such interaction is explicit and intended or is implicit and revealed through analysis. The course situates this interaction into an (albeit partial) history of the last 200 years of visual art(s). While requiring no previous academic knowledge of art, the course does pre-suppose some interest in the history of art, social science(s) & their interaction. The course should allow you to solidify and further develop your ideas about how best to understand this interaction while also expanding your knowledge of visual culture and (specifically) art (widely understood). This hybrid course is delivered through a weekly two-hour workshop & your contribution to a moderated weekly online forum where you will (each week) offer a short analysis of a work of art of your choosing in response to the week’s theme/question

Recent years have seen a number of dramatic electoral shocks in established democracies that have challenged long-standing assumptions and theories about how elections work. Social change has undermined the support base of established mainstream political parties and created the environment for the emergence of populist parties and other challengers. This has transformed long-standing party systems and changed the nature of electoral competition in many countries. Once dominant parties of government have declined in significance as electorates have become more volatile and unpredictable in their preferences. This module aims to explore the causes and consequences of these developments in 21st Century electoral politics while developing highly employable quantitative analysis skills which will enable you to directly test different explanations and theories.

The course will begin with writing that looks back to the First World War, and end with writing that anticipates the Second World War. In between, you will explore and interrogate the inter-war ‘moment’ through close attention to texts by such as D.H. Lawrence,Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, and W H Auden. The course will focus on many of the great themes of the period such as exile, unemployment, Englishness, eugenics, militarisation, and political commitment, as well as many of the great cultural motifs of the period such as borders, radios, planes, cars, trains, cameras, and telephones. Close attention will also be paid to many of the great intellectual debates of the period such as the nature of history, the role of the State in everyday life, and the place of literary experimentation in time of war.

The details of this module (for example the texts or authors studied) may vary from year to year.

In this module we will look at a selection of biblical texts alongside literary works that appropriate, rewrite, and subvert them. We will be thinking about the Bible as literature; the reciprocal relationship between the Bible and literature; what the Bible does to a literary text. We will explore questions such as: in what ways does awareness of the Bible provoke more profound readings of a literary text? and does rewriting refine or subvert the Bible? We currently study work by such as Margaret Attwood, William Blake, Thomas Hardy, Angela Carter, John Donne, and Sylvia Plath, as well as Terence Mallick’s film The Tree of Life.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

This module examines gender and other related concepts such as the body through the lens of politics. Islam is the context and the approach is case study based. A wide range of religio-political movements within specific Muslim contexts, past and present, will be explored during the module, for example: the early gender egalitarianism of the Kharijite protest movements (especially 7th to 9th Centuries); the mystical (Sufi) contestations of dominant gender norms in the late classical period (13th to 16thth Century); the politicisation of gender in nation-based Islamism since the Iranian revolution in the 20th Century; and the rise of transnational Islamic feminism in the 21st century and the challenge of decolonial critique. These case-studies will enable students to understand the broader impact of relations of power on the production and life of particular readings of gender in Islam. The module will be delivered in weekly workshops, consisting of a lecture followed by workshop style discussion of designated readings, films, and documentaries.

This course presents a detailed analysis of the major developments in British foreign policy since 1945. It explains these developments within a global context, offering rival interpretations of Britain’s changing role and status – issues whose importance has been underlined by the debates surrounding the 2016 ‘Brexit’ referendum. The major themes include: the consequences of Britain’s participation in the Second World War; the retreat from Empire after 1945; the ‘special relationship’ with the United States; and the prolonged attempt to redefine Britain’s global role in the context of perceived economic and geopolitical decline.

The module will introduce students to processes and dynamics on how ‘first ladies’ provide unique case studies for political leadership and how can they forge unprecedented models of women’s leadership and advocacy. The module places contemporary politics and power dynamics, identities and roles related to the ‘first ladies’ within a broader historical, social and political context. The module allows students to trace how changes in the roles of ‘first ladies’ over the past two centuries track historical trends towards gender equitable marriages, women’s entry into workforce and expanding political participation in societies globally. The topics which the module cover also include gender, feminism, agency, power and politics Comparing ‘first ladies’ across authoritarian and democratic countries as they offer different opportunities, resources or constraints. Countries include Egypt, China, the US, Argentina and the Philippines

As is now commonly recognised, the world is becoming increasingly connected and complex. Just as policy and socio-political actors can no longer view the state, market and society as distinct and separate entities, we can no longer see the global as neatly divided between powerful and distinct nation-states. Global interaction via economics, the media and the internet overwhelm these earlier rigid barriers. But how do we understand this new world and, equally important, how do we act within. To try to answer that question we will explore complexity theory its applications to politics, policy and society. The module will begin with an introduction to the development of the earlier ‘orderly/Newtonian’ framework played in shaping 19th and 20th century social science and public policy. It will then go on to examine the paradigm shift in the natural sciences beyond the limits of that framework and towards a more complexity oriented paradigm. Following this the module will begin to explore how complexity has spilled over into the social sciences in the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st. It will then explore how complexity overlaps with some of the main concepts from pragmatist philosophy and its implications for ethics and values

Who killed John F. Kennedy? Did the moon landing really happen? Was Covid-19 caused by the erection of 5G network masts? Factual answers to such questions are easily accessible. And yet many people eschew documented facts in favour of conspiracy theories, which explain events and complex phenomena with reference to nefarious forces and alleged hidden machinations of powerful actors. Such narratives are nothing new, but they used to be regarded mostly as a curiosity rather than a serious subject of research. Today communities of conspiracists are no longer considered so benign. As they thrive online, they attract increasing interest of scholars and policymakers, who study their digital influence, their links with political movements and their status as participants in democratic public spheres. This module introduces students to the developing body of research on the origins, spread and the political and social effects of conspiracy theories, including multidisciplinary work seeking to explain why people embrace conspiracies, what (if any) are the harms of such beliefs, what insights can we draw from the study of historical conspiracies (19th and 20th century) and what is the relationship between conspiratorial thinking and other political beliefs.

The twenty-first century has seen the emergence of Middle Eastern literature in English and translation as one of the most exciting new areas of world literature. The region has experienced, so far this century, the ‘war on terror’, revolutions and wintery aftermaths, civil wars, sectarian violence, the rise and fall of ‘Islamic State’, and an ongoing refugee crisis. On this course, we will explore some of the shapes and styles of contemporary Middle Eastern literature, the concerns and aspirations that drive it, and its growing international visibility. We will study novels, short stories, and new genres from the region, in English and in translation. No prior knowledge is needed.

Course Outline:

This module is run by the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, with the support of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Engagement team and the central Careers Team. It aims to enhance students’ employability by providing an assessed work placement opportunity as an optional module It will also encourage students actively to think about the transferability of skills gained through the study of English Literature and/or Creative Writing.

The Department, via the FASS Engagement team, will set up a number of work placements in the (broadly defined) culture, heritage and creative sectors: with, for example, publishers, museums, newspapers, heritage sites, and arts venues. Students may alternatively source their own work placements, subject to prior discussion with the FASS Placements provider. Information on how to source a placement will be circulated to all enrolled students during summer.

Recent placements include: Copywriter at Copify; Publishing and Editorial Intern at Saraband; Project Assistant at Lancaster City Council; Communications Assistant at Three Left Feet Theatre Company.

Students must be prepared to pay their own transport/accommodation costs, though a small Departmental contribution toward travel can be applied for. It is expected that placements will be either close to Lancaster University or to the student’s home; many placements occur remotely. Students typically work for 30-40 hours with their host organization (not all of which will necessarily be on-site) in the Lent term.

They maintain contact with both the departmental course convenor and FASS placements team throughout the placement period. Placement providers are required to complete risk assessment and health and safety forms and to ensure an induction process. Both students and placement providers are required to sign a Learning Agreement.

Please note that you cannot take both this module and ENGL 376 Schools Volunteering.

Please also note that the maximum number of students on this course is fixed, and that in fairness to students, and in dialogue with the FASS Placements Officer, we have chosen to set up a selection process. If you choose this course, you will be sent an online form to complete as an application. The criteria will be enthusiasm, commitment, and having aspirations which can be realistically met on this module. You do not have to have prior placement experience, but it is fine if you do.

This module uses case studies from across the world to provide an insight into the role and relevance of decolonisation in the contemporary world, by examining the legacies of slavery, racism, colonialism and empire. The emphasis is on foregrounding the voices and experiences of citizens and communities from the Global South and unpacking the role that western European nations have played and continue to play in politics, economics and state-society relations in large parts of the post-colonial world. By using critical pedagogy and an interdisciplinary lens, the module highlights how various identities of race, class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality and religion intersect in different historical contexts to produce diverse outcomes. These outcomes are examined in relation to various current and emerging themes ranging from climate change and sustainable development to migration, borders and human rights to artificial intelligence, security, geopolitics and social justice.

Course Aims and Objectives:

The final-year Dissertation is your opportunity to devise, research, and explore a topic of your own choice through a programme of directed independent study. You will be helped to begin your thinking at the end of your second year and then, through your third year, you will develop your research, thinking, and writing, as you build toward a maximum of 10,000 words. You will be supported throughout by your appointed supervisor with whom you will have a series of one to one tutorials. In addition, there are two overview lectures (one in the Michaelmas Term and one in the Lent Term) as well as four research skills seminars.

Almost anything is possible: some students explore famous literary names or themes, whilst others explore obscure figures and unusual topics; some draw on the University Library’s special collections or those housed within The Ruskin Library, whilst others go way beyond Lancaster to develop their research; some are inspired by the medievalism of historic Lancaster or the Romanticism of nearby Lake District, whilst others are drawn to the far textual shores of the digital world; some build towards MA study, whilst others build toward the world of work; and, finally, some write in classic literary critical styles, whilst others push the boundaries of literary studies in all sorts of new and startling ways.

Recent topics have included:

• Living in Liminality, Finding Yourself: Muslim Women's Boundary Negotiation and Identity Formation
• How is the Value of Sacrifice Presented in Post-War Japanese Literature?
• A Storm in Five Acts: King Lear, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Walter Benjamin
• Academia and Ecclesia: Following the Academy After the Church
• Playing with Time: Queer Temporality in Video Games
• “Out of the ash / I rise” : An Exploration of the Editing of Sylvia Plath’s Posthumous Publications and Legacy
• A Divine Being and a Fallen World: Milton's Justification of God's Ways to 17th Century England
• Virginia Woolf’s Paintings: Visual Arts and the Figure of the Artist in the Writings of Virginia Woolf
• Understanding the Effects of War on Children through World War Two Literature
• Green Romanticism: An Ecocritical Reading of William Wordsworth and Mary Shelley
• Kaleidoscopic Epistemology in the world of Anna Kavan
• “You'll be hungry all the time”: Food and Hunger in Jim Crace and Samuel Beckett
• RS Thomas: Post-Romanticism and Spirituality

The details of this module may vary from year to year.

This module aims to introduce and familiarise students to the interplay between politics, society and religion in the world’s largest democracy, India. At a time when India is emerging as a global power and economic powerhouse despite persistent poverty and various socio-political fissures, a critical balance must be struck in our understanding between its potential and its problems. India offers powerful lessons on the challenges and achievements of democracy in a deeply pluralistic and unequal society. An examination of these issues opens up our conceptual preconceptions about democracy, competing political philosophies, religion, secularism, discrimination, globalization and political mobilization, which tend to be structured by knowledge of Western polities.

This module will give students the opportunity to study all the major works of one of the most celebrated novelists in English literary history. It will combine close attention to the stylistic textures and narrative strategies of Jane Austen’s fiction with broader consideration of key themes and preoccupations such as friendship, desire, matchmaking, snobbery, illness, resistance, transgression and secrecy.

Film historians consider 1939 to be ‘the greatest year in the history of Hollywood,’ a year in which 365 films were released and 80 million tickets sold. This module considers how literature and film interact and conflict in that year to construct mythologies of the American past and present in the context of the Great Depression and on the eve of the Second World War. The module also considers the context of Hollywood, the functions of motion picture palaces, American film’s relationship to British literature, and more. Texts currently studied include John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men (1937), Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1846), and Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), and films such as Mr Smith Goes to Washington, director Frank Capra, Gunga Din, director George Stevens, and Gone with the Wind, director Victor Fleming.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

Friedrich Nietzsche was far from alone in suggesting that God had died by the end of the nineteenth century; however, the literature of the fin de siècle (c. 1880-1914) paints a very different picture from the one offered by those who suggest that religion simply disappeared. A number of prominent writers in the period converted to Catholicism, whilst others explored the permeable boundaries between orthodox belief and esoteric spirituality. Those who turned to literature to think about religion did so in a wide variety of ways: experimenting with form, narrating religious experience, exploring the relationship between spirit and matter, and thinking about religious practice in ways both conventional and bizarre. Texts currently studied include: Oscar Wilde, Salome, G. K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown, and poetry produced by the Decadent movement.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

Is it possible to ‘read’ a painting? Can an artist interpret a poem in paint? This module addresses the complex relationship between literature and the visual arts, tracing key debates in aesthetic theory from Romanticism to the twenty-first century. Literature and the Visual Arts will begin with an introduction to key critical terms and an examination of the painting-inspired poetry of, for example, John Keats and W. H. Auden. Subsequent seminars will explore the work of figures such as William Blake, John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites who blur the distinction between literature and art; the revival of the Pop Art tradition and postmodern narrative practices; the advent of photography; and, finally, the fusion of word and image in graphic novels including texts such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The module will draw on the unique resources of the University’s Ruskin Library and rare book archive.

What did theatre look like before Shakespeare? How were devils and vices, divinity and virtue, coronations and carnivals staged during the Medieval period? This module will introduce you to a range of medieval drama, including mystery cycles, civic pageantry, morality plays and interludes, as we explore the weird and wonderful drama of towns, cities, and courts, and look at some of the earliest professional companies to identify the distinctive features of medieval English theatre. As well as reading texts, you will watch recordings of modern performances of medieval theatre. NB No prior knowledge of Middle English is required --the use of modern translations is encouraged to aid understanding.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

This course examines the early twentieth-century explosion of literary experimentation known as Modernism. Often this explosion is understood as a movement that ends around 1939; however, this course explores the ways in which Modernism continues, through and beyond the Second World War, as a restless spirit of experimentation. The course, then, has two parts. In the Michaelmas Term we explore ‘Modernisms Then’ (c1900 to c1939) where all students study major modernist texts – these usually include work by such as T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, and authors involved in the Harlem Renaissance. In the Lent Term we explore ‘Modernisms Since’ (c1939 on) where each student chooses two 4-week min-modules from a range of options – these options usually include such options as: ‘British Migrant Modernisms;’ ‘The Woodcut Novel: Stories Without Words’; ‘Late American Modernisms’; and ‘Godot On – The Later Samuel Beckett.’

This module will address central issues in contemporary ethical (including meta-ethical), legal and political philosophy, and will allow a systematic critical exploration of the connections between ideas and arguments in each of the three areas of the subject.

Topics covered will include some of the following: modern theory of moral motivation, value theory, contractualism, the 'moral problem'; responsibility and criminal liability, the justification of punishment, the proper scope of the law; democratic theory, egalitarianism, justice, nationalism, multiculturalism, liberty and human rights.

In recent years the existing Parliamentary institutions of the UK have come under unparalleled stress. Brexit, devolution, scandal and the decline of public trust in politics have led many to question and challenge the fundamental structure of UK institutions. However, Parliament remains at the centre of political life in the UK and is fundamental to the development of public policy. This leads to key questions about the extent to which the UK Parliament is fit for purpose in the 21st Century and whether it can balance competing interests within the classic debates about continuity and change in British Politics.

This unique module, delivered in partnership with Parliament itself, gives you the opportunity to explore these vital questions of policy formation and constitutional reform interacting directly with Parliamentary officials, researchers and officers. In doing so you will be developing key employable communication skills and critically analysing highly relevant topics in the UK politics such as;

• House of Lords Reform
• Devolution
• Equality of Representation
• The Parliamentary Policy Making process

This module is capped at a capacity of 30 students and a waiting list will operate once full.

How are acts of desire, murder, fake and ‘real’ deaths represented on stage in early modern drama and how are these experiences gendered? This module will explore both the construction and deconstruction of death, desire, and genders, by focusing on performance. The performativity of gender, on stage and beyond, was materialised in the theatres of early modern England where boys played female roles, thus often representing both female desire and same-sex desire at the same time. We will study texts by Marlowe, Middleton, Heywood, Webster, Wroth as well as some contemporary productions and film adaptations. We will also engage in some short practical explorations -- such as getting the text ‘on its feet’; and the module will culminate in a series of short presentations and performances by the group. No previous experience of (or expertise in) acting is necessary.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

The emergence and consolidation of world capitalism has been marked by its uneven character in terms of development. This uneven development has created a polarisation between the Global North mainly consisting of advanced Western capitalist countries, and the Global South mainly consisting of underdeveloped/developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This module focuses on the historical roots, present pillars, and empirical issues of the global interaction and integration regarding the making of the Global South. It traces the colonial and post-colonial history, politics, and power relations through which societies of the Global South have been integrated with the profoundly unequal, gendered, and racialised process of development of capitalist relations on a world scale.

This course examines central themes in the liberal branch of contemporary Anglo-American analytic political philosophy. The liberal positions on justice, liberty, equality, the state, power, rights and utility are all explored. The approach is philosophical rather than applied; its focus is on the ideas of liberal politics: how individual liberty can be maximised while not harming others; how an individual philosophical position can guide political determinants of a society and places the developments of liberal ideas in their appropriate historical contexts. The course also examines the connection between the ideas of liberalism and the idea of democracy to explore the philosophical tensions between the two and how these might be resolved. The course is a survey of major topics and concepts in Anglo-American liberal political ideas. The syllabus will include the following topics: questions about justice; visions of the state; negative and positive liberty; equality, utility and rights; toleration and multiculturalism; neutrality and the market.

Culture is, one of the most contentious features of contemporary politics and policy. Whether it be the perception of cultures, religious schism and ethnic conflict, migration, cultural diversity impacts on politics and policy. The aim of this module is to challenge and re-orient assumptions about culture and to provide students with the conceptual and analytical resources to understand and assess the politics of cultural diversity. The module grapples with how cultural identities play out in the politics of policymaking with a particular focus on conceptions of the ‘Other’, calling into question cultural categories which emanated from Western scholarship and legacies of colonialism. Using case studies. this module will comparatively study the politics of cultural diversity across nation-states e.g., UK, Canada, China and India to understand different approaches to cultural diversity in policymaking.

This course examines the changing character of war and security in a time of rapid and disruptive technological and geopolitical change. The course combines analysis of contemporary policy documents with the interdisciplinary insights of intellectuals that have examined how war has changed in the modern age. Students are introduced to a range of concepts that are currently significant in the policy debates about the future of war – concepts such as ambiguous war, the gray zone, the third offset strategy and the three block war. While the course is grounded in broader debates from social and political thought about war and modernity, it explores a range of evolving and inter-related case studies that are central to understanding how war is changing: cybersecurity/artificial intelligence; cities and urban war; drones and the future of robotics; climate change and ecological insecurity. Each year we try to bring a guest lecturer from the Ministry of Defence or the FCO to discuss questions relevant to the course – and to discuss how the course can be relevant to a broad range of careers.

It’s an illuminating fact that the very phrase ‘climate change’ was first deployed by colonising thinkers who wanted to transform local environments to serve their purposes. Today, it is clearer than ever that the catastrophic effects of global climate change will be most keenly felt by the global poor, especially in colonised or postcolonial spaces. This module explores how postcolonial writing, from a variety of locations, grapples with environmental change, crisis and collapse, especially the looming spectres of the so-called ‘Anthropocene.’ We’ll read established and emerging voices from Africa, the Caribbean, and elsewhere. Texts currently studied include: Raja Shehadeh, Palestinian Walks: Notes on a Vanishing Landscape, J M Coetzee, Life and Times of Michael K, and V S Naipaul, The Enigma of Arrival.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

It has been argued that the Gothic, and the rise of the Gothic novel, is part of a history that goes back to long before the eighteenth century. This module therefore coins the term ‘Premodern Gothic’ to consider some of the ways in which a range of generically diverse texts produced in England between c.1450 and 1600 engage with Gothic tropes and sensibilities (ghosts, vampires, castles, darkness, magic, terror, and wonder etc.) long before the rise of the Gothic novel. Texts currently studied include: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, and Thomas Nashe’s The Terrors of the Night.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

This module enables you to explore both critically and/or creatively the relationship between literature, film, and music, both digital and analogue. The module is designed to be suitable for those with and those without musical expertise.

Focussing on a wide range of literary texts, films, and music, the module will develop both close-reading and close-listening and pay particular attention to the ways in which text and sound both interact and fuse.

Themes will vary and could include:

• sonic cosmogonies
• film score
• improvisation
• error
• citation
• jazz (re)production
• lyricism
• orality
• the commons of hip-hop
• sampling
• both de- and re- territorialization

We employ diverse assessment methods designed to develop your skills further; so, for example, this could take the form of a project such as a sonic-textual response to a literary text and a related piece of music (you submit, that is, a song, session, remix, or playlist) or a critical text written in the style of an album review (you submit, that is, a poetical reflection, or listen-and-describe explication).

Texts, films and music studied will vary from year to year but may include C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Saturday Night Fever (dir. John Badham), Amadeus (dir. Milos Forman), The Pianist (dir. Roman Polansky), Miles Davis, Birth of the Cool (dir. Stanley Nelson), Emese Kurti’s Screaming Whole, Rasheedah Phillips and Camae Ayewa’s Black Quantum Futurism Collective, Eknath Easwaran’s The Upanishads, and Across the Universe (dir. Julie Taymor).

This course offers employability-focused teaching and combines academic and practical skills. During the module students will have the opportunity to develop a critical understanding of key theoretical frameworks and concepts in policy analysis and development, and to gain in-depth knowledge of the policymaking process within different political contexts. The placements during Lent Term encourage students to apply this knowledge to real-world scenarios, while developing their employability skills and gaining a comprehensive understanding of how the knowledge they acquire during their degree can be translated to different policymaking contexts. By the end of the module, students will be able to conduct thorough policy research using various methodologies and tools, evaluate the ethical implications of policy decisions, and advocate for ethics and value-based approaches to policymaking.

This module is run as a partnership between the Department of English Literature & Creative Writing and the University’s Schools Outreach Office, and normally involves a 10-week placement in a local school. This will usually include classroom observation, teacher assistance, and the opportunity to design and develop a teaching-related ‘special project’ to be conducted with a designated group of students or the class as a whole. This will enable you to develop confidence in communicating your subject, as well as an increased awareness of the roles of schools and universities in educational processes and structures.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

This module will trace the development of science fiction (or SF) in literature and film, providing an insight into the conventions of the genre and, in particular, how the key themes of the science fiction genre have been successfully adapted for the screen. It will encompass narratives of time travel, evolution, and temporal dislocation, and consider journeys, encounters, and species, as well as questions of human subjectivity, gender, race, transcendence, love, and loss. Work currently studied include texts such as: H.G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895), Octavia Butler, Kindred (1979), and Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, This Is How You Lose the Time War (2019); and films such as: La Jetée (1962) 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and Arrival (2016).

The details of this module (for example the texts or authors studied) may vary from year to year.

This module helps provide a comparative analysis of the historical and ideological development of sectarian identities in different countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Scotland, Ireland and India. It also engages with continuing debates related to divisions and boundary-making across political institutions, structures or political culture of different countries.

Topics will typically be the Sunni-Shia divide, the Muslim-Christian divide in Egypt, everyday practices of sectarianism in Kuwait, sectarianism divisions in Lebanon and Iraq, and Protestant-Catholic tensions in Northern Ireland.

Ben Jonson claimed of Shakespeare ‘he was not of an age but for all time.’ This course examines Shakespearean drama and poetry in its own time: as a platform in which early modern debates about agency and government, family, national identity, were put into play, and in relation to how we perceive these issues now. The stage was and is a place in which questions of gender, class, race, gain immediacy through the bodies and voices of actors. By examining texts from across Shakespeare’s career, we will explore their power to shape thoughts and feelings in their own age and in ours. We will consider Shakespeare’s manipulation of genre (poetry, comedy, history, tragedy and romance) and the ways the texts make active use of language (verse, prose, rhyme, rhythm) and theatrical languages (costume, stage positions) to generate meaning. 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.

As part of their assessment for this course, students may opt to take part in a full-scale public performance of one of the plays we have studied; this is usually staged at Lancaster Castle.

Latin America is a dynamic region dominated by a complex set of issues. This module examines the forces and events that have shaped the culture and politics of contemporary Latin America. The lectures in this module are arranged and organised along specific themes: an overview of politics of populism, the role of the Latin American left in shaping the public discourse, democracy and dictatorship, the emancipatory role of religion, the culture of everyday violence, politics of dependency and development, the political economy of migration and the role played by external actors in shaping its cultural, economic, social and political identity. This module provides students with an opportunity to develop their general as well as specialist knowledge of major issues in contemporary Latin American society and politics.

The module provides a comparative perspective drawing on the fields of religion and politics. It analyses how the rise of the modern nation-state impacted and reconstituted religion in a post-colonial, global context. It addresses questions such as: What place does religion have in diverse political systems in the modern world? How have religious ideologies and commitments shaped modern conceptions and practices of governance? To what extent has religion been engaged in supporting/contesting discourses of liberal democracy and human rights? And why does it remain a site for political protest in non-western contexts? These questions will be explored across various traditions such as Hinduism, Christianity, Islam as well as in diverse regional contexts, such as Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Key topics will typically include: Secularism, Religion and the Postcolonial Nation-State; Religion and law-making in modern nation-states; State, Religion, and human rights, with a focus on women’s rights or religious minority rights; State, Religion and Rebellion; and Civil Religion: Interrogating America’s Nationalism.

Working in a small group, you’ll select a written text, ancient or modern, obscure or well known, and together with other students work on converting the text into wholly new format. For example, this might be:

• A scholarly edition, a visual or digital adaptation
• An exhibition for a heritage space
• A podcast
• An art installation
• A fashion show

The brief will be to increase accessibility to, and awareness of, the selected text. In short, you will be taking the text “out of the box.”

Through a series of tutor-led workshops, you will be introduced to the processes and principles of adaptation.?

The module is designed to give you experience of the kind of work undertaken in industries such as heritage, journalism, and publishing.

This module examines the work of three of the great writers of the Romantic period: the poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, and the novelist Mary Shelley. Famously, these three writers lived and worked together during the summer of 1816, an episode that produced two of the dominant myths of modern literature – Frankenstein (in Mary Shelley’s novel) and the Vampire (in a story based on Byron by another member of the group, John Polidori) – both of which we will examine. Throughout their careers these writers were engaged in a creative and critical conversation with each other that addressed major themes including: conceptions of the heroic; the possibilities of political change; literary, scientific and biological creation; empire, slavery, and the East; transgressive love; gender roles; and the Gothic. The module will provide an opportunity to study in detail these writers’ works, and to consider them within their historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

This module critically explores a range of key topics in the ethics and politics of communication. In the first half of the course, we begin by an introduction to some basic concepts in linguistics and philosophy of language – especially to do with the practical side of communication. We then focus on (a) how certain kinds of communication can bring about ethical change (e.g. making something permissible); (b) upon whether lying and other kinds of deception are permissible, and if so, when. In the second half we turn to some broadly political issues: whether political lying is justified in a way that everyday lying is not. We consider three domains where freedom of communication is both important and contentious: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom on social media, including the challenges posed by “content moderation”.

Global capitalism is at crossroads. It faces a deepening crisis in the world of work, its engine of growth is sputtering out while the climate emergency is aggravating. For some the 2008 recession, COVID-19 and the 2022 cost-of living of crisis offered tragic glimpses of the world that is to come if radical change is not pursued. How can we govern a world characterised by perpetual emergencies and chronic economic crises? Can capitalism be reformed? What does it take to address inequality, precarity or biodiversity collapse? What are the challenges and constraints faced by governments today? The module offers an opportunity to discuss these questions by examining a range of political economy approaches to the study of global capitalism. In doing so the module analyses the most important transformations of the past 50 years that radically transformed the global economy and the issues they raise for economic policy. It examines the constraints, limits and opportunities facing the governance of the global economic order and explores the governing dilemmas that arise in the era of so-called late capitalism.

This module is centred upon understanding Children’s Literature as a genre which evolves over time and doing so in the context of the places and spaces of fiction. Our two core themes are: first, the gradual move away from highly didactic reading that must teach children a clear moral lesson, towards reading for pleasure and enjoyment; and, second, the effect of this shift on spatial representation in the texts. We will compare the relationship between realist and fantastic spaces and consider the reason so many children's books are "bridge" texts that start and end in the real with the main narrative set in a fantasy world. Texts usually studied include: Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Robinson Crusoe (1719), The Water Babies (1852), Peter Pan (1901), The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (1937), and The Borrowers (1952).

This course explores twentieth and twenty-first century texts about the city that use Gothic generic conventions and modalities. The built environments of the Gothic are often plastic and mutable, the setting for animate, changeable, and malevolent forces. We will explore the ‘architectural uncanny’ and the ‘urban sublime,’ and consider how traditional elements of Gothic fiction are pressed to new ends in response to changing sensory, social and political contexts of urban space and place. While most sources will be textual (currently: Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor (1985), N. K. Jemisin, How Long ‘Til Black Future Month (2018), Caitlín R. Kiernan, 'Goggles (c.1910)' (2012), and Patrick McGrath, Ghost Town: Tales of Manhattan Then and Now (2005)) these will be complemented with reference to screen media, fine art, graphic novel and UrbEx photography.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

In the Victorian period, the decaying castles, corrupt priests and ancestral curses that were so prominent in the first phase of the Gothic novel gave way to an increased emphasis on spectral and monstrous others: ghosts, witches, werewolves, vampires, mummies and other creatures of the night. The module will explore these phenomena in their historical, cultural and literary contexts, with particular focus on emerging discourses of gender, sexuality, colonialism and class. The module will pay special attention to visual aspects of the Gothic, examining book illustration, painting and photography from the period and their relationship with Gothic texts. Students will be asked to consider the relationship between newly emergent forms of modernity (from medical discourses to photography) and the preoccupation with history and the past that is a generic feature of the Gothic. Texts will comprise a selection of novels and short fiction, with additional images and extracts from contextual works provided online and in class.

This module is centred upon three new genres which emerge in the mid-late Victorian period: Detective Fiction; The Adventure Story; and Children’s Fiction. Why do these new forms appear when they do? What determines them? We will spend three weeks on each, focussing on key texts and writers within the emerging genre, and looking at how certain conventions, principles, and core concerns develop for new genres as well as considering issues of literary status and canonicity. Within each session we will explore texts in terms of overlapping themes within a genre and the issues they raise for how we interpret the subject; these themes include: Colonialism, Imperialism, Gender, and Education. Texts currently studied include: R. L. Stevenson, Treasure Island, J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan, F.H. Burnett, The Secret Garden, and E.E. Nesbit, Five Children and It.

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.

South and South East Asian religious traditions are globally unique for their reverence of female divine power. Called Devi (goddess) and Shakti (power/potentiality), the Goddess is thought to be multiform and worshipped in ‘power-sites’ (shaktipithas) scattered all over the subcontinent. In theological traditions of medieval India, she was conceptualized in some of the most sophisticated metaphysical arguments as an ultimate Consciousness. For worshippers, she is a symbol of many things: autonomous power, liberation, rulership, transgression, duality, sexuality, passion, motherhood, the colour red, Death, vision and sleep.

In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf famously asks, ‘what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister?’ This module follows Woolf’s lead by seeking to redress the historical marginalisation of women writers in the English literary canon through an exploration of: how women have come to writing at different historical moments; and what they have chosen to write, and how. A selection of texts from the 17th century through to the 21st, encompassing autobiographical forms, the novel, poetry, and drama, are used to examine relationships between gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, and literary production, and to explore continuities, connections, and disparities between different representations of female experience. Texts currently studied include: Pat Barker, Regeneration (1990), Jackie Kay, The Adoption Papers (1991), Toni Morrison, Beloved (1987), Sarah Waters, The Night Watch (2006), and Dorothy Wordsworth, Grasmere Journals (1800-3).

The details of this module (for example, materials studied) may vary from year to year.