English Literature and History (Placement Year) BA Hons - 2020 Entry

Course Structure

Lancaster University offers a range of programmes, some of which follow a structured study programme, and others which offer the chance for you to devise a more flexible programme to complement your main specialism. We divide academic study into two sections - Part 1 (Year 1) and Part 2 (Year 2, 3 and sometimes 4). For most programmes Part 1 requires you to study 120 credits spread over at least three modules which, depending upon your programme, will be drawn from one, two or three different academic subjects. A higher degree of specialisation then develops in subsequent years. For more information about our teaching methods at Lancaster please visit our Teaching and Learning section.

The following courses do not offer modules outside of the subject area due to the structured nature of the programmes: Architecture, Law, Physics, Engineering, Medicine, Sports and Exercise Science, Biochemistry, Biology, Biomedicine and Biomedical Science.

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, and the University will make every reasonable effort to offer modules as advertised. In some cases changes may be necessary and may result in some combinations being unavailable, for example as a result of student feedback, timetabling, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes and new research.

Year 1

Core

• English Literature

  This module introduces you to some of the most vital debates in an English literary tradition that is constantly being rewritten and challenged, especially in the multicultural, postmodern era of the late twentieth century and beyond. A range of literary genres is also covered including plays, films, short stories and novels in addition to poetry in order to develop the practice of close analytical reading Throughout the module attention is given to the working-class, women, black and Irish writers as well as mainstream English authors. The module also includes a Study Skills component and an introduction to some of the general theoretical issues of reading and interpretation.

• From Ancient to Modern: History and Historians

  An introduction to the discipline, Lancaster’s first-year History core module offers a fascinating survey of the last fifteen-hundred years. The module focuses on pivotal trends and events in European history, but it encompasses regions of the wider world as distant as California, India, Japan and the South Pacific.

  You’ll become familiar with a wide range of primary sources used by historians in the writing of history. You’ll gain insights into how historians conduct research and interpret the past, and will therefore better understand the reasons for changing historical interpretations.

  In the process, by undertaking directed reading, by independent research, by attending lectures, by participating in seminar discussions, by working sometimes in a team, and by writing and receiving constructive feedback on what you have written, you will develop your study techniques and other transferable skills.

  The long chronological range and types of history covered by the course will extend your intellectual and historical interests and enable you subsequently to make informed choices from among the many historical options available to you in subsequent years, either as a History Major student or as a Minor.

• Placement Preparation

  Your placement year is a terrific opportunity to gain experience in the workplace and to develop your skills and knowledge. This short module has been designed to help you find a suitable placement position and support you to get the most benefit from your placement year.

  With the help of our experienced tutors, you’ll find out about the graduate job market, including what employers expect from the graduates they employ, as well as the specifics of Lancaster’s placement year scheme and how this can support your career development. Using a blend of face-to-face sessions and online learning, you will sharpen your job seeking skills such as researching job opportunities, and creating professional application documents. Our online learning platform provides an introduction to psychometric testing, advice on how to set up a LinkedIn profile, and information and support in relation to interviews and assessment centres. You will have the opportunity to develop a greater awareness of your personal attributes, set up a LinkedIn profile, and consider how to present yourself effectively to employers.

  The skills and practice gained during this module, and the professional feedback and support you receive, will prepare you for your second year when you will start applying for placement positions.

  This module is not credit-bearing, however you will need to pass the module assessment in order to continue on the Placement Year scheme.

Optional

• Introduction to Creative Writing

  In this module we aim to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence of apprentice writers and their command and enjoyment of the craft. The module approaches literature as something made by individuals out of their experience, imagination and knowledge, rather than as finished artefacts encountered as commodities. We encourage you to experiment with different forms and approaches, to discover your individual strengths as a writer, whether of poetry, prose or drama.

  Lectures provide insight into a syllabus of key skills, techniques and approaches to writing poetry, prose fiction and drama. Workshops are tailored to reflect on the content of the weekly lectures and put these skills, techniques and approaches into practice. You will discuss in detail each others’ works-in-progress, developing critical and editorial skills and insight into the writing process. These skills and insight are then applied to your own, as well as peers' work. The 'Reading for Technique' element of the module allows you to develop skills to read as a writer, rather than as a critic or general reader.

• World Literature

  This module seeks to look beyond the boundaries of traditional courses in English Literature by enabling you to explore a wide and exciting range of texts. The module covers world literatures in English (such as Rushdie, Munro, Atwood), to the literatures that have influenced the development of English (from the Bible and classical figures such as Ovid and Homer, through to Medieval and Early Modern authors such as Dante and Rabelais). It also considers modern and contemporary world authors in translation (such as Kafka, Borges, Salih and Murukami), to new media writing and the graphic novel.

Year 2

Core

• Making History: Contexts, Sources and Publics

  This module aims to provide you with a solid introduction to the discipline of history at the beginning of your year 2 studies. The module, accordingly, explores the discipline at large, including: its characteristic practices, methods, and traditions; its use of different source materials; and its relation not just to the past, but also to the present and the future. The module includes three thematic blocks. The first section (Contexts of History) provides an overview of different types of historical scholarship, focussing on the methods, theories and intellectual tendencies that characterise them. The second section (Sources and Evidence) examines the use and application of different types of sources as evidence in historical research. The third section (History in Public) considers the public role and function of the discipline, as well as the challenges that historians have faced in the public spotlight, and, finally, the role that the study of history can play in your future.

• The Theory and Practice of Criticism

  What is literature? Why are some literary and cultural texts deemed to be exceptionally valuable? What are the best ways of reading these texts? This is the core module in English at Lancaster. It addresses fundamental questions about the status, value, and interpretation of texts, posing these questions in the context of recent debates about language, politics, gender, selfhood, culture and national identity. You will discover the major critical concepts and debates of recent years and assess their strengths and limitations as models of literary interpretation. The module will consider the ways in which critical theory has challenged traditional assumptions about literature and criticism; it will examine the debates that have opened up between different theoretical schools of thought; and it will enable you to deploy theoretical terms and concepts in your own acts of reading. Its overall aim is to make you more rigorous, sophisticated and inventive in your readings of literary and cultural texts.

• Work Based Learning Preparation

  During your second year you will apply for placement positions. A range of positions will be available in different types of organisations, and you will be able to decide which are of interest to you. While a placement role may not be available in a field or organisation that is directly related to your academic studies, all placement roles offer valuable experience of working at a graduate level and gaining a range of professional skills.

  A placement year provides the opportunity to find out more about yourself and the type of career that is right for you. The aim of this module is to prepare you to maximise the opportunities for learning and development that your placement can provide, including any formal elements such as Professional Development Reviews (PDR) and options for informal learning.

  You’ll consider your individual strengths and preferences through completion of a personality type assessment. This will be useful when we move on to looking at your aspirations for the placement. Working with others in the group and your tutors, you will be asked to develop strategies for achieving your goals and to record these in an action plan.

  You will need to successfully complete the assessment for this module in order to continue on the Placement Year scheme. This module provides 10 credits towards the 30 credits which successful completion of your placement year provides. These 30 credits are on top of the 360 credits of a standard degree, meaning that you will graduate with 390 credits; 30 more than if you took the same degree without a placement year. The additional credits recognise and reward the additional skills and experience that you will develop during your placement year.

  The University will use all reasonable effort to support you to find a suitable placement for your studies. If you are unsuccessful in securing a suitable placement for your third year, you will be able to transfer to the equivalent non-placement degree scheme and would continue with your studies at Lancaster, finishing your degree after your third year. The University offers a range of shorter placement and internship opportunities for which you would be welcome to apply.

Optional

• American Literature to 1900

  This module considers how American Literature has evolved from its colonial origins, with particular emphasis on key figures of the nineteenth century. 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 experiences and a great range of writing in form and style (don’t expect the poetic and novelistic forms you are used to in British literature). The module will be broadly thematic in its approach, aiming to build up through recurring themes, images, questions and stylistic features, an increasingly complex picture of the literature created by English-speaking Americans.

• British Romanticism

  This module is divided into key areas across the two terms: Revolution; The Self; Politics and Poetics; and the Gothic.

  We will begin by examining revolutionary writing of the Romantic period, including the poetry of such writers as Anna Barbauld, William Blake, and William Wordsworth, and the prose of such writers as Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft. We will then consider ideas of the self in the poetry of such writers as Charlotte Smith and Letitia Landon, Lord Byron’s Manfred, and the labouring-class writing of John Clare.

  We also examine the relationship between politics and poetics for the second-generation poets such as John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and then, the slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano, Mary Prince, and the orientalism of S. T. Coleridge and Thomas de Quincey. Finally, the module will turn its attention to the popular literary movement of ‘Gothic’ which emerges during the Romantic period, exploring its manifestation in a range of texts that may include Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Joanna Baillie’s play De Montfort, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

  The module aims to give students a sense of the diverse range of writers in this period. We will use the close knowledge of key texts to tackle some of the wider, 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.

• Literature, Film, and Media

  This module surveys formal, generic, historical, cultural, narrative, and theoretical relationships between literature, film, and other media across a range of periods, genres, topics, and cultures, paying particular attention to the practice and analysis of literary film adaptation, while also addressing some other modes of literary adaptation (e.g. television, graphic novels, tie-in merchandise, mobile phone applications, etc.). Recently topics have included theories of adaptation, how to read graphic novels, how to read films, how to read television, literature and classical Hollywood cinema, novels and TV serialization, prose fiction and film, poetry and film, theatre and film, various genres across various media (Gothic, crime, war, science fiction, romance, westerns), the author on screen, adaptation and animation, and a screenwriting workshop.

• Renaissance to Restoration, English Literature, 1580-1688

  The module will take us from the closing decades of the Tudor monarchy (1580-1603) to the episodes of power, revolution and restitution that characterised Stuart rule (1603-1688). During this time, English culture saw upheavals in politics that were accompanied by shifts in discourses such as those of gender, religion, sex, science and education. ‘Renaissance to Restoration: English Literature 1580-1688’ will thus examine the literature of change in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, for example Spenser’s provocative Elizabethan verse epic The Faerie Queene, the brilliant and edgy theatre of the likes of Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and Thomas Middleton, and the writings of revolutionaries like John Milton and monarchist libertines like Aphra Behn. Our readings will mainly be focused on four topics designed to provide us with ingress into the literature, culture and historical vitality of the period: ‘Love, Sex and Death’, ‘Court, Country, City’, ‘Power and Politics’ and ‘Heaven and Hell’. We will be reading cross-sections from works by many authors to explore these themes from as many angles as possible. We will consider the similarities between a wide range of primary texts but we will also be keen to observe and analyse differences.

• Victorian Literature

  The years of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901) saw great social, political and cultural change. New technologies and scientific developments altered the ways in which Victorians thought about themselves and their environment, and the literature of the period responded to these changes in all sorts of ways. Examining a wide range of Victorian literature, including novels, short stories, poetry, drama and non-fiction prose, the module is structured around four major themes: ‘Falls and Losses,’ ‘Realism, Idealism and Fantasy,’ ‘Socio-Political Change,’ and ‘Personal Experience and Perspective.’ The aim of the module is to explore and interrogate the complexity of 'Victorian' attitudes within and across these areas.

Year 3

Core

• Work Based Learning Placement

  As well as developing skills and experience that are specific to your placement position and industry, your placement year should provide the opportunity to gain broader experience and professional skills in several areas:

  • analytical thinking, problem solving and decision making;
  • planning and negotiation;
  • prioritisation and time management;
  • critical engagement with theories and frameworks through applying them to real situations.

  During your placement year, although you will be working away from the University campus, you will be able to be in regular contact with other students via our online learning platform and with your Lancaster University tutors.

  You will be asked to review your experience on the placement and this will form the module assessment.

  This module provides 10 credits towards the 30 credits which successful completion of your placement year provides. These 30 credits are on top of the 360 credits of a standard degree, meaning that you will graduate with 390 credits; 30 more than if you took the same degree without a placement year. The additional credits recognise and reward the additional skills and experience that you will develop during your placement year.

  The University will use all reasonable effort to support you to find a suitable placement for your studies. If you are unsuccessful in securing a suitable placement for your third year, you will be able to transfer to the equivalent non-placement degree scheme and would continue with your studies at Lancaster, finishing your degree after your third year. The University offers a range of shorter placement and internship opportunities for which you would be welcome to apply.

Year 4

Core

• Work Based Learning Reflection

  In your final year you’ll return to Lancaster to complete your degree. Feedback from previous students is that their final year studies were enhanced by the real-world experience they were able to draw on.

  Whatever your career path, having the skills to critically evaluate your own learning and development will considerably enhance your effectiveness in the workplace. During your final year, you will be asked to reflect on your experience of work based learning. Did you take part in any formal training relating during your placement? How did this benefit your work? What kinds of informal learning opportunities arose? What did you learn about your own preferences for professional development? How do your experiences compare to those of other placement students?

  You will be asked to consider your future career aims and identify areas for further development.

  This is an assessed module that provides 10 credits towards the 30 credits which successful completion of your placement year provides. These 30 credits are on top of the 360 credits of a standard degree, meaning that you will graduate with 390 credits; 30 more than if you took the same degree without a placement year. The additional credits recognise and reward the additional skills and experience that you have developed during your placement year.

Optional

• 21st Century Theory: Literature, Culture, Criticism

  In 21st Century Theory, we will build upon the general introduction to critical and cultural theory given in The Theory and Practice of Criticism 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 module 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?

• Between the Acts

  The module will begin with writing that looks back to the First World War and end with writing that anticipates the Second World War. In between the students will explore and interrogate the inter-war ‘moment’ through close attention to a number of other texts. The module 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 module will not, though, be limited to what these texts are ‘about’ but will also attend to what these texts ‘do.’ In other words, we shall explore how inter-war writing both reflects the period and indeed participates in the period. The students will, then, be expected to understand the ways in which the texts under consideration exist not only ‘between the acts’ but are themselves acts – acts not only of mourning and warning but also agitation, provocation, resistance, despair, and even (therefore) hope.

• Bible and Literature

  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; and what the Bible does to a literary text. By the end of the module you should be more familiar and knowledgeable about the Bible, its genres, ideas and narratives, and be able to appreciate its literary qualities. You will develop skills of exploring the relation between a literary text and the biblical text it invokes: in what ways does knowledge of biblical texts provoke more profound readings of literature? Do rewritings refine or subvert the Bible? Throughout the module we will also have in focus issues related to reading, interpretation and adaptation that will be relevant to your wider studies.

• Contemporary Literature in English

  This module focuses on different kinds of (postmodern, postcolonial/world, Gothic, post-9/11, feminist/queer, experimental) contemporary literature. The module consolidates student knowledge of ways in which writers redress notions of ‘English literature’, including ways in which they both respond to and stimulate critical theory. Beginning in the 1950s, we consider the explosion of new literatures from the decolonising/newly postcolonial world and the rise of new literary forms in the post-war period. The module also emphasises work from the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries, foregrounding, at all stages, English literature in its international dimensions: we read texts from Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and Australasia, as well as from multicultural and devolved Britain. Recurrent themes include borders, margins, haunting, apocalypse, rewriting, migration and metamorphosis; these terms also reflect formal qualities of the texts studied (i.e. aspects of genre, structure and style). The module considers inter-generic forms (e.g. the graphic novel) as well as a range of more standard literary genres (novels; short stories; poetry), highlighting literary experimentation and reflecting on ‘the contemporary’.

• Contemporary Middle Eastern Literatures

  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, ‘Islamic State’, and a mass refugee crisis. On this module, we will explore shapes and styles of contemporary Middle Eastern literature, concerns and aspirations that drive it, and its growing international visibility. We will study novels, short stories, and new genres, in English and in translation. No prior knowledge of Middle Eastern Literature is needed to enjoy this course.

• Culture, Heritage and Creative Industries: Work Placement

  This module aims to enhance your employability by providing an optional assessed work placement opportunity. It will help you to identify and articulate the transferable skills that can be gained through the study of English and/or Creative Writing, and this will help you in future job seeking.

  A variety of placements should be available for which you can apply in the (broadly defined) culture, heritage and creative sectors: in recent years these have included, for example, publishers, museums, newspapers, heritage sites, and arts venues. Alternatively, you could source your own work placement, subject to prior discussion with the module convenor.

  You will need to pay for your own transport and accommodation costs. Many of our placements are close to Lancaster University but some are further afield; you may be able to find a suitable placement close to your home. Typically students work for 30-40 hours with their host organization (not all of which is necessarily on-site at the host organization).

  Please note that you cannot take both this module and the Schools Volunteering module. The number of students we can accept on this module is limited. If you were not successful in finding a suitable placement you would be asked to choose another module instead.

• Dissertation Unit

  This unit is an important core element for all English Literature majors, and is taken in the Third Year. It is an optional module for joint majors. The module is intended to give you the opportunity to pursue a topic of your choice in intensive detail, developing research, extended writing and bibliographical skills in a programme of directed independent study. You will complete a dissertation of 10,000 words, which must be properly annotated and have an appropriate bibliography. The final assessment will take into account presentation (including annotation and bibliography) as well as the academic content of the dissertation.

  You will be allocated a supervisor for your dissertation at the start of the third year, and three lectures will also support your work. The first lecture will provide advice on choosing your dissertation topic. The second and third lectures will cover research skills and matters of style and structure.

• Jane Austen
  Course Outline:

  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 the ways in which these texts invite – or resist – theoretical interpretation.

• Literary Film Adaptations, Hollywood 1939

  Film historians consider 1939 to be ‘the greatest year in the history of Hollywood’: in that year, 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.

• Literature and Religion at the Fin de Siecle

  Despite the commonplace idea that God had died by the end of the nineteenth century, religion remained very much in evidence at the fin de siècle. This is apparent in the literature produced in the period, and the module will examine a range of the writers who wrote about religion. Along the way, we will consider questions such as: the reasons for the return to religion among writers at the fin de siècle (c. 1880-1914); the debates raised by religious pluralism in the period; the experimental investigations into the relation of form to faith; and the broader questions of how literature mediates and speaks to the relationship between religion and the secular in the modern period.

• Literature and the Visual Arts

  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.

• Modernism towards Postmodernism

  This module will trace the evolution of English literature in a period of convulsive social and political change that takes us from the Boer War to the Cold War, from the Victorian Age to the Space Age, and from British imperialism at its peak to its ignominious post-War decline. It will also attend to the dynamics of literary history, focusing on the strain of radical experimentation that characterizes so much twentieth-century writing. We will examine the ways in which modernist writers from Eliot to Woolf found ways to renew and re-shape the language of literature; and we will consider how post-modernist writers, from Beckett to Pynchon, found solutions to the problem of how to follow the mighty achievements of their literary predecessors.

• Monstrous Bodies: Romantic Period Poetry and Prose

  Using a range of texts and genres from 1790s to the 1820s this module will consider the importance of the physical human body, in health and sickness. Examining the historical context in which these texts were written, we will look at such topics as illness, death, doctors, medical treatments, recreational drug use, pregnancy, disability, physical strength, sexuality, sensuality, health, race, gender, physiognomy and phrenology. How did Romantic poets and prose writers imagine the body? What did they think of the distinction between the mind and body or between the body and soul? How was the body understood medically? How are people made ‘monsters’ in the period and for what political purpose? The module will explore how bodies are not to be thought of as neutral or ahistorical but instead as historically-contingent sites of dismodule.

• Performing Death, Desire and Gender

  This module looks at how acts of desire, murder, fake and ‘real’ deaths are represented on stage in early modern drama. It explores how experiences of death and desire are always gendered. In early modern theatres, the playing of female roles by boy actors frequently demonstrated the performativity of gender for all – on stage and beyond. The module will explore how the bodies of boy actors dramatized a range of sexual orientations, representing female desire and staging same sex desire at the same time. We will consider how modern films and productions of early modern plays create similar (and different) gender-effects. We will study texts by writers such as Marlowe, Lyly, Heywood, Middleton, Webster, Wroth using a mixture of discussion, analysis of films / productions and short practical explorations (getting the text ‘on its feet’). The module will ask when and how can death be comic in performance? Does outlawed desire always lead to tragedy? How did drama help to shape human experiences of desire and violence? No previous experience of (or expertise in) acting is necessary but you will be required to think in terms of performance because the module will culminate in a series of short presentations and performances by the group.

• Premodern Gothic

  ‘[T]he Gothic’, as Nick Groom argues, ‘was not simply a reaction to the Enlightenment, and the rise of the Gothic novel is part of a longer history’ (Groom, 2012, p.xiv). In coining the term Premodern Gothic, this innovative half-unit considers 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 - e.g. ghosts, vampires, castles, darkness, magic, terror and wonder - before ‘the rise of the Gothic novel’.

• Public and Private Performances of Self in Medieval Literature and Drama

  At a time when life was viewed as a constant struggle between good and evil within the human soul, how was the inner self conceived? Furthermore, when public life was a type of performance in itself, how did people publicly enact their identities? And how did those private and public identities function in such a rigidly hierarchical society? With an emphasis on close critical readings, this module aims to explore medieval identities by looking at manifestations of self in literature and drama; it will examine and challenge distinctions between public and private, questioning the concept of subjectivity in this period, and consider moments of personal crisis. As well as looking at the role of performance in everyday life and organised drama, we will study the creation of narrative voices and personas in literary texts, and interrogate the interrelationship of text, ‘voice’ and performance. The module also sets aside seminar time to develop close reading skills and build familiarity with Middle English language.

• Schools Volunteering Project

  If you are considering going a career in teaching, this module will give you a chance to experience teaching and classroom practice first-hand, at either primary or secondary level, in a local school. The 10-week part-time placement will involve classroom observation and teacher assistance, and, in most cases, an opportunity to teach the class or to work with a designated group of pupils. It will also allow you to develop skills in relation to a special project or activity carried out in the school related to the teaching of English.

  Everyone who wishes to take this module is required to attend a short interview and to conduct a short teaching session. Part of the process is to carry out police checks. If you are successful in the interview process, you will receive thorough training prior to the placement.

  The number of placement places available is limited. If you were not successful in finding a suitable placement you would be asked to choose another module instead.

• Science Fiction in Literature and Film

  This module will trace the development of science fiction (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. Texts have been chosen from a range of historical periods to enable a consideration of the cultural and historical contexts in which key science fiction texts were produced, and how this effects their development. The module will analyse in detail the formal and generic characteristics of the science fiction novel and short story, and will provide an introduction to the visual aspects of the science fiction film. The module will be organised through a thematic concentration on the themes of time and space travel. It will encompass narratives of time travel, evolution, temporal dislocation and also stories that formally incorporate atemporality. It will consider journeys, encounters, species and ontologies. It will offer discussions about questions of human subjectivity, gender, race, transcendence, love and loss. The module will also constitute an ongoing investigation of the relationship between science fiction film and ‘literary’ SF texts, considering both how the genre is represented through the cinematic form and what happens in terms of narrative structure, plot and characterisation when presented in an audiovisual format.

• Shakespeare

  Ben Jonson claimed of Shakespeare ‘he was not of an age but for all time.’ This module 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 module will consider how, in the past and in the present, Shakespeare’s texts exploit the emotional and political possibilities of poetry and drama

• The Byron-Shelley Circle

  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; 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.

• Utopias and Utopianism

  The module aims to give a detailed overview of the various ways in which the genre of literary utopia developed from the Renaissance to the present, including its ‘migration’ into science fiction in the later twentieth century. A unifying theme throughout will be: how can literary texts plausibly speak of hope, justice and human perfectibility without falling into mere sociological exposition, or falling foul of the accusation that, in literary terms it is ‘the devil who has the best tunes’. Students will be encouraged to unite a historically contextualised approach, for example looking at the political issues specific to the original moment of each utopian work, with one that is theoretically and generically informed. We shall pay particular attention both to the ways utopias build upon and contest what their predecessors have achieved, and to the complex interaction of ideological content and literary form within each individual work.

• Victorian Gothic

  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.

• Women Writers of Britain and America

  In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf famously asks ‘what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister?’, and goes on to explore the obstacles to literary success that she might have encountered. 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, 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 representations of female experience. The module is historical in terms of both the range of primary texts it addresses, and also in the history of feminist theoretical and critical approaches it provides.