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

Course Overview

Studying History alongside English Literature at Lancaster gives you the opportunity to deepen your understanding of both subjects in an outstanding academic environment. Our diverse research interests allow us to offer you an unusually wide selection of historical topics and approaches to the study of History and Literature.

You’ll enjoy frequent opportunities for stimulating discussion with your tutors and fellow students as well as plenty of scope to specialise in areas of Literature and History that particularly interest you.

Your degree begins with courses including From Medieval to Modern: History and Historians, and English Literature. In your second year, you’ll study subjects such as The Theory and Practice of Criticism while your final-year modules include Contemporary Fiction and Shakespeare, and Utopia, Colonialism and the New World. You’ll also have the chance to undertake in-depth study of topics of your own choosing, either by doing a dissertation in place of an exam, or by undertaking a History ‘special subject’ course.

You will have the opportunity to spend Year 3 on placement with a public, private or voluntary organisation in the UK or overseas.  This experience will boost your employment prospects and will help you to decide on your career direction and the kind of organisation in which you want to work once you graduate. You will be doing a real, responsible job – with all the satisfaction that brings.  Our Placements Team will support you in finding and applying for a suitable placement that will support your professional development. Applying for a placement is a competitive process and the preparatory modules you will complete in years one and two are designed to give you the best chance of success in your placement applications.  You will also be provided with dedicated workshops, 1:1 appointments with careers professionals as well as opportunities to speak with employers here on campus.

During the placement year you will remain a Lancaster University student which means that you will still be eligible for a student loan, have access to facilities such as the library and receive discounts on transport and council tax.  Your tuition fee will be reduced to 20% during the placement year. 

The placement will enhance your understanding of the connections between theory and practice and this will benefit your final year of study.  This is an exciting opportunity to build up experience and transferable skills, as well as to make contacts with potential employers which will place you a step ahead in the graduate recruitment market.

Entry Requirements

Grade Requirements

A Level AAB

Required Subjects A level English Literature or A level English Language and Literature grade A

IELTS 6.5 overall with at least 5.5 in each component. For other English language qualifications we accept, please see our English language requirements webpages.

Other Qualifications

International Baccalaureate 35 points overall with 16 points from the best 3 Higher Level subjects including 6 in a HL Literature subject

BTEC Considered alongside A level English Literature or A level English Language and Literature grade A

We welcome applications from students with a range of alternative UK and international qualifications, including combinations of qualification. Further guidance on admission to the University, including other qualifications that we accept, frequently asked questions and information on applying, can be found on our general admissions webpages.

Contact Admissions Team + 44 (0) 1524 592028 or via ugadmissions@lancaster.ac.uk

Course Structure

Many of Lancaster's degree programmes are flexible, offering students the opportunity to cover a wide selection of subject areas to complement their main specialism. You will be able to study a range of modules, some examples of which are listed below.

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. The module starts by concentrating on poetry from the late sixteenth century to the present and examines the rich canonical tradition and how each generation of writers has responded to it. 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 course offers a fascinating survey of the last fifteen-hundred years. The course focuses on pivotal trends and events in European history, but it encompasses regions of 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 Part 2, 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 make sure that you get the most benefit from your placement year.

  With the help of our expert 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 range of tools, you will sharpen your job seeking skills such as researching job opportunities, and professional CVs, application forms and cover letters that are tailored for specific employers and sectors.

  An understanding and experience of the application and interview process is essential to successful job-seeking. The module includes an introduction to psychometric testing as well as practice for face-to-face and video interviews, and assessment centres. You will 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.

  While this module is not credit-bearing, you will need to pass the two assignments in order to continue on the Placement Year scheme. The first assignment is designed to develop your skills in answering application form questions. For the second assignment you will develop a graduate standard CV and covering letter, and take part in a practice interview and mock assessment centre.

Optional

• Introduction to Creative Writing

  This module develops the skills, knowledge and confidence of apprentice writers and their command and enjoyment of the craft. It approaches literature as something made by individuals out of their experience, imagination and knowledge, rather than as finished artefacts encountered as commodities. The module encourages 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 (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 (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 Part-II 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

  Course Aims and Objectives:

  What is literature? Why are some literary and cultural texts deemed to be exceptionally valuable? What are the best ways of reading these texts? ENGL 201 is the core course in English at Lancaster. It addresses fundamental questions about the status, value, and interpretation of texts poses these questions in the context of recent debates about language, politics, gender, selfhood, culture and national identity. Students on 201 will discover the major critical concepts and debates of recent years and assess their strengths and limitations as models of literary interpretation. The course 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 students to deploy theoretical terms and concepts in their own acts of reading. Its overall aim is to make students more rigorous, sophisticated and inventive in their readings of literary and cultural texts.

• Work Based Learning Preparation

  A placement year provides a valuable and safe 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 will provide, including 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’ll be encouraged to think about challenges that you may encounter during your placement, such as management structures, working relationships, time management, work/life balance, and ethical considerations. You’ll also consider your role and responsibilities during the placement, as well as that of your employer and the University, and this awareness should help you to navigate any issues that arise once the placement has started.

  During your placement year you will be expected to create a Professional Placement Portfolio and your tutors will provide guidance on how to do this.

  There are two assessed elements to this module, the first is preparing an action plan for your placement year and the second is to complete the personality assessment exercise. You will need to successfully complete both elements 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.

Optional

• American Literature to 1900

  Course Outline:

  This course 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 course 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

  Course Aims and Objectives:

  This course 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 Anna Barbauld, William Blake, and William Wordsworth, and the prose of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and Mary Wollstonecraft. We will then consider ideas of the self in the poetry of 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 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 course 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 from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Joanna Baillie’s play De Montfort, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

  The course 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

  Course Outline:

  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.). Specific topics in 2018 include 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

  Course Outline:

  The course 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

  Course Aims and Objectives:

  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 course 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 course is to explore and interrogate the complexity of 'Victorian' attitudes within and across these areas.

Year 3

Core

• Work Based Learning Placement

  A Lancaster University placement year is very different from any work experience you may have done at school or college. It is an exciting opportunity to be employed in a graduate level position for nine-twelve months, working in the type of environment and role you might be considering for after you graduate. You will develop a range of skills and experience both through doing the job and through accessing formal and informal development opportunities, as well as making industry contacts, and these should put you in a strong position when you enter the competitive graduate job market.

  During your placement year, although you will be working away from the University campus, you will be in regular contact with other students via our online learning platform and with your Lancaster University tutors. If your placement is in the UK, one of the placement team will visit you to discuss your progress towards your placement goals.

  As well as developing skills and experience that are specific to your placement position and industry, your placement year will also 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.

  There are two assessed elements to this module, the first is to develop a Learning Agreement during your first few weeks in the job, and the second is to evaluate and reflect on the development of your skills and knowledge through keeping a personal learning log during the placement.

  You will also collate materials for your Professional Placement Portfolio on an ongoing basis as a record of your learning and development, and this will form your final assessment that is handed in during your final year at Lancaster.

  Your tutors will provide guidance, support and templates for all of these elements.

  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.

Optional

• 21st Century Theory: Literature, Culture, Criticism

  Course Outline:

  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?

• Between the Acts

  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 the students will explore and interrogate the inter-war ‘moment’ through close attention to a number of other texts. 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 course 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

  Course Outline:

  In this unit 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 course 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 course 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

  Course Outline:

  ENGL 308 Contemporary Literatures focuses on different kinds of (postmodern, postcolonial/world, Gothic, post-9/11, feminist/queer, experimental) contemporary literature. The course 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 course 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 course 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

  Course Outline:

  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 course, 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 is needed.

• Culture, Heritage and Creative Industries: Work Placement

  Course Outline:

  This module is run by the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing, with the support of the FASS Engagement team and central Careers. It aims to enhance students’ employability by providing an assessed work placement opportunity as an option on the curriculum. It will also encourage students actively to think about the transferability of skills gained through the study of English 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 convenor.

  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. Students typically work for 30-40 hours with their host organization (not all of will necessarily be on-site) in the Lent term. They maintain contact with the convenor 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 in 2019-20.

• Dissertation Unit

  Course Outline:

  This unit is compulsory for all English Literature majors, and is taken in the Third Year. The course is intended to give students the opportunity to pursue a topic of their choice in intensive detail, developing research, extended writing and bibliographical skills in a programme of directed independent study. Students will complete a dissertation of 10,000 words, which must be word processed and 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.

  There will be a general lecture at the start of Term 3 of the Second Year, to advise students on the choice of their dissertation topic. There are two lectures in third year, at the start of Terms One and Two, on research skills and matters of style and structure.

  All students will be asked to submit an outline of their chosen topic, including a preliminary bibliography, to the Course Convenor by the end of the Summer term of second year. If there are concerns about your topic at that stage, you will be contacted by the Convenor at the start of the summer break; otherwise you can begin working on your chosen area. Students will be assigned to a supervisor at the beginning term one of their 3rd year.

• 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

  Course Outline:

  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

  Course Aims and Objectives:

  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

  Course Outline:

  Is it possible to ‘read’ a painting? Can an artist interpret a poem in paint? This course 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 Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. The course will draw on the unique resources of the University’s Ruskin Library and rare book archive.

• Modernism towards Postmodernism

  Course Outline:

  This course 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 the high-point of British imperialism 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

  Course Aims and Objectives:

  Using a range of texts and genres from 1790s to the 1820s this course 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 course will explore how bodies are not to be thought of as neutral or ahistorical but instead as historically-contingent sites of discourse.

• Performing Death, Desire and Gender

  Course Outline:

  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 course 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 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

  Course Outline

  ‘[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

  Course Aims and Objectives: 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 course 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 course also sets aside seminar time to develop close reading skills and build familiarity with Middle English language.

• Schools Volunteering Project

  Course Outline:

  This module will run as a partnership between the Department of English Literature and Creative Writing and the Outreach team in UKSRO (Lancaster University’s UK Student Recruitment Office). It will give students who are planning to go into teaching (or considering it) a chance to experience teaching and classroom practice first-hand, at either primary or secondary level, in a local school during the Lent Term. 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 students to develop skills in relation to a special project or activity carried out in the school related to the teaching of English.

  There will be interviews, presentations, and a rigorous training requirement with the UKSRO Outreach team, including police vetting, for all students who enrol on this course. The actual placement in the school, arranged by UKSRO staff, will then follow in the second term of your third year.

  Please note that everyone who registers for this course needs to attend a short interview (to check the appropriateness of this half-unit for them) and they will also be required to conduct a short teaching session. The interviews will take place on Monday 4 June 2018 and the teaching session on Thursday 7 June 2018. All students registered on the course need to be available for both sessions. There are limited places on the course, and in the case of over-subscription, these sessions will be used to allocate places.

• Science Fiction in Literature and Film

  Course Outline:

  This course 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 course 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 course 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

  Course Outline:

  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

• The Break-Through Book: Five Twentieth-century Poets

  Course Outline:

  This half-unit offers the opportunity for detailed examination of work by some major mid-century

  British and American poets, through focus on the volumes which can be seen as break-through or

  career-defining. We shall study pre-war books by W H Auden and Louis MacNeice, and post-war collections by Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath, which have in common that they were regarded as establishing the pre-eminence of their authors – sometimes signified by their winning prizes and awards. As well enabling close discussion of the constituent poems, as appropriate, the course will also address broader notions of what constitutes a book of

  poems. What thematic or other coherences bind its contents, or, in the case of a longer poem such as Autumn Journal, what prevents monotony? In the case of Bishop, the issue arising would involve

  thinking about how a poet of meagre output creates a new volume by incorporating an earlier one; in the case of Lowell, the issue arising would involve considering the inclusion of an extended prose

  section, as well as the overtly autobiographical matter; in the case of Plath, the issue arising would

  concern the fact that Ariel was a posthumous publication, in whose shape her estranged husband

  Ted Hughes played a major role. The interaction of these books with the surrounding cultural and political climates in which they were produced will also be considered. Offering this exciting opportunity for extended engagement with the work of poets working at the peak of their powers, the course will appeal to students who, as readers and possibly also writers of poetry, would relish such deep immersion and the chance for exploration that it brings.

  (If it is felt that the inclusion of five volumes of poetry is too demanding and prevents an insufficiently close focus then I am happy to consult with those enrolled to consider omitting one of Lowell, Bishop or Plath. This consultation would take place during the summer vacation. )

• The Byron-Shelley Circle

  Outline

  This course 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 course 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

  Course Outline:

  The course 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

  Course Outline:

  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 course will explore these phenomena in their historical, cultural and literary contexts, with particular focus on emerging discourses of gender, sexuality, colonialism and class. The course 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 on Moodle and in class.

• Women Writers of Britain and America

  Course Outline:

  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 course 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 course 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.

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. 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 visit our Teaching and Learning section.

Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research.

Careers

Your degree will help you develop confident analytical and research skills; the ability to form sound judgements based on statistical research, and the capacity to analyse issues, people and events. Such transferable skills will stand you in good stead for your chosen career.

Many of our graduates go on to careers traditionally associated with English and creative writing, such as publishing and the media, teaching and librarianship. Others find roles in business, administration and professional services, where their skills of self-expression and critical understanding of complex information are equally valued.

A number of our English Literature and History graduates regularly go on to take higher degrees, at Lancaster or another institution.

Fees and Funding

Fees

We set our fees on an annual basis and the 2020/21 entry fees have not yet been set.

Channel Islands and the Isle of Man

Some science and medicine courses have higher fees for students from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. You can find more details here: Island Students.

Funding

For full details of the University's financial support packages including eligibility criteria, please visit our fees and funding page

Optional field trips may be offered on this course for which students will be required to pay their travel costs

Students also need to consider further costs which may include books, stationery, printing, photocopying, binding and general subsistence on trips and visits. Following graduation it may be necessary to take out subscriptions to professional bodies and to buy business attire for job interviews.