French Studies and English Literature 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: 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.

• Part I French Studies (Advanced/CEFR: B1)

  This module is designed for students who have already completed an A-level in French or whose French is of a broadly similar standard. The language element aims to enable students both to consolidate and improve their skills in spoken and written French. A further aim is to provide students with an introduction to the historical and cultural development of France in the past, and also to contemporary institutions and society.

  There are three language classes per week, each week, we aim for one of these to be conducted by a French native speaker. In tutorials the emphasis is placed on the acquisition of vocabulary and a firm grasp of French grammatical structures. You will have the opportunity to develop listening and speaking skills usually under the guidance of French native speakers using audio and video materials.

  To explore French culture, you are given the chance to examine how key moments in French history have shaped contemporary French culture, we will look at examples including films, plays, and novels

  Advanced modules usually have three classes per week.

• Part I French Studies (Beginners to CEFR: A2)

  This module is designed for students who have already completed an A-level in French or whose French is of a broadly similar standard. The language element aims to enable students both to consolidate and improve their skills in spoken and written French. A further aim is to provide students with an introduction to the historical and cultural development of France in the past, and also to contemporary institutions and society.

  There are three language classes per week, each week, we aim for one of these to be conducted by a French native speaker. In tutorials the emphasis is placed on the acquisition of vocabulary and a firm grasp of French grammatical structures. You will have the opportunity to develop listening and speaking skills usually under the guidance of French native speakers using audio and video materials.

  To explore French culture, you are given the chance to examine how key moments in French history have shaped contemporary French culture, we will look at examples including films, plays, and novels

  Advanced modules usually have three classes per week.

Year 2

Core

• French Language: Oral Skills (CEFR: B2)

  This module comprises of both oral and aural skills and must be taken alongside the Written Skills module. It builds upon skills gained in the first year.

  This module aims to enhance students’ linguistic proficiency in spoken French in a range of formal and informal settings (both spontaneous and prepared). Specific attention will be given to developing good, accurate pronunciation and intonations well as fluency, accuracy of grammar, and vocabulary when speaking the language.

  This module also aims at broadening students’ knowledge about different aspects of modern French-speaking society, politics and culture, and contemporary issues and institutions in order to prepare them for residence abroad in their 3rd year.

  By the end of this module, students should have enhanced their comprehension of the spoken language, as used in both formal speech, and in everyday life situations including those that they may encounter in Spanish-speaking countries.

• French Language: Oral skills (post-Beginners/CEFR: B1))

  This module comprises of both oral and aural skills, to be taken alongside the corresponding Written Language module. It builds upon skills gained in the first year of the Intensive course. Students who have taken the Intensive language course in their first year, normally follow this course throughout the second year.

  The module aims to enhance students’ linguistic proficiency in spoken French in a range of formal and informal settings (both spontaneous and prepared). Specific attention will be given to developing good, accurate pronunciation and intonations well as fluency, accuracy of grammar, and vocabulary when speaking the language.

  This module also aims at broadening students’ knowledge about different aspects of modern society, politics and culture, and contemporary issues and institutions in order to prepare them for residence abroad in their 3rd year.

  By the end of this module, students will have had the opportunity to enhance their comprehension of the spoken language, as used in both formal speech, and in everyday life situations including those that they may encounter in French-speaking countries.

• French Language: Written Skills (CEFR: B2)

  This module comprises of reading and writing skills to be taken alongside the Oral Skills module.

  This module aims to consolidate skills gained by students in the first year of study, and enable them to build a level of competence and confidence required to familiarise themselves with the culture and society of countries where French is spoken.

  The module aims to enhance students’ proficiency in the writing of French (notes, reports, summaries, essays, projects, etc.) including translation from and into French; and the systematic study of French lexis, grammar and syntax.

  You will have the opportunity to enhance your linguistic proficiency, with particular emphasis on reading a variety of sources and on writing fluently and accurately in the language, in a variety of registers.

• French Language: Written Skills (post-Beginners/CEFR: B1)

  This module comprises of reading and writing skills to be taken alongside the Oral Skills module.

  This module aims to consolidate skills you have developed in the first year of study, and enable you to build a level of competence and confidence required to familiarise yourselves with the culture and society of countries where your studied language is spoken.

  The module aims to enhance your proficiency in understanding spoken French, as well as in the writing of French (notes, reports, summaries, essays, projects, etc.) including translation from and into French; and the systematic study of French lexis, grammar and syntax.

  The module aims to enhance your linguistic proficiency, with particular emphasis on reading a variety of sources and on writing fluently and accurately in the language, in a variety of registers.

• Second Year Programme for Academic Skills, Employability and International placement preparation

  This module is a non-credit bearing module. If you are a major student going abroad in your second or third year you are enrolled on it during the year prior to your departure, and timetabled to attend the events. These include: introduction to the Year Abroad and choice of activities; British Council English Language Assistantships and how to apply; introduction to partner universities and how they function; working in companies abroad; finance during the Year Abroad; research skills and questionnaire design; teaching abroad; curriculum writing and employability skills; welfare and wellbeing; Year Abroad Preparation Week in the Summer Term.

• Shaping Contemporary France: Moments and Movements

  This module is divided into four topic areas, usually this comprises of the following:

  • Language and linguistic heritage- this topic covers the evolution of French language from a dialect to a national language, explains the relationship between written and spoken language, and shows language variety: argot, verlan and francophonie.
  • Centralisation and Regionalisation- this topic aims to enhance students’ understanding of the French political system, gastronomy, agriculture, demographics, management of the territory and environment, and transport and communication.
  • Space, Place and the Urban- this topic aims at explaining how the Situationists, Dadaists, Surrealists, Le Corbusier and Henri Lefebvre influenced urbanism.
  • Education, Science, Technology and Innovation- this topic covers the development and the structure of contemporary education in the French Republic, and aims at expanding students’ knowledge about modernism and development of technology.
• 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.

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.

• Cross-cultural encounters in World Literatures

  What is world literature? How have writers engaged with the concept? How have they explored their role as a writer in the 20th century?

  This module explores a range of texts written in a range of languages and genres, examining the engagement of writers with their role in different social, political and historical contexts. Lectures aim to provide an introduction to the genre being studied and address the question of the role of the writer in the context of world literatures. Workshops will focus on a range of set and optional texts of global importance, which will be considered as examples of the literary genre and in relation to material covered in the lecture.

  The module is usually divided into five sections, each focusing on a specific genre. Each section will usually comprise three texts, two of which are optional. All texts explore the role of the writer in different social, political and historical contexts of the 20th century, and the ways their writing engages with these contexts.

• Economic and Social Change in France, Germany and Spain since 1945

  This module explores how post-war economic change has affected European societies, and how socio-political factors in turn have influenced the patterns and outcomes of economic development, over the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty first century.

  The module is structured on the basis of three country-specific modules (France, Germany and Spain), examining how these countries have confronted key moments of economic change, and what the longer-term consequences of that change have been. While the module emphasis is on broad national developments, discussion also covers examples relating to particular industries and major companies.

  In lectures, workshops and seminars we will explore the context of reconstruction after World War II and the pattern of subsequent economic development; the relationship between social and economic policies; the development of the three country's economies; the changes of the 1980s and their impact on subsequent years; and the consequences of specific momentous events, such as the re-unification of Germany and how the financial crisis of 2008 affected, and still affects, France, Germany and Spain.

• Language and Identity in France, Germany and Spain

  This module will introduce you to the role that the language used by institutions plays in shaping individual perceptions of identity. It aims to provide you with a basic theoretical framework that allows them to understand the relationship between language and power as reflected in current language policies at regional, national, and supranational levels. It will give you the opportunity to recognise forms of prestige and stigma associated with varieties of the three main languages under study. We aim for this module to raise critical awareness of the portrayal and representation of linguistic variations in the media and in the sphere of literature.

  The main topics covered in the course include Language and Power; European language policies; German as a pluricentric language and ‘Gastarbeiter’ language and policies; regional variations of France: Linguistic Diversity: A threat to French National Identity?; The languages and language attitudes of Spain (Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Galician).

  This module is taught in English.

• 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.

• Professional Contexts for Modern Languages

  This module seeks to support you to apply your linguistic and cultural understanding in a specific professional context. This module gives you the opportunity to spend time on a work-based placement in the UK or abroad. You will be given the opportunity to develop, reflect on and articulate both the range of competences and the linguistic and cross-cultural skills that enhance employability by working in language-related professional contexts and reflecting on key issues in relation to their placement organisation. There is the opportunity to join a local work placement developed by the department, or for you to source your own placements (subject to departmental approval). Workshops before and during the placement will provide preparation and guidance on sourcing, confirming and then reflecting on academic work. Students will share their experiences and learning with each other by means of end-of-module presentations.

• 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.

• Society on Screen: The Language of Film

  How do films deal with topics like terrorism, immigration, resistance and city life? Do they entertain viewers, instruct them, or both?

  This module explores European and Latin American films in their social and historical contexts. The main aim is to make connections between the films and such contexts not only on the level of narrative, characterisation and dialogue, but also on that of form and technique.

  To these ends, there will be introductory lectures on cinema and society and on film aesthetics and content in the first week of the module. The connections mentioned will be the focus of seminars and presentations within the four core topic areas: terrorism, migration, the city and resistance.

  The module usually consists of four strands on cinema and society: Terrorism, Migration and Hybrid identities, The City and Collaboration/Resistance.

  Each strand will be introduced with a lecture and followed by seminars on the set films. Students will give a presentation on a short sequence within their allocated film.

• Understanding culture

  This module aims to give you a background to and insight into the diversity of twentieth and twenty-first century thought and contemporary definitions of culture.

  Some key questions explored on the module include: What is 'culture' and how does it work? How do 'art' and 'culture' relate to each other? What do we mean when we talk about the production and consumption of culture? Why does popular culture arouse conflicting responses? What role does the body play in our understanding of culture? How does culture define who we are? Can a work of culture be an act of resistance?

  With these questions in mind, this module focuses on texts which raise questions about class, race, gender, and subcultures.

• 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

• International Placement Year: Intercultural and Academic Reflection

  As part of The International Placement Year you will spend at least eight months abroad in your third year. You will have the opportunity to:

  • analyse the contemporary relevance of a tradition, contemporary social, political or economic issue, or a living part of the regional culture.
  • reflect critically on cultural differences observed in everyday life such as social relationships, politics, attitudes to food, drink, religion, etc., explaining them in the context of various historical, social and cultural developments.
  • think analytically about your intercultural position and understanding of the relevant culture(s).
  • reflect on language use (different registers, varieties of pronunciation and accents, dialects, vocabulary and idiomatic expressions, and aspects of grammar) and the process of the acquisition of skills in the relevant language(s).

  The module also aims to enhance and develop your language skills, with all assessments being written in the target language. If you have started a language as a beginner in year one you will spend a minimum of four months in a country where that language is spoken. If you are a joint honors student, studying two languages, you may choose to spend the year in either of the two countries concerned or, if appropriate arrangements can be made, you can spend a semester in each country.

  Lancaster University will make reasonable endeavours to place students at an approved overseas partner. Students conduct either a study placement at a partner University, a teaching assistantship placement with The British council or an appropriate working placement with a vetted employer abroad or a combination of placements (please note that there are some restrictions on British Council placements which usually last for the whole of the academic year).

  Lancaster University cannot accept responsibility for any financial aspects your International Placement Year.

Year 4

Core

• French Language: Oral Skills (CEFR: C1/C2)

  This module is integrated with the French Language: Written Skills module.

  Both the oral and the written language modules focus on particular topics of cultural and contemporary interest. The general aim of these modules is to develop further the abilities the students gained during their second year and the year abroad.

  By the end of this module, we aim for you to have developed an informed interest in the society and culture of the French-speaking world. They should also have acquired almost native-speaker abilities in both spoken and written language.

• French Language: Written Skills (CEFR: C1/C2)

  This module is integrated with the French Language: Oral Skills module.

  This module has two main aims. The first one is to enhance your linguistic proficiency with emphasis on understanding of spoken and written French, the speaking of French (prepared and spontaneous) in both formal and informal settings, the writing of French, and the systematic study of French lexis, grammar and syntax. The second aim is to increase your awareness, knowledge and understanding of contemporary France.

  By the end of this module we aim for you to have an informed interest in the society and culture of the French-speaking world. They should also have acquired almost native-speaker abilities in both spoken and written language.

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 Cities in Literature and Film

  This module introduces you to major themes that shape the experience of contemporary city dwellers: gender, social inequality, and practices of citizenship. These interlinking themes will be introduced through novels, poetry and films on the following European, North American (with the emphasis on immigrant communities within its cities) and Latin American cities: New York, Mexico City, Santiago de Chile, Barcelona, Berlin, and Los Angeles.

  Each topic will be covered though an introductory lecture and a core text, followed by a range of additional texts for students to analyse. During workshops students will share their findings and opinions, emphasizing on identifying links between the topics studied, aiming to encourage discussion.

  The format of the module encourages cross-referencing between the themes of the module (for example, gender and sexuality are relevant to an analysis of social inequality, and vice versa).

• 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’.

• 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.

• Francophone Voices: Literature and Film from Sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Canada

  This final year module will provide you with an overview of the range of literature and culture produced in Sub-Saharan Africa, the French Caribbean and France to better understand the various relationships between France and these different parts of the Francophone world.

  You will be given the opportunity to identify and discuss themes that they will find through analysis of a selection of novels and films. These themes will include language and style, and issues addressed by writers and film-makers in relation to identity, gender, culture, history, and representation itself.

  Exploration of La Francophonie, the French Mission Civilisatrice, and relationships between contemporary France and her former colonies will provide context for the study of these novels and films. Discussions will be informed by the work of thinkers including Franz Fanon and Edward Said.

  This module is taught in English and all texts are available in English.

• Imagining Modern Europe: Post-Revolutionary Utopias and Ideologies in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

  This module aims at exploring the nature of the relationship between the individual and society, notions of progress and economic justice, as these are still widely debated topics in contemporary Europe in light of the current economic and political crisis.

  This module will use the concepts of utopia, dystopia and ideology as a forum for discussion on the relationship between individual imagination and social discourse in the nineteenth century, as well as the relationship between fiction and political discourse. You will look at the major intellectual debates which influenced the contemporary European thought after the French Revolution.

  You will explore the development of major ideologies and cultural movements such as Romanticism, Marxism, Socialism and Positivism, spanning from the period immediately following the French Revolution to the middle of the nineteenth century.

• 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.

• Modernity of Forms and Forms of Modernity in French Literature 1850-2000

  The aim of this module is to consider how poets have engaged with controversial aspects of modernity in their works. You will be given the opportunity to explore the relationship between literature and society in French poetry from Charles Baudelaire to Michel Houellebecq.

  You will be given the opportunity to explore a selection of French poets’ responses to the rise of industrialisation, the development of mass-culture and the growth of cities, through a variety of themes. They will discover how poets have embraced, questioned and critiqued the temporality of modern life through literary experimentation.

  The module will introduce the emergence of new forms of writings associated with the beginning of this period such as the prose poem, free-verse, the manifesto and aesthetic experiments mixing poetry and visual art in the early twentieth century.

• 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.

• 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.

• Translation as a Cultural Practice

  What makes a good translation and how do translations do good? This module aims to help you understand the practice of translation as it has evolved historically from the 18th century to the present across European and American societies. The materials we study include historical textual sources (philosophical essays on the craft of translation from French, German and Hispanic authors of the 19th and 20th centuries), representative fictional texts reflecting on translation processes, and contemporary documents from the EU directorate on translation, PEN and the Translators' Association. We will also make considerable use of contemporary online resources as exemplified by Anglophone advocates of intercultural exchange such as Words Without Borders. Our aim is to look at translation as both a functional process for getting text in one language accurately into another and a culturally-inflected process that varies in its status and purpose from one context to another. We will pay particular attention to the practical role that literary translators play within the contemporary global publishing industry and consider the practicalities of following a career in literary translation in the Anglophone world.

• 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.