Modules

• Year 1

  Core Modules

  Beginners French Studies (Post GCSE Level) (40 credits)

  ×

  Beginners French Studies (Post GCSE Level)

  Overview

  This modules aims to provide students with little or no previous knowledge of French with the grammatical, written, and spoken language skills necessary go further in the study of French. It will also equip them with professional and employability skills complimentary to their studies. It consists of:
  
  1. Language Seminars (3 hours per week)
  Seminars will equip students with the knowledge and understanding of grammatical constructions (both basic and more complex) and syntax required to use the French language independently in written and spoken form. Language skills are practiced in a range of activities: grammar exercises, reading, spoken and listening comprehension, translation, expressive and descriptive writing. All major areas of grammar will be encountered, laying the foundations for future study of the language and its nuances.
  Seminars also introduce students to language in context. Students are exposed to new vocabulary, expressions and nuances of use through reading, translation and writing exercises based on sources from the Francophone world.
  2. Conversation Class (1hr per week)
  Led by a native speaker, this class develops students’ listening and speaking skills in French. The content from seminars is deployed in a range of practical scenarios likely to be experienced in French -speaking countries.

  Learning Outcomes

  This modules aims to provide students with little or no previous knowledge of French with the grammatical, written, and spoken language skills necessary go further in the study of French. It will also equip them with professional and employability skills complimentary to their studies. It consists of:
  1. Language Seminars (3 hours per week)
  Seminars will equip students with the knowledge and understanding of grammatical constructions (both basic and more complex) and syntax required to use the French language independently in written and spoken form. Language skills are practiced in a range of activities: grammar exercises, reading, spoken and listening comprehension, translation, expressive and descriptive writing. All major areas of grammar will be encountered, laying the foundations for future study of the language and its nuances.
  Seminars also introduce students to language in context. Students are exposed to new vocabulary, expressions and nuances of use through reading, translation and writing exercises based on sources from the Francophone world.
  2. Conversation Class (1hr per week)
  Led by a native speaker, this class develops students’ listening and speaking skills in French. The content from seminars is deployed in a range of practical scenarios likely to be experienced in French -speaking countries.

  Skills

  On successful completion of the modules students should have developed the following range of skills: A comprehensive dexterity using French grammar; Translation skills; text analysis; essay writing; lexicographical skills; report writing skills; IT skills; presentation skills; spoken language skills.

  Coursework

  45%

  Examination

  35%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  1

  Credits

  40

  Module Code

  FRH1121

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  24 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Core

  French 1 (40 credits)

  ×

  French 1

  Overview

  This module aims to consolidate and develop the students existing written and oral language skills and knowledge of French and Francophone culture, equip them with professional and employability skills and prepare them to go further in the study of French. It consists of four elements designed to provide a comprehensive consolidation of French language competence:
  
  1. Language Seminar (1hr per week)
  Seminar aims to develop students ability to understand, translate and compose French language materials in a range of forms: text, image, audio-visual. Language will be engaged in context, guided by themes such as University life, Culture and Identity and Culture and Communication. Linguistic competence will be developed through a range of methods that may include: group discussion, comprehension, translation, responsive and essay writing.
  
  2. Grammar Workshop (1hr per week)
  Workshop designed to consolidate and enrich students' knowledge and understanding of French grammar and syntax. All major areas of grammar will be encountered, laying the foundations for future study of the language and its nuances. It focuses particularly on developing competence in the key area of translation into French.
  
  3. Professional skills (1hr per week)
  The class focuses on language skills for special purposes and contains two strands: Language for Business and Language for Law. Both provide linguistic and socio-cultural knowledge important to work-related situations in different fields.
  
  4. Conversation class (1hr per week)
  Conversation class is led by a native speaker of French and compliments the content of the Language hour. Students will meet in small groups to discuss, debate and present on the main themes of the course.

  Learning Outcomes

  On successful completion of the modules students should:
  1. Be able to read French texts in a variety of forms and demonstrate a sensitivity to their detail and nuance in speech, writing and when translating.
  2. Be able to produce French texts appropriate to different requirements and registers.
  3. Be able to investigate, structure and present a complex argument in longer pieces of written work.
  4. Be able to communicate using more sophisticated grammatical and syntactical constructions with a good level of accuracy (without basic errors).

  Skills

  On successful completion of the modules students should have developed the following range of skills: comprehensive dexterity using French grammar; translation skills; text analysis; comprehension; essay writing; lexicographical skills; report writing skills; IT skills; presentation skills; spoken language skills

  Coursework

  45%

  Examination

  35%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  1

  Credits

  40

  Module Code

  FRH1101

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  24 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Core

  English in Transition (20 credits)

  ×

  English in Transition

  Overview

  This module is envisaged as introducing students to literary interpretation as conceived by English studies at university level. It aims to provide students with critical skills and technical vocabulary necessary to study poetry and prose for the rest of their degree. The module focuses on a small selection of texts designed to help students make the transition from the critical strategies used at A-level to those of academic English. In turn, the two sections of the module include contributions from the Heaney Centre and creative writing colleagues and the mode of assessment will allow for reflective development of writing skills through resubmission of formative writing for summative assessment.

  Learning Outcomes

  At the end of this module students will have learned to read and analyze poetry and prose using the techniques, vocabularies and approaches of contemporary academic English studies. They will have made the transition from reading and writing at A-level, having learned the research skills and critical terminologies necessary for the close, contextual reading of prose and poetry and writing about both genres in a suitably academic register. They will be equipped to undertake advanced study of literary works in semester two modules.

  Skills

  Students will learn to develop: critical and analytical skills; methods of textual analysis appropriate to the genres of poetry and prose; writing and research skills appropriate to degree-level English; oral presentation skills; independent study skills; and an ability to collaborate and work in groups; the ability to read and prepare for weekly lectures and tutorials.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  1

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG1001

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Core

  Introduction to English Language (20 credits)

  ×

  Introduction to English Language

  Overview

  This module offers a broad introduction to key topics in English language. It lays the foundations for the systematic study of the language in all its diversity. Among the topics covered are: common beliefs about “good” and “bad” accents and dialects; phonetics, syntax and morphology; and the social, situational and geographical variation in language, with an emphasis on the history and development of the English language. Another important area of inquiry is how language works in cultural contexts and intersects with issues of power and gender. In summary, the module enables students to move beyond ‘common-sense’ ideas about language towards the academic and analytic perspective appropriate for university level.

  Learning Outcomes

  On successful completion of this module, students will have become aware of the levels of structure which make up the spoken and written varieties of a language, the communicative functions of these levels, and of the relevant descriptive and analytical frameworks to analyse and describe them, with regard both to present-day English and to stages in its historical development. Students will also have gained the skills for the confident oral delivery of some of the issues and topics addressed on the Course.

  Skills

  While Units One and Two focus on theoretical and analytical concepts and frameworks, Units Three and Four provide case studies from ‘real-world’ contexts such as the media and the historical development of the English language, to which students will apply the skills they have gained in Units One and Two. The module incorporates online assessment for Units One and Two, which will account for 30% of the mark and will take the form of online exercises, to be completed by students in weeks 3-6. Units Three and Four will be assessed at the end of the semester as essay assignments, worth 70% in total. Students will write two essays of 1400-1700 words each: one essay will address the issues covered in Unit Three (35%), and the other essay will address the issues covered in Unit Four (35%).

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  1

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENL1001

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Core

  Issues in Contemporary Fiction: Gender, Race, Ecology (20 credits)

  ×

  Issues in Contemporary Fiction: Gender, Race, Ecology

  Overview

  This module examines a broad sample of recent fiction. In doing so, it raises a set of general questions: 1) whose contemporary experience does this literature address? 2) what economic or political factors lead to a shared sense of the contemporary? 3) how does modern fiction relate to these broader social forces? The module has a three-part structure. Section 1 examines the sociology of contemporary taste; it focuses on the institutions and practices that shape aesthetic judgement. Section 2 analyses literary treatments of contemporary political issues and examines the suitability of literature as a vehicle for political reflection. The final section of the module explores the ways in which recent fiction has raised questions about the nature and function of religion in the modern world.

  Learning Outcomes

  At the end of this module students will have gained a general understanding of the theoretical and methodological issues that surround the study of contemporary literature. Students will have learned to subject a range of recent fiction to a technical or formal analysis. They will also be able to read texts in context and will have a basic understanding of the social, economic, and political forces that shape these contexts.

  Skills

  Students will learn to develop a) analytical skills b) methods of textual analysis c) an understanding of meta-critical issues d) a clear and succinct writing style e) oral presentation skills f) a capacity for independent inquiry g) an ability to collaborate and work in groups h) computer skills.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  1

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG1002

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Core

  Intermediate French (40 credits)

  ×

  Intermediate French

  Overview

  This module aims to consolidate and develop the students existing written and oral language skills and knowledge of French and Francophone culture, equip them with professional and employability skills and prepare them to go further in the study of French. It includes an intensive language focused class, which will help students without A Level standard French to develop the linguistic proficiency required for the subject at degree level. It consists of four elements designed to provide a comprehensive consolidation of French language competence:
  
  1. Language Seminar (1hr per week)
  Seminar aims to develop students ability to understand, translate and compose French language materials in a range of forms: text, image, audio-visual. Language will be engaged in context, guided by themes such as University life, Culture and Identity and Culture and Communication. Linguistic competence will be developed through a range of methods that may include: group discussion, comprehension, translation, responsive and essay writing.
  
  2. Grammar Workshop (1hr per week)
  Workshop designed to consolidate and enrich students knowledge and understanding of French grammar and syntax. All major areas of grammar will be encountered, laying the foundations for future study of the language and its nuances. It focuses particularly on developing competence in the key area of translation into French.
  
  3. Professional skills (1hr per week)
  The class focuses on language skills for special purposes and contains two strands: Language for Business and Language for Law. Both provide linguistic and socio-cultural knowledge important to work-related situations in different fields.
  
  4. Conversation class (1hr per week)
  Conversation class is led by a native speaker of French and compliments the content of the Language hour. Students will meet in small groups to discuss, debate and present on the main themes of the course.

  Learning Outcomes

  On successful completion of the modules students should:
  1. Be able to read French texts in a variety of forms and demonstrate a sensitivity to their detail and nuance in speech, writing and when translating.
  2. Be able to produce French texts appropriate to different requirements and registers.
  3. Be able to investigate, structure and present a complex argument in longer pieces of written work.
  4. Be able to communicate using more sophisticated grammatical and syntactical constructions with a good level of accuracy (without basic errors).

  Skills

  On successful completion of the modules students should have developed the following range of skills: comprehensive dexterity using French grammar; translation skills; text analysis; comprehension; essay writing; lexicographical skills; report writing skills; IT skills; presentation skills; spoken language skills

  Coursework

  45%

  Examination

  35%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  1

  Credits

  40

  Module Code

  FRH1111

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  24 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Core

  Optional Modules

  Intro to French Studies 1 (20 credits)

  ×

  Intro to French Studies 1

  Overview

  This module will introduce students to key areas of contextual studies in French, i.e. literature, culture, the visual arts and linguistics. There will be two 'strands' within the module, and across the two strands, students will be introduced to all four areas. The core material will include both French and francophone texts, film, images and data. Each strand will form a coherent whole in terms of both teaching and assessment.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students will acquire an introductory knowledge of key fields in French Studies, notably literature, culture, the visual arts and linguistics. They will acquire key skills in how to approach these fields in preparation for optional modules in Levels 2 and 3. They will further acquire skills in time management, written and oral communication, and skills in marshalling complex information and constructing an argument.

  Skills

  Skills in how to approach and analyse texts, images and data for future work in literature, the visual arts, linguistics; skills in oral and written communication; skills in marshalling large amounts of data and structuring an argument; skills in time management.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  1

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH1003

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Intro to French Studies 2 (20 credits)

  ×

  Intro to French Studies 2

  Overview

  This module will introduce students to key areas of contextual studies in French, ie. literature, culture, the visual arts and linguistics. There will be two 'strands' within the module, and across the two stands, students will be introduced to all four areas. The core material will include both French and francophone texts, film, images and data. Each strand will form a coherent whole in terms of both teaching and assessment.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students will acquire an introductory knowledge of key fields in French Studies, notably literature, culture, the visual arts and linguistics. They will acquire key skills in how to approach these fields in preparation for optional modules in Levels 2 and 3. They will further acquire skills in time management, written and oral communication, and skills in marshalling complex information and constructing an argument.

  Skills

  Skills in how to approach and analyse texts, images and data for future work in literature, the visual arts, linguistics; skills in oral and written communication; skills in marshalling large amounts of data and structuring an argument; skills in time management.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  1

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH1004

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

• Year 2

  Core Modules

  French 2 (40 credits)

  ×

  French 2

  Overview

  Course contents: Building on skills acquired at Level 1, this module aims to consolidate productive (writing and speaking) and receptive (reading and listening) skills in French language. Key components are: comprehension, translation into English and into French, résumé, grammar, CV preparation. The oral French component includes presentations and preparation for job interviews. Languages for special purposes strands equip students in law or business with skills for legal and professional contexts.
  This module will contain the following elements:
  1.Written language (2 hrs per week)
  This component will focus on enhancing ability in written French through engagement with a range of journalistic and literary written texts at appropriate level. A variety of topics will be covered, dealing with current themes in society and topical issues. Written language tasks include translation (from and into French), résumé, comprehension and grammar exercises.
  2.Oral language (1 hr per week)
  This component will focus on enhancing ability in oral French. A variety of topics and themes are covered, which aim to develop knowledge of issues in present-day France, prepare students for the year abroad and for job interviews in the target language. Stimulus materials from a range of media (textual, visual, audio, video) are used.
  3.Contextual Study (filière; 1 hr per week)
  This component will raise awareness of cultural and linguistic issues in French and allow students to deepen their perspective of the field, as well as preparing students for a residence in a French-speaking country.

  Learning Outcomes

  Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of the modules students should:
  1) be able to demonstrate fluency, accuracy and spontaneity in spoken and written French, with a broad range of vocabulary and expression, so as to be able to discuss a variety of complex issues;
  2) be able to read wide variety of French texts and identify important information and ideas within them;
  3) be able to translate a range of texts into and from French;
  4) have developed a detailed critical understanding of representative textual and other material;
  5) be able to engage in complex problem-solving exercises.

  Skills

  On successful completion of the modules students should have developed the following range of skills:
  Skills in written and oral expression; critical awareness and problem-solving; close textual analysis; translation; comprehension; presentation; IT skills; employability skills, such as interview technique and cv preparation.

  Coursework

  45%

  Examination

  35%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  40

  Module Code

  FRH2101

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  24 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  Yes

  Core/Optional

  Core

  Optional Modules

  Romantic Poetry, 1789-1832 (20 credits)

  ×

  Romantic Poetry, 1789-1832

  Overview

  The Romantic period (c.1789-1832) witnessed dramatic social and historical change as the effects of major events such as the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, widespread Enclosure and the Industrial Revolution initiated the sense of ‘living in history’. In the midst of these revolutionary changes, poets wrote with new confidence of the importance of the imagination, as a creative and utopian force; of the beauty, fragility and power of the natural world; of political ideals of social justice; of the arguments for gender equality. Poetry became synonymous with the imagination as a force which could unite idealism with social change. This module studies a range of Romantic poetry, including but not restricted to, the work of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, William Blake, Lord Byron, John Clare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Robinson, Felicia Hemans, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Charlotte Smith, and William Wordsworth. Poems will be studied through the key themes of the revolutionary imagination; the natural world; the language of class; representations of childhood; slavery and feminism. One hour of each week’s seminar time will comprise a close reading of one key poem for that week’s discussion, with the second hour being used for more generalized and broader discussion. The module will also include a specialised library visit and a field trip connected with the natural world.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students completing this module will have learned to read poetry in terms of its formal techniques and effects and to situate these interpretations in a range of contexts both historical and contemporary. They will be able to read and contextualize poetry of the Romantic period in particular, and to understand its significance for contemporary literature and society. They will be able to distinguish and appreciate a diversity of poetic genres and styles characteristic of the period, and to read and interrogate a range of diverse kinds of poetry in a critical way. Students will be equipped to debate political, aesthetic and social issues in an informed way with regard to their historical development, and their continued development in modern forms. Students will also be able to interrogate constructions of Romanticism and to deconstruct its various claims from contemporary perspectives both supportive and critical of its legacy for the modern world.

  Skills

  Students who have completed this module will be able to:
  
  • Interpret a range of poems in ways which are attuned to their aesthetic effects and contextual meanings.
  • Debate various aesthetic, social and political issues produced in poetry of the Romantic period.
  • Show an understanding of formal and generic developments in poetry with regard to intellectual history.
  • Examine the ways in which literary texts are implicated in the emergence of dominant understandings of political and social discourses.
  • Demonstrate transferrable skills in the forms of critical thinking, group discussion, written communication, and individual academic research.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2063

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Utopia / Dystopia: The Future in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Literature (20 credits)

  ×

  Utopia / Dystopia: The Future in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Literature

  Overview

  In the late nineteenth century, utopian literature met speculative fiction: the ‘nowhere’ of utopia was reimagined as the future, which was conceived as both the best and worst possible worlds. This course examines a variety of late nineteenth-century utopias and dystopias, but also shows the ways this imaginative tradition shaped literary prediction in the twentieth century (including works by Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Margaret Atwood). It considers the ways twentieth-century writers both engaged with their literary predecessors and rewrote utopian and dystopian traditions to speak to the urgency of their own political moments. From the dangers and promises of science and technology to the future of feminism, socialism, race and mass culture, we will explore what utopias and dystopias reveal about their own historical moments, and analyze the claim that one person’s utopia is another’s dystopia.
  
  Indicative selection of texts
  
  Edward Bulwer Lytton, The Coming Race
  H. G. Wells, The Time Machine
  William Morris, News from Nowhere
  Catherine Helen Spence, A Week in the Future
  Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland
  E. M. Forster, ‘The Machine Stops’
  Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
  George Orwell, 1984
  Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

  Learning Outcomes

  At the end of this course, students will be able to analyze the evolving generic traits of political fantasy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and will have gained an understanding of utopian, dystopian and speculative fiction as literary forms. They will be able to relate utopian and dystopian fiction to social debates and historical changes in the period in which it was produced (including debates over feminism, socialism, evolutionary biology and eugenics and the future of democracy and mass culture). They will be capable of analyzing the political function of utopian and dystopian literature, and the role of reading communities in the evolution of the genre. Students will be able to use their understanding of genre to reflect on continuities with as well as changes between late Victorian and twentieth-century literature.

  Skills

  • A demonstrable understanding of the relationship between the political and the literary, and an ability to see the relevance of debates generated by this ‘literature of ideas’ to the present as well as the past
  • Transferrable skills in the forms of group discussion, ability to present material to peers and individual research and essay writing skills – the ability to synthesize texts and create a clear analytical argument
  • The ability to interweave close and historical reading skills – a demonstrable awareness of the ways historical and cultural change shapes literary form within political fantasy from the nineteenth to the twentieth century
  • Ability to apply theoretical and historical debates over genre (utopian and dystopian and speculative fiction) to a range of literary contexts
  • An ability to show the ways fiction is shaped by reading communities as well as writers (including socialist and feminist readerships).

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2065

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Fiction and the Novel (1660-1820) (20 credits)

  ×

  Fiction and the Novel (1660-1820)

  Overview

  This module examines the development of prose fiction in English from the later seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century. This is the period in which the novel emerged in its recognisably modern form, establishing itself as an important genre within literary culture. It was also an era of generic experimentation, as writers debated the nature of the novel, took the form in new directions, and grappled with earlier modes of writing in prose, such as romance and picaresque, allegorical and fantastical fiction. In this module, we explore the variety of prose fiction published during this period: from romance and amatory fiction, through works of realism and social comedy, to the sentimental and Gothic modes that emerged in the later eighteenth century. These works engaged closely with contemporary social, cultural and political issues, and we will consider texts that address topics such as travel and empire; science and civilisation; marriage and gender; crime, morality and the state of the nation. By considering these works in their literary and cultural contexts, the module both highlights the diversity of fiction written during this era and charts the early history of the novel up to the sophisticated narratives of Jane Austen.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students will have developed higher-level knowledge and understanding of prose fiction during the period 1660-1820. They will be able to identify the different kinds and modes of fiction published during this period, including romance and amatory fiction, works of realism and social comedy, the sentimental and Gothic modes. They will be equipped to assess critical arguments concerning the ‘rise’ of the novel as a distinctive literary genre during the ‘long’ eighteenth century. They will also be able to situate this body of fiction more broadly within its literary and cultural contexts. On completing the module, then, students will be able to articulate the key types of fiction in English during the period up to (and including) Austen, theories about the novel’s emergence as a literary form, and the engagement of these works with a range of contemporary issues.

  Skills

  Having completed this module students will be able to:
  
  • Analyse works of prose fiction published during the ‘long’ eighteenth century, in terms of genre, technique, and social and cultural contexts
  • Demonstrate understanding of the variety of forms, modes and styles within fiction during this period, and the pre-history of some of these ways of writing
  • Adjudicate critical and theoretical ideas regarding the ‘rise’ or emergence of the novel genre during the period up to Austen
  • Demonstrate understanding of the particular issues explored within this body of fiction - from issues such as marriage and travel to concerns about crime, morality and empire
  • Demonstrate transferrable skills in the forms of group discussion, written communication, and individual research

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2061

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Modernism and Modernity (20 credits)

  ×

  Modernism and Modernity

  Overview

  This module introduces students to the literature and culture of the period 1900-1930, with a focus on the literary movements grouped under the term ‘modernism’. These literary texts will be examined as complicated and ambivalent responses to the experience of modernity. Students will cover key figures of British and Irish ‘High Modernism’, including James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot, alongside American modernists and writers of the so-called ‘middle brow’. Particular attention will be paid to the historical contexts in which these texts were produced, and on their conditions of publication and consumption. These contexts include: the aftermath of the Great War; gender politics, from the New Woman to Suffrage and beyond; the politics of race; terrorism and violence; queer sexualities; urban decay and urban development; the relationship between cultural centres and peripheries; poetry and its publics; American cultural politics; media, and the rise of youth cultures. More broadly, the modules will explore theories and manifestations of ‘modernity’, examining the challenges of modern technologies and social formations to literary practice.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students will have developed an appropriate knowledge and understanding of the literature of modernity. They will be able to read a variety of texts from the period 1900-1930, including novels, poems, short stories, novellas, and periodical essays. Students will be able to read these texts in relation to a number of contexts, including political, social, and cultural developments. They will also develop the skills to read these texts with an eye to their formal complexity and ingenuity, tying this experimentation to the dynamic social contexts to which they responded. Students will be introduced to a number of digital resources that will encourage their independent research into the periodical publication of modernist works. Moreover students will be able to interrogate a number of dominant critical frameworks, including: those that have, until recently, elevated modernism above the broader literary culture of the period; those that diminish the influence of Victorian literature on modernism.

  Skills

  Having completed this module students will be able to:
  
  • Analyse modernist literature in both a historical and critical context.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the complex relationship between formal literary innovation and social transformations.
  • Examine the relationship between ‘high’ cultural forms and the so-called ‘middle brow’ works of the period.
  • Explore how literary texts challenged dominant understandings of race, gender, and class.
  • Demonstrate transferrable skills in the forms of critical thinking, group discussion, written communication, and individual academic research.
  • Demonstrate advanced research skills, in particular the use of digital platforms to explore the nature of modernist periodicals.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2060

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Enlightenment and its Discontents (20 credits)

  ×

  Enlightenment and its Discontents

  Overview

  This module introduces students to the intellectual arguments and counter-arguments of the period known as the Age of Enlightenment, running through the long eighteenth century and embodied in its literature. As an increasing emphasis on rationality as a means to human understanding came to challenge earlier forms of social and political legitimacy, attitudes to self and identity; science and religion; gender and sexuality; politics and government were significantly reformulated from the eighteenth century onwards, with literature and the arts reflecting and participating in the broad historical movement that this shift in thinking represented. We will introduce and debate some of these key ideas of the Enlightenment (or of the various forms of Enlightenment) in relation to the development of generic categories and poetic forms over the period. The module will be organized around a series of texts and debates implicated in significant cultural and historical developments such as the growth of individualism, consumerism, ideas of political liberty and rights, and of the nation and its overseas empire. The module will include selections of poetry and prose (including literary forms such as the periodical essay, life writings, the political pamphlet, and the novel) to be read in relation to contextual, literary-theoretical, and historical considerations. We will also examine revisionist responses to the Enlightenment, reflecting the interests of contemporary authors seeking to represent the marginalized or silenced voices of the period such as those of women, labouring classes, slaves, and colonial others.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students completing this module will have gained, through their engagement with literary texts and genres, an understanding of major Enlightenment ideas and their impact on historical development. They will be able to read and contextualize literature of eighteenth century in particular with regard to such ideas, and to discern their significance for contemporary literature and society. They will be able to distinguish and appreciate a diversity of genres and texts characteristic of the period, and to read and interrogate such genres and texts in a critical way. They will be introduced to major digital resources giving them the skills that will enable independent research should they wish to progress further in this area. Students will be equipped to debate political, religious and social issues in an informed way with regard to the emergence of such controversies, and their continued development in modern forms. Students will also be able interrogate constructions of the Enlightenment and to deconstruct its various claims from contemporary perspectives critical of its legacy for the modern world.

  Skills

  Students who have completed this module will be able to:
  
  • Analyse literary texts with regard to the major intellectual debates and forms of knowledge generated by Enlightenment thinking.
  • Debate various religious, social and political issues produced in literature relating to Enlightenment.
  • Demonstrate research skills with regard to the use of digital platforms such as Eighteenth-Century Collections Online and British Periodicals with regard to the exploration of such topics.
  • Show an understanding of formal and generic developments in literature with regard to intellectual history.
  • Examine the ways in which literary texts are implicated in the emergence of dominant understandings of political and social discourses.
  • Demonstrate transferrable skills in the forms of critical thinking, group discussion, written communication, and individual academic research.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2064

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Dickens and the Cult of Celebrity (20 credits)

  ×

  Dickens and the Cult of Celebrity

  Overview

  We are all familiar with people who have recently been quickly catapulted to the heights of fame and public attention. The status of such individuals is often associated with wealth and public exposure, and the rise of mass media makes it much easier for them to gain publicity and recognition instantly, across the world. But has it always been this way?
  
  This module will examine the career and legacy of Charles Dickens, who was first recognised for his extraordinary creativity, in producing the works of literature for which he is best known. He was also, however, a careful and intelligent manipulator of his own public image, to the extent that the catchphrase ‘the man who invented Christmas’ survives to this day. By carefully scrutinising Dickens through fiction, journalism, letters, advertising, biography, photography, and film, students will come to understand just how ‘constructed’ this Victorian superstar was; they will also understand how the means he, his publishers, agents, and advisors, and his inheritors employed to develop and maintain his public image serve as forerunners for the phenomenon of celebrity culture in our own day.
  
  Indicative set texts & other media:
  
  Lee Barron, Celebrity Cultures: An Introduction (Sage, 2015)
  Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
  Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
  Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
  Ralph Fiennes, The Invisible Woman (DVD 2013)
  Bharat Naluri, The Man Who Invented Christmas (DVD 2017)
  Michael Slater, Charles Dickens (Yale UP, 2011)

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students will have developed an appropriate knowledge and understanding of the history of celebrity, and the role it has played in shaping cultural values. They will be able to read and engage critically with key Dickens novels from the 1830s-1850s, as well as with his journalism and letters. They will also be able to examine and perform critical assessments on other media that feature Dickens as the central figure, including film, photography, and advertising. Students will be able to analyse and interrogate the ways in which various media project the idea of celebrity in light of their target audiences, and will be able to assess the effects of the strategies employed.

  Skills

  Having completed this module you will be able to:
  
  • Analyse Dickens’s literary texts in both historical and critical contexts.
  • Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the meaning of ‘celebrity’ and the role it has played in shaping cultural values
  • Examine how textual and visual media have had an impact upon the development of celebrity
  • Explore the construction of the author as a complex amalgam of creative ability and targeted media manipulation
  • Demonstrate how celebrities become brands in their own right, and are used in marketing to promote products and services
  • Demonstrate transferrable skills in the forms of critical thinking, group discussion, written communication, and individual academic research.
  • Demonstrate advanced research skills, in particular the use of digital platforms to explore the nature of celebrity culture

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2066

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Diachronic Linguistics: Exploring language change (20 credits)

  ×

  Diachronic Linguistics: Exploring language change

  Overview

  This module uses the various stages of the English language from the 5th century through to the present day as the backdrop for the introduction of specific concepts used in the analysis of language change. By exploring key syntactic, morphological and semantic changes in the history of English, students will engage with current theories of diachronic change and be encouraged to apply theoretical concepts to empirical data. Typical topics that will be covered include morpho-phonology in the verbal and nominal domains, changes in word order, grammaticalisation and null subjects (although not necessarily all in each year).

  Learning Outcomes

  By the end of the module, students will be able to draw on the main stages of the diachrony of the English language to explain the basic mechanisms of language change. Students will also be able to employ appropriate methods for observing and describing language change phenomena in the morphology, with specific reference to syntax, morphology and semantics of English and related varieties.

  Skills

  By the end of the module, students will be able to draw on the main stages of the diachrony of the English language to explain the basic mechanisms of language change. The students will also be able to employ descriptive methods in order to observe and describe language change phenomena in the morphology, syntax and semantics of English and related varieties.

  Coursework

  80%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENL2003

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Algeria and France: Trauma, Forgetting, Re-Membering (20 credits)

  ×

  Algeria and France: Trauma, Forgetting, Re-Membering

  Overview

  Algeria was a prized French colony between 1830 and 1962. Its bloody liberation struggle from France was marked by atrocities on both sides. France’s role in such practices as torture, the enforced disappearance of Algerian nationalists, and most shockingly, in the police massacre of dozens of peaceful Algerian protesters, who were thrown into the Seine in October 1962, was for many years repressed and denied. The legacy of this conflict continues to determine relations between France and North Africa, has had a profound influence on politics and culture in contemporary France, and indeed impacts contemporary international relations more generally.
  
  This module explores this contested, and still unprocessed, past, examining a number of films and texts that interrogate the war and its aftermath. It also introduces students to a number of significant theoretical ideas (Pierre Nora’s lieu de mémoire; Cathy Caruth’s trauma and latency; Henri Rousso’s ‘passé qui ne passe pas’; Michael Rothberg’s multidirectional memory) that help us to better understand the operation—and manipulation—of memory, the impact of trauma, and the difficulty in coming to terms, over generations, with a painful past.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of the course, students will be able to:
  
  1. Demonstrate a basic understanding of French colonialism in general, and a more in-depth understanding of the French colonial presence in North Africa
  
  2. Be able to analyse in detail a range of literary and cinematic works, in order to understand how the story of the Algerian war and its aftermath is presented, and to what political ends
  
  3. Be able to engage critically and sensitively with a range of fictional materials, presented from radically different political perspectives (eg French setter/pied noir; harki, Algerian Muslim) and have reached an understanding of what this multiperspectivity brings in terms of understanding a still very unsettled narrative
  
  4. Have understood the evolution in our understanding of this conflict, taking account of French denial of its very existence, the role that propaganda played for both sides, the significance of intergenerational memory and forgetting/repression, and the effect of the opening of the archives
  
  5. Understand the continuing importance of this historical moment for contemporary politics
  
  6. Demonstrate understanding of contemporary theories of memory, trauma and repression

  Skills

  · Close textual analysis
  · Close visual analysis
  · Comparative analysis
  · Critical engagement
  · Independent research and time management

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH2035

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Adaptation as Interdisciplinary Practice (20 credits)

  ×

  Adaptation as Interdisciplinary Practice

  Overview

  This module asks students to examine the process and challenges of adapting works, either within the same medium in a different time or place, or between different media, with staff from across the school collaborating to offer students an understanding of how different media work, and how the differences between those media impact the process of adaptation. The class will also examine how adaptation plays an integral role in the process of translation. Each week students will examine several versions of a play, novel, and/or film script (or watch them), looking at originals from the Greeks forward to see how adaptors have grappled with great works of different eras and cultures in an attempt to make them more accessible to contemporary audiences, while at the same time (in most cases) attempting to preserve something of their original context. The class will also look at theoretical models of adaptation. Ultimately, students will be asked to examine the adaptation history of a single original work in an academic essay, and will try their own hand at adaptation in presenting a treatment for a work of fiction, drama, film, or any other form, adapted from a prior work.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, you should:
  
  Understand the history of adaptation in drama and other forms.
  Be able to analyse translations and adaptations
  Be able to identify the rationale behind what is altered and what is kept.
  Become adapters on their own.

  Skills

  Research and analytical skills
  Performance skills
  Communication and speech
  Interacting with others (both in interactions between performer and director, as well as performer and audience)
  Technical proficiency

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  AEL2002

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Gender, Culture, and Representation – Backwards & in Heels (20 credits)

  ×

  Gender, Culture, and Representation – Backwards & in Heels

  Overview

  This interdisciplinary module introduces students to the central ideas of gender theory and to a wide variety of representations of gender across a range of media, including theatre, performance, literature, visual art, film and television. Using key texts and cultural works students are encouraged to examine critically the representation of gender across media, and the political, legal, and ethical dimensions of gender within our culture. The module involves a critical engagement with the relationship between identity, representation and culture and explores theories concerning the social construction of the masculine and feminine body. The module engages with several key issues, including the representation of femininity and masculinity, gender in the literary and theatrical canon of Western culture, the spatiality and temporality of gender, and its intersections with issues of race/ethnicity, class, and labour. Students will be asked to think about these issues and ideas across disciplines but also within their areas of study through seminars.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, you should:
  
  * have engaged with a variety of representations of gender, the body and sexual identities within socio-historical, theoretical and representational frameworks and across multiple forms of media,
  
  * have cultivated an understanding of the theoretical and practical movements that have shaped the construction and representation of gender, sexuality and the body in culture,
  
  * have developed a critical understanding of the relationship between representation and identity.

  Skills

  Having completed this module, you should:
  
  * have developed reflexive thinking and independent critical and analytical skills.
  
  * have developed imaginative and communicative skills based on the application of reading materials to class presentations
  
  * have developed research and writing skills

  Coursework

  60%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  40%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  AEL2001

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Inventing America (20 credits)

  ×

  Inventing America

  Overview

  This module analyses the historical, literary and philosophical movements that generated the American literary tradition in the nineteenth century. It will introduce students to the key critical and cultural contexts, writers and movements of the American Renaissance as well as the counter narratives (cited in questions of gender, race, slavery as well as US religious and historical legacies) that produced enduring documents of the nineteenth century. In part, the module is a digest of canonical American writing of the period but one that allows students to read through and beyond the texts and into the major debates underpinning the writing from the new world between circa 1830 and 1900. Backgrounding the module’s discussions are key historical events and phenomena particular to the United States (e.g., the 1830s banking collapse; the American Civil War; demographic and population changes) and students will be encouraged to fuse their literary investigations with appropriate knowledge of historical and social contexts.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of this module, students will have a sound knowledge of nineteenth-century American writing, in particular the rise and promise offered by Transcendentalism, the darker pessimism of the American realists, and the narratives and poetry of American discordance registered in slave narratives and texts dealing specifically with gender, race, and the power systems of American society. The developing influence of capitalism, the economic justifications for the horrors of slavery, and the self-conscious development of American individualism all feature as key questions that the module discusses. By moving between a range of genres – philosophical essays, econarratives, poetry, horror fiction, slave narratives, psychological tales, historical fiction – students will be equipped as multi-modal readers and critics of the developing forms of nineteenth-century American writing.

  Skills

  Students will, on completion of this module, be able to:
  • analyse a range of nineteenth-century American writing from different perspectives in terms of genre, historical significance, literary techniques and variations of form;
  • demonstrate a good understanding of the period known as the American Renaissance
  • identify key aspects of American writing from the nineteenth century
  • understand the cross-currents of American literary production set against contemporary debates concerning class, gender and race
  • demonstrate a range of transferable skills in the forms of presentation skills, group discussion, individual research and written communication

  Coursework

  80%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2172

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Modern American Fiction: Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality (20 credits)

  ×

  Modern American Fiction: Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality

  Overview

  This module introduces students to some of the key American novelists, contexts and critical issues associated with the modern era, roughly interpreted as the first half of the twentieth century (c.1920-1950). It does not ignore the orthodox intellectual approaches to the era, namely that of the modern or modernism and how the representative fiction of the era sought to find new forms and languages suitable to the task of interrogating this modernity. However, rather than rehearsing old debates about national particularity, the “melting pot” and US exceptionalism, the focus of this module is the ways in which exemplary African-American, female, working class and gay novelists, as well as their white, male counterparts, sought to undo and re-write narratives of identity and belonging according to particularities of race, class, gender and sexuality. Particular attention is paid to the interplay between narratives of affirmation and negation (or ‘noir’). The module examines these axes of difference as multiple and overlapping, rather than mutually exclusive; hence the focus is on the narrative, formal and linguistic complexities thrown up the re-making of American fiction through the related and diverging prisms of class and race, for example, or gender and sexuality, or even in terms of race, gender, class and sexuality. A repeated concern of the module is whether or to what extent we can use US fiction of the era to trace and interrogate wider social and political challenges to dominant/normative understandings of the United States, modernity, capitalism, and national identity. The set texts reflect this heterogeneity in terms of the writers to be studied and in terms of the diversity of styles, forms and genres that make up American fiction of the era.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students will have developed an appropriate knowledge and understanding of modern American fiction (c. 1900-1950). They will be able to identify the ways in which representative novels of the era interrogate the modern era and the complex relationship between literary form, popular culture and modernism as organizing concepts. They will also be able to examine and reflect upon the complex ways in which dominant and singular narratives of national belonging are untold and reimagined according to the related and overlapping categories of race, class, gender and sexuality – and the implications of this for an understanding of “American” fiction. They will be able to offer close readings of this fiction according to its use of literary form and language and its thematizations of the urban, the modern, “noir”, capitalism, gender and sexuality and race and class. On completion of the module, students will be able to reflect upon the usefulness of fiction of the era to contest received or orthodox accounts of US political, social and economic life and potentially to intervene in this life for affirmative and/or politically progressive ends.

  Skills

  Having completed this module students will be able to:
  
  • Analyse modern American fiction paying attention to theoretical/conceptual and contextual issues and develop close critical readings of a diverse range of fiction.
  • Demonstrate understanding of the complex relationship between literary forms and socio-political transformations.
  • Think about the synthesis and weighting of different, sometimes competing interpretations of literary texts.
  • Reflect on the usefulness of race, class, gender and sexuality as organizing categories to interrogate the exemplary fiction of the era and its thematizations of US identities.
  • Demonstrate transferrable skills in the forms of critical thinking, group discussion, written communication, and individual academic research
  • Demonstrate digital literacy skills required to make a digital map, using relevant software programmes, relating to one of the set texts.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2173

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Irish Literature (20 credits)

  ×

  Irish Literature

  Overview

  This module introduces students to the extraordinary diversity and achievement of Irish literature, from the Act of Union in 1800 to the late twentieth century. The module is chronologically structured, and places particular emphasis on situating texts in their wider historical contexts, as well as developing their relations to broader European movements and traditions. Encompassing poetry, fiction, and drama, the module considers a range of themes, such as romanticism, gender, the gothic, cultural nationalism, the politics of modernity, liminality and exile, and northern perspectives on an Irish tradition. Writers studied will include W. B. Yeats, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of this module the student should have an ability to set Irish literature in its historical context; an ability to make connections between differing genres of Irish writing; an ability to scrutinise the politics of Irish writing.

  Skills

  On completion of this module you should have an ability to set Irish literature in its historical context; an ability to make connections between differing genres of Irish writing and an ability to scrutinise the politics of Irish writing.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2081

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Shakespeare and Co (20 credits)

  ×

  Shakespeare and Co

  Overview

  This module introduces students to the drama of the English Renaissance. It explores texts by a wide range of authors, including Shakespeare, Cary, Marlowe, Middleton, Rowley and Webster and examines the forces working on drama in the early modern period. Lectures will provide an introduction to the dramatic form, close readings of the set plays, and readings in relation to contemporary issues such as nationality, authority, desire, religion, sexuality, gender, strangeness, race, identity, social standing, fantasy, magic and taboo.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of this module, students should have learned how to study dramatic form and how to relate a text to its context. Through class discussion and formative assessments, you should have further developed your oral and written communication skills.

  Skills

  To familiarize students with the range of drama produced during the English Renaissance; to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to undertake Renaissance modules in Stage 3.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2050

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Language and Power (20 credits)

  ×

  Language and Power

  Overview

  This module investigates the ways in which language intersects with the social and political reflexes of power and ideology. Students are encouraged to challenge, through exposure and then analysis, the discourse conventions that characterise the language of powerful groups and institutions. This module places particular emphasis on print and broadcast media, legal, political and advertising discourse, and on other forms of institutional rhetoric. Among the topics covered are: The Discourse of Institutions and Organisations; Power and Talk; Language and Gender; Language and Race; Language and the Law; Humour as Power; Political Discourse and the Language of Advertising.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students should be able to carry out systematic analysis of differing forms of language in different contexts of use. The moudle should help students to analyse a range of texts and practices, understand the ways in which language is used to exercise control, understand the anatomy of texts and text-types, especially print and broadcast media, and advertising discourse. Also analyse critically the interrelation between powerful institutions and the discourses they disseminate in the public sphere. Students should also further develop effective oral and written communication skills.

  Skills

  Students are invited to think in new ways about the English language in relation to its social and political context. Students should also develop skill in unpacking a variety of spoken and written texts, and in developing arguments about the way language practice is informed by and reinforces relationships of power. It is hoped that the course itself acts as an empowering tool, helping students to interrogate the discourse that surrounds them in everyday social contexts.

  Coursework

  80%

  Examination

  20%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENL2002

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Foundations for Speech Analysis: The Phonetics of English (20 credits)

  ×

  Foundations for Speech Analysis: The Phonetics of English

  Overview

  This module offers you an introduction to the study of speech analysis. We begin by investigating the mechanisms which are used to produce speech and providing a framework for the convenient classification and description of pronunciation features. We then examine accent variation, in terms of aspects such as contextual effects, intonation and voice quality. Finally, the module gives you the chance to acquire an understanding of the acoustic characteristics of speech. Throughout the module, you will be required to develop your oral and aural skills in phonetics by means of various practical and online facilities. While the module concentrates on normal English speech, we may also have the opportunity to consider data from non-English speech and from non-normal speech.

  Learning Outcomes

  This module should give a practical grounding in phonetics. Knowledge of how speech works is needed for a variety of occupations. Students intending to teach English will find phonetic skills essential in implementing oracy and literacy requirements in the classroom. Drama students can benefit from phonetic knowledge in order to deal with voice production, projection and accent learning. For foreign language learners and teachers, phonetics is invaluable in achieving target pronunciations. Future students of linguistics and communication should find that phonetics complements their study of linguistic communications and, finally, those interested in communication disorders need a detailed knowledge of speech production and perception in order to understand specific impairments and their effects..

  Skills

  When you have completed this module, you should be able to apply your knowledge of speech production and variation to a variety of communicative and educational situations. By means of your aural and oral training, you should have developed skills in detailed, analytic listening and in accurate perception, production and transcription of various phonetic distinctions. The 50% essay should enable you to acquire and demonstrate ability in critical assessment of, for example, the role of a speaker's phonetic profile in achieving particular communicative ends.

  Coursework

  50%

  Examination

  20%

  Practical

  30%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENL2001

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  French Noir (20 credits)

  ×

  French Noir

  Overview

  This Level 2 module introduces French postwar Film Noir and Crime Fiction. It will contextualize this cultural production within historical circumstances and trends of the period, such as American influences on French Culture, Existentialism, 'Leftism' and 'Néo-Noir'. Aesthestics of the 'Noir' genre will be studied through a variety of Media, including Film, Novel, Comics and Posters. Among the themes discussed will feature Depiction of the City, Slang ('argot') and Modern Morals.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students should, after completion of this module: have acquired an awareness of the relation between commercial culture and artistic culture; have gained an understanding of the process of reception and assimilation of foreign cultural products; be able to analyse how art forms converge in a cultural phenomenon such as the 'Noir'; be able to analyse different kinds of documents and draw upon relevant primary and secondary sources in order to present structured, cohesive arguments in oral and written form; have developed transferable skills in group work, time-management and in the use of Powerpoint.

  Skills

  Textual analysis skills; written and oral expression skills; critical analysis.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH2030

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  Yes

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Paris, City of Modernity (20 credits)

  ×

  Paris, City of Modernity

  Overview

  As the effects of political and industrial revolution in the nineteenth century transformed Paris into one of the great metropolises of the modern world, it became identified as a place of contrasts and contradictions which challenged, fascinated and even appalled observers. This module explores representations of modern life following Haussmann’s controversial redesign of Paris in the 1850s and l860s. Focusing on the impact of a changing urban space on gender, class, politics, capitalism and social experience, we examine the multiple and shifting identities of this city of modernity in a variety of texts (both literary and non-literary), as well as the narrative techniques used to represent its material, cultural and emotional effects.

  Learning Outcomes

  Upon successful completion of this module, students will be able to:
  
  a. Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the chosen texts, including reference to their place in the historical / literary / cultural context of their time;
  b. Understand better how a variety of writers integrated Paris into their writings, and how they depicted social, cultural and economic transformations;
  c. Discuss, in oral and written form, the essential features of urban space and life in Paris as depicted by a number of French writers;

  Skills

  This module will equip students with the capacity to:
  
  a. Analyse selected target language texts, relating them to significant elements in their cultural / historical / generic context.
  b. Deploy close reading skills and make meaningful contrasts and comparisons between the various texts studied.
  c. Adopt a critical approach to the selection and organisation of material in order to produce, to a deadline, a written or oral argument.
  d. Research, plan and present a cogent and sustained essay, in English or French, on a topic chosen from a range of options provided.
  e. Demonstrate general competence in word-processing and in use of the Internet.
  f. Manage their time effectively.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH2032

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Havoc and Rebellion: Writing and Reading Later Medieval England (20 credits)

  ×

  Havoc and Rebellion: Writing and Reading Later Medieval England

  Overview

  From the Black Death to the Uprising of 1381; from the usurpation and murder of King Richard II to the Oldcastle Rebellion of 1414; from the rise of the Lollard heresy to the Wars of the Roses – how did late medieval writing, from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Langland’s Piers Plowman, and Gower’s Vox Clamantis, to the work of a range of anonymous poets, dramatists, and chroniclers, respond to several decades of tumultuous social and cultural change? This module introduces students to the vibrancy and vitality of a crucial period in the history of English writing, and it explores the methodological challenges of reading literature historically. Students will engage with key historicist readings of the period’s literature and will consider literature in its material circumstances with reference to online facsimiles of key manuscript books, as well as the museological presentation of the period’s material culture. The key genres, conventions and preoccupations of the period will be explored in relation to the explosive social mobility that followed the devastation of the Black Death. The module will conclude on the eve of the coronation of Henry VIII, when it was assumed that the political and religious tumult of the ‘calamitous fourteenth century’ had finally been settled.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students will have developed an appropriate knowledge and understanding of late medieval literature and culture (c.1370-1509). They will have learned to address the challenges of reading literature in its historical contexts, and become familiar with the central tenets of historicist critical practice. They will have learned to interrogate critically the re-presentation of texts and artefacts from the Middle Ages in online archival and museological contexts. They will have learned to reflect critically on the idea of the Middle Ages itself and on questions of historical periodisation in general.

  Skills

  Having completed this module students will be able to:
  
  • Analyse late medieval literature, paying attention to the relationship between texts and contexts assumed by historicist modes of reading.
  • Demonstrate understanding of the complex relationship between literary forms and socio-political transformations.
  • Situate the literature of this period in the contexts of its influence on literary ideas and modes of transmission, such as authorship and printing, that will be of critical importance to later periods
  • Demonstrate enhanced digital capabilities, both in terms of using digital repositories and in working collaboratively on a digital project for assessment.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2041

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  An Introduction to Critical and Cultural Theory (20 credits)

  ×

  An Introduction to Critical and Cultural Theory

  Overview

  ‘Critical and Cultural Theory’ names a panoply of intellectual movements, philosophical currents and political perspectives emerging out of the crisis in European culture and identity precipitated by the pace of political, technological and social change in the nineteenth century. That crisis was exacerbated by the world wars of the twentieth century, the rise of Communism, and the collapse of Western imperialism. This module introduces students to key issues in critical and cultural theory, historicising its emergence and reflecting on its current preoccupations. Beginning with the ‘masters of suspicion’, Freud, Nietzsche and Marx, who are often perceived to have brought the project of Enlightenment humanism to a shuddering halt, the module will trace the development of a variety of important theoretical perspectives, including Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism and poststructuralism, historicism, gender studies, and bio-politics and posthumanism. The module will build on the questions asked by the Stage One module ENG xxx Adventures in Literature and the History of Ideas and will complement the approaches taken on other Stage Two modules, given its historicising agenda.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students will have developed a basic knowledge of a range of theoretical traditions and be better equipped to situate the cultural and political preoccupations of the modern and postmodern literatures they are exploring elsewhere in the curriculum in relation to the intellectual, political and social developments of Western societies from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. They will be better attuned to the intellectual agendas and theoretical affiliations of the critical approaches used by both staff in the School and in the secondary critical materials they are encountering in other modules across their degrees. They will have learned to historicise and synthesise a range of often conflicting intellectual and philosophical traditions.

  Skills

  Having completed this module students will be able to:
  • Identify and adjudicate between different intellectual approaches to literature, culture, gender and history
  • Analyse and evaluate key critical terminologies and ideas and place them in their historical contexts
  • Demonstrate an ability to read ‘secondary’ texts critically and with a view to their underpinning intellectual assumptions and agendas
  • Demonstrate transferral skills in the form of group discussion, written communication, oral presentation and collaborative work

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2000

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  The Sociolinguistics of Modern French (20 credits)

  ×

  The Sociolinguistics of Modern French

  Overview

  This module introduces students to key concepts and topics in French sociolinguistics. It explores language variation and change in French along a number of social dimensions, including the age, gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status of the speaker. It will also look at the effect of situational variables such as style, register, medium and context on language use. The module will examine linguistic data on variation in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary, and we will also consider some key theoretical and methodological issues which arise in the study of sociolinguistics.

  Learning Outcomes

  Upon successful completion of this module, students will:
  
  • be able to identify and explain the main dimensions of sociolinguistic variation and the ways in which these affect language use;
  • be able to identify and explain the main dimensions of situational variation and the ways in which these affect language use;
  • be able to assess the significance of linguistic data relating to areas of variation ;
  • be able to critically assess some theoretical and methodological issues concerned with the study of sociolinguistics;
  • have an understanding of some topics of language variation in French in pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary;
  • develop the ability to marshal large amounts of information and to construct a detailed argument;
  • develop transferable skills in critical thinking, approaching the analysis of data, written and oral expression, group work, and presentation.

  Skills

  Critical thinking; approaching the analysis of data; written and oral expression skills; group work; presentation

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH2034

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Mapping the Anglo-Saxon World (20 credits)

  ×

  Mapping the Anglo-Saxon World

  Overview

  This module aims to map the world of the Anglo-Saxons through their language, literature and material culture. Students will learn about the heroic past and values of the Anglo-Saxons, magical rituals and prognostications, and systems of faith and beliefs. A fascinating range of texts and genres from the period (c. 7th-11th centuries) will be studied in relation to their cultural context and audience. These include: heroic poetry; elegies; riddles, charms and prognostications; historiography; and biblical writings. Students will engage with selected texts in the original language and consider issues of literary interpretation and translation. They will also be introduced to concepts of authorship, gender, genre, time, health, self, otherness and religion. Students will become familiar with the basics of Old English literary and religious vocabulary and acquire a working knowledge of the Old English manuscript tradition.

  Learning Outcomes

  To introduce the study of Old English; to introduce the world of Anglo-Saxon literature and culture.

  Skills

  Having completed the module, students should have acquired the basics of Old English grammar and poetics, the ability to translate and discuss critically selected Old English texts and to relate texts to their cultural and historical contexts.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  2

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG2003

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

• Year 3

  Core Modules

  International Placement: Languages Year Abroad (100 credits)

  ×

  International Placement: Languages Year Abroad

  Overview

  Students complete a work, volunteer or study placement in fulfilment of the residence abroad requirements of their Modern Languages degree.

  Learning Outcomes

  On successful completion of this module students should be able to demonstrate:
  - Advanced linguistic skills
  - Enhanced cultural and intercultural awareness
  - An understanding of the work environment and professional skills OR an understanding of a different university system and enhanced academic skills
  - Personal development
  
  These skills will be assessed as part of the co-requisite module, either FRH3050 or SPA3050

  Skills

  Students undertaking the placement will develop their skills in the following areas: linguistic skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking); professional or academic skills; cultural and intercultural awareness; personal development.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  3

  Credits

  100

  Module Code

  MML3040

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  30 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  Yes

  Core/Optional

  Core

  Working and Studying Abroad (20 credits)

  ×

  Working and Studying Abroad

  Overview

  The project will require the student to reflect on their extended period of residence abroad and the skills acquired as a result. It will include a 2000-word essay in the target language or languages. There will also be an oral examination in the target language or languages to be completed in the first half of the first semester following re-enrolment into Level 3.

  Learning Outcomes

  At the end of this module it is intended that you will have developed skills in the following areas: (i) Linguistic Skills: demonstrate advanced competence in the target language in both oral and written contexts; be able to understand the spoken language at near-native level; have developed enhanced strategies for independent language acquisition; be able to prepare and deliver an analytical report and oral presentation in the target language (ii) Academic/Professional Skills: have demonstrated an ability to adapt to a new educational/professional context; be able to analyse and reflect critically on these experiences, and to communicate your conclusions orally and in writing; have developed an awareness and understanding of the structures and ethos of an educational institution (school/university) or workplace in a foreign country, and draw comparisons with the UK/Ireland; have enhanced your employability profile (iii) Cultural Awareness: have gained an enhanced understanding of the culture and society of the foreign country through the experience of living and working/studying there; be able to draw comparisons with those of the UK/Ireland, and reflect critically on your own culture and society.

  Skills

  At the end of the module, it is intended that you will: have enhanced personal skills in six key areas (self-management & development, managing tasks, communication, working with others, applying knowledge, problem solving); be able to articulate these skills in such a way that you are able to maximise personal development during residence abroad for your future career.

  Coursework

  50%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  50%

  Stage/Level

  3

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH3050

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  30 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  Yes

  Core/Optional

  Core

• Year 4

  Core Modules

  French 3 (40 credits)

  ×

  French 3

  Overview

  Building on skills acquired at level 2, this module aims to develop the skills and understanding required to deal with a broad variety of language tasks. Linguistic, sociolinguistic and cultural awareness will be consolidated and deepened. The module will contain the following elements:
  
  1. Written Language Skills (2 hours per week) which will offer students an opportunity to enrich their linguistic skills, consolidate grammatical awareness and develop facility in handling the structures of standard, modern French, across a variety of genres, by means of practical engagement with a range of texts carefully selected for both their linguistic interest (varying in style and register) and the insights they offer into aspects of contemporary France and the Francophone world. Emphasis is placed on accuracy, fluent and idiomatic expression, and linguistic flair. A variety of language acquisition and development methods will be employed: grammar practice, editing work, essay-writing, translation into English and into French.
  
  2. Spoken Language (1 hour per week), which will focus on aspects of contemporary France and the Francophone world, with the aim of training students to speak accurately and fluently in French, to express a range of different ideas and opinions, and to organise material logically and coherently when presenting. This component of the module includes a presentation and extended discussion.
  
  3. Contextual Study (1hr per week). This component, which will vary across the two semesters, will deepen and contextualise the other elements of the module by placing them in a broader cultural context and will include, for example, literary texts, films, art and linguistics. A specific languages for special purposes strands equip students in law or business with skills for legal and professional contexts. This element includes an essay in the target language.

  Learning Outcomes

  Learning Outcomes: On successful completion of the modules students should:
  1) be able to demonstrate a high level of fluency, accuracy and spontaneity in written and oral French, including the use of a broad variety of linguistic structures and vocabulary;
  2) be able to deal with a broad variety of material in the target language, including material which is complex and abstract, and which involves a variety of genres and registers; 3) be able to demonstrate an advanced knowledge of the structures of the language and their broader linguistic context and the ability to use appropriate reference works effectively;
  4) be able to structure and present arguments at a high level in a range of formats and registers.

  Skills

  On successful completion of the modules students should have developed the following range of skills: Communication skills; translation skills; textual analysis; essay writing; lexicographical skills; IT skills; presentation skills; employability skills, such as report writing and editing skills; problem solving and critical thinking.

  Coursework

  45%

  Examination

  35%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  40

  Module Code

  FRH3101

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  24 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  Yes

  Core/Optional

  Core

  Optional Modules

  Romance and Realism in Media Cultures (20 credits)

  ×

  Romance and Realism in Media Cultures

  Overview

  This module will introduce to the art and structures of storytelling in multimedia cultural industries. It will discuss and analyse how contents are presented in various textual and media forms, from the novel to film, popular songs, TV series, news items, commercials and stand up comedy. Discourse analysis and media criticism will provide some of the tools and theoretical frames for reading the sources studied. Special attention will be paid to the challenges faced by each medium in relation to verisimilitude and how narrative codes can be used to emphasize romance or realism in order to influence the audience.

  Learning Outcomes

  On successful completion of this module, students should;
  
  Be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of discourse analysis and media criticism and will be able to apply these for both contextual analysis and textual commentary purposes in their academic and professional cursus.
  Be able to operate understanding of key concepts of social, media, literary and film criticism.
  Have a familiarity with French mass media discourse and icons of French culture and an ability to contextualize them within historical, political and ideological debates.
  Demonstrate engagement with seminal critical texts and reflected on issues of representation and the construction of discourse/images.

  Skills

  On successful completion of this module the students should have developed:
  - Analytical skills in relation to both still and moving images and be able to draw upon relevant critical sources in order to present structured and cohesive arguments in oral and written form.
  Transferable skills in group work, time management and in the use of Powerpoint.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH3035

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Contemporary Literature: Poetry and Precariousness in the Twenty-First Century (20 credits)

  ×

  Contemporary Literature: Poetry and Precariousness in the Twenty-First Century

  Overview

  This module investigates the way in which the contemporary era is registered in a range of texts published in the twenty-first century. Precariousness is central to its reflection on the contemporary period and condition. It considers the precariousness of political economies, state security, ecology and social bonds, to ask if and how contemporary literary form registers precariousness, syntactically, structurally and in its modes of speech and address, and what alternatives it might offer to the precarious contemporary condition. Beginning with an introduction to neoliberalism, the module will consider the contemporary period by encompassing debt and accumulation, collective life, contemporary warfare and violence, non-human animals and environments, and networked, digital technologies. It includes satirical short stories, long poems addressing contemporary crises, lyric depictions of modern warfare and violence, individual volumes that examine non-human animals, plant and mineral life, traditional lyric forms and cut and paste poetics.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students should have a good understanding of the contemporary era and an increased understanding of how precariousness characterises contemporary experience. They should be able to identify prevailing concerns and anxieties in the contemporary period, and the variety of formal responses to such concerns in a range of twenty-first century texts. They will have developed the ability to evaluate the significance of political, social, and ideological contexts in the interpretation of contemporary literature. They will should have honed the ability to relate contemporary texts fruitfully to theoretical and secondary material. They will have developed the special ability to read and analyse individual volumes of poetry and thus read individual lyrics in the context and structure of a whole work.

  Skills

  Students will develop the ability to read and critically analyse of a number of forms of literary texts, including short stories, long poems, epistolary verse, short-line forms and collage poetry. They will enhance their skills in comparative analysis, and in relating set texts to a variety of approaches to and interpretations of the contemporary period. They will hone their ability to research historical and cultural material, and to bring relevant contextual information to bear on their critical writing. From their acquired knowledge of critical reflections on the contemporary period, they will develop a critical discernment in relation to competing arguments and interpretations of contemporary literature.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3184

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Writing New York, 1880-1940 (20 credits)

  ×

  Writing New York, 1880-1940

  Overview

  This course explores the development of New York literature, from the social milieu of Washington Square in the 1880s, through to the experimentations of Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance, and finally to the demise of the Urban ideal after the Second World War. Topics covered here include: socio-economic tensions in the Gilded Age; the development of a specifically American Naturalism; the different ways in which those who were marginalised from the city represented their experience; the unique nature of New York impressionist writing; Jazz-Age New York; the emergence of ‘noir’ New York; the ‘death’ of American cities and the nostalgia for the New York of the early twentieth century in the years of the city’s Nadir.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students completing this module should be able to:
  • demonstrate an in-depth understanding of the politics and practice of writing about New York in the period 1880-1940.
  • show knowledge of the development of New York literature, as well as the way that literature incorporated and revised European models of writing .
  • understand the ways in which different areas of the city have very different literary and cultural practices.
  • explore the ways in which marginalized groups (African Americans, European Migrants), negotiated the city and found new ways of representing it.
  • undertake research using historical material (literary, social, political, cultural.

  Skills

  • understanding and incorporating critical thinking, including specific terminology, into discussions of texts.
  • comparing and contrasting texts within the same socio-historical constraints
  • analyzing texts closely and locating them firmly within their socio-historical context.
  • presenting within given formats and to a required standard, coherent and well-substantiated analyses and arguments, both orally and in writing.
  • studying independently; demonstrating an ability to incorporate tutor feedback into written work.
  • engaging in classroom debate and foster a vibrant intellectual environment.
  • reflecting on these learning processes.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3183

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Further Adventures in Shakespeare (20 credits)

  ×

  Further Adventures in Shakespeare

  Overview

  The module content is divided generically. Students will read across the whole range of Shakespeare’s works and sample comedy, history, tragedy, the Roman plays, and the romances. There are also sessions on what are termed ‘problem plays’ and ‘unfamiliar Shakespeare’ – texts not often staged or discussed. The rich sample investigated means that a corresponding range of themes and approaches will be identified and explored.
  There is no overlap between texts on this module and those taught elsewhere at Stages 2 or 3.
  Students will be asked to buy two set texts - The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt (New York: Norton, 1997), which will have been purchased for Introduction to Renaissance Literature, and Stanley Wells and Lena Cowen Orlin, eds, An Oxford Guide to Shakespeare (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

  Learning Outcomes

  Having successfully completed this module, students should have become familiar with the main genres within which Shakespeare wrote. Students should be able to analyse the Shakespearean text in depth and relate it to its moment of production. Students should have honed their presentational skills and, through regular teamwork, learned the value of collaborative practice.

  Skills

  Subject specific knowledge (Shakespeare, genre, context)
  Close-reading
  Oral and written communication skills
  Teamwork
  Presentational skills

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3182

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Irish Gothic (20 credits)

  ×

  Irish Gothic

  Overview

  This module explores Ireland’s unique contribution to the Gothic through an extraordinary range of texts that encompasses classics of the genre (such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula) alongside lesser-known writers such as Gerald Griffin and James Clarence Mangan. Whilst the reading for the module exemplifies the formal diversity of the genre, particular emphasis is placed on the accelerating use of the short story as a literary vehicle for terror (notably in the work of Sheridan Le Fanu and Elizabeth Bowen). The module pursues several interrelated lines of intellectual inquiry: the longstanding perception of Ireland as a site of Gothic horror; the role of Gaelic folklore and myth in creating supernatural terror; the reception and development of Gothic themes in Irish writing; and current critical debates in the field. In tracing the widespread prevalence of Gothic motifs and themes, the module seeks to delineate the contours of a distinctive aesthetic, and reflects on questions of colonial and gender politics, as well as dilemmas of national and sexual identities as they appear in the dark glass of Irish Gothic writing.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completing this module, students should have a thorough knowledge of the Gothic genre as it developed in Irish writing, and be able to identify and expand upon the distinctive formal and thematic features of this literary tradition. Students should also be able to situate texts in a range of relevant contexts, relating Gothic motifs and themes to the historical and cultural particularities of their production. Students should also gain good understanding of the current critical debates surrounding Irish Gothic writing.

  Skills

  Over the course of the module, students should develop/acquire the following skills:
  • to analyse primary and secondary material in a scholarly manner;
  • to research appropriate critical and historical material on any given literary topic;
  • to edit and present scholarly arguments and literary analyses to peers;
  • to negotiate a ranging critical field, and situate in relation to it their own analytical perspective.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3330

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Stevens & Bishop (20 credits)

  ×

  Stevens & Bishop

  Overview

  This module examines in depth the work of two major twentieth-century American poets: Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop. The work of the module will divide evenly between the two writers, with the first five weeks concentrating on Stevens and the second five on Bishop. Students will engage with two main texts (the collected poems of each poet) and assess their writings either in terms of individual collections or as examples of a longer career in poetry.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students should have a thorough knowledge of the work of both Wallace Stevens and Elizabeth Bishop within a range of particular contexts: their connection to other poetic movements or schools or traditions; their place within a canon of twentieth-century American poetry; their relation to philosophical movements, both within the United States and further afield; and of how their poems work as poetry. They will also be familiar with other examples of Stevens’ and Bishop’s writing, whether in the form of letters, essays, or in prose and how these assist in the understanding of their poetry within related contexts.

  Skills

  Students will develop the ability to read and critically analyse poetry in a range of forms and modes: short poems; philosophical poems; narrative poems; long poems. Their skills in assessing fundamental examples of twentieth-century American poetry between 1923 and 1976 will be enhanced by a range of approaches: comparing poems by Stevens or by Bishop from across her/his oeuvre, and/or by comparing the work of both writers; by reading their work in relation to key critical and contextual understandings of their contemporary moments (Modernism, late Modernism, World Wars 1 and 2, the Depression, the Middle Generation). Students taking this module will develop an appreciation of poetry on its own terms as exemplified by two giants of the form in the United States.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3333

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Home Matters: Space, Gender and Class in 19th-Century France and Belgium (20 credits)

  ×

  Home Matters: Space, Gender and Class in 19th-Century France and Belgium

  Overview

  This interdisciplinary course focuses on the home in literature, art and architecture in 19th-century France and Belgium. Drawing upon a series of 19th-century artworks, poetry, prose, domestic advice manuals, magazines, housing plans and other artefacts, we will question how domestic space was configured and represented.
  
  In particular, we will consider how issues of gender and class are articulated via divisions and tensions around space. Our discussion will centre firstly on the construction of the modern city, with a particular emphasis on housing in Paris and Brussels. We will draw upon a series of 19th-century and present-day critics (eg. Duranty, Benjamin, Bachelard, Marcus, Heynen) to interrogate the relationship between the home and its inhabitant in the age of modernity. We will then apply this contextual and theoretical knowledge to a series of case studies in three distinct fields: literature, art and architecture.
  
  In literature, we will discuss the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and Max Elskamp, together with extracts from Balzac’s novels; in art, we will consider the Impressionist paintings of Mary Cassatt, Gustave Caillebotte and Berthe Morisot and, in architecture, we will study Henry van de Velde’s own home Bloemenwerf House, a gesamtkunstwerk, which sought to exemplify artistic and social unity at the turn of the century.
  
  Prescribed material: class dossier (available on Canvas)

  Learning Outcomes

  At the end of this course, students will:
  
  1. Have acquired an in-depth understanding of the socio-political and cultural context of nineteenth-century France and Belgium.
  
  2.Be familiar with a wide range of 19th-century texts, paintings and media.
  
  3. Be able to engage with the work of different theorists in Art History, Literature, Cultural Studies, Material Culture and Architecture.
  
  4. Know how to compare the works of artists, architects, designers and writers.
  
  5. Be able to analyse works of art and literature in detail.
  
  6.Understand the importance of interdisciplinary methodologies in learning about the past.

  Skills

  Close textual analysis.
  
  Close visual analysis.
  
  Comparative analysis.
  
  Interdisciplinary analysis.
  
  Critical engagement.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH3037

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Analysing Language: Exploring linguistic structures of English (20 credits)

  ×

  Analysing Language: Exploring linguistic structures of English

  Overview

  By exploring aspects of the grammar and syntax of English, this module will familiarise students with rules, principles, and processes that determine the structure of sentences in language. The course will also equip them with the appropriate methodological skills for the empirical analysis of language data and for the formal representation of data (i.e. phrase structure trees) to display the various operations that they will be introduced to throughout the module. Typical topics that will be covered include phrase structure, argument structure, case, agreement, noun phrase structure, binding and movement (although not necessarily all in each year).

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of this module, students will have a solid understanding of core concepts in formal syntactic theory, as well as the fundamentals of empirical enquiry and will be able to apply this theory to natural language data and account for the linguistic variation observed in English and related varieties.

  Skills

  By the end of the module, students will be able to identify lexical categories, apply syntactic tests for constituency locate clause boundaries in complex sentences and draw trees for basic English sentences. The students will be able to show how a restricted set of principles can account for a wide range of the phenomena of English syntax. Students will also develop critical thinking skills through the examination of different explanatory approaches to problems in the syntax of English and related varieties.

  Coursework

  80%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENL3001

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Ideologies of Death in Modern French Literature (20 credits)

  ×

  Ideologies of Death in Modern French Literature

  Overview

  Death has traditionally been one of the great taboos of Western culture. While it is often discussed euphemistically, in English and French (he is “at peace”; she has “passed away”; “elle s’est éteinte dans son sommeil”; “il nous a quittés”…), there have been signs of a recent shift in our reluctance to confront, let alone discuss, death. The popularity of the modern Death Café network demonstrates that there has been something of a cultural revolution of late in respect of our desire to explore mortality. This interdisciplinary module, drawing on important new fields of enquiry, such as death studies and medical humanities, aims to explore what modern French literature reveals to us about ideological (cultural, ethical, religious, gendered) attitudes towards death. Using podcasts and sociological writings to frame our discussions, the module will focus on what some of France’s literary masterpieces from the nineteenth century to the present day can tell us about aspects of death. Engaging with topics such as sacrifice, suffering, (assisted) suicide, accompagnement, palliative care and bereavement, the module will be an opportunity for students to think about the following questions:
  
  • What are the ideological and aesthetic concerns linked to representations of death in French literature?
  • What does French literature tell us about the idea of a ‘good death’?
  • How does French literature portray grief and mourning?
  • How does French literature deal with sensitive social and ethical issues surrounding end-of-life care?

  Learning Outcomes

  Upon completion of this module, students will be able to:
  
  a. Discuss knowledgably the issues raised by representations of death in a selection of French literary texts from the nineteenth century to the present day;
  b. Understand better some of the cultural, ethical and legal issues raised by literary reflections on dying and death;
  c. Develop close reading skills and make meaningful contrasts and comparisons between the various texts studied;
  d. Appreciate better the role of literature in providing a voice to the patient, his/her carer(s) and medical professionals at the end of life.

  Skills

  This module will equip students with the capacity to:
  
  a. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the chosen texts and an understanding of their significance in the broader historical / literary / cultural context in which they were produced;
  b. Analyse and reflect critically on texts in the target language;
  c. Argue at length and in detail in essay form about a specific topic, supporting the argument with evidence from the text and with opinions from secondary literature;
  d. Use a range of literary-critical terminology, applying it to independently researched material as well as to material introduced by the course tutor;
  e. Use recommended bibliographical tools and present a critical bibliography giving a balanced overview of an aspect of the subject;
  f. Manage time effectively.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH3036

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Work-based Learning (20 credits)

  ×

  Work-based Learning

  Overview

  This module provides an opportunity for student to utilise disciplinary skills in a work-based environment within the context of reflective practice. Students will negotiate suitable placements in consultation with their academic supervisor and participate in a programme of related classes and events. Simulated work-based projects in which students work in groups with the support of the university’s Enterprise Unit in the Students’ Union are also possible.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of this module, students should have:
  Increased ability to relate academic theory to the work environment
  A developed understanding of the organisational culture, policies and processes
  The ability to reflexively and critically evaluate their own learning from the placement
  An appreciation of enterprise and innnovation
  Enhanced career knowledge

  Skills

  Employability skills, including effective communication, teamworking and problem-solving.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  AEL3001

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  24 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Stylistics: Analysing Style in Language (20 credits)

  ×

  Stylistics: Analysing Style in Language

  Overview

  Stylistics is the application of analytical models and methods from linguistics to rhetorical texts, including (but not limited to) fictional and persuasive texts. In this module, the students are introduced to the analytical frameworks used in contemporary Stylistics, which draw on a range of approaches from Pragmatics, Corpus Linguistics and Cognitive Psychology. The frameworks are applied to texts to demonstrate how the linguistic patterns employed lead to stylistic effects. The students will practice applying the models to a variety of texts, identifying the linguistic features that contribute towards style in language.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of this module, students will have an understanding of the key frameworks used in stylistic analysis and the ability to apply them to rhetorical texts. Through practising this application, students will learn to identify patterns in the linguistic features that lead to stylistic effects. Consequently, students will have a heightened awareness of the use of language for artful and persuasive purposes.
  
  As well as subject-specific outcomes, students will gain from this module more generally by learning methods in the qualitative analysis of texts, to write critically and to present an argument clearly.

  Skills

  During this module, students will have the opportunity to acquire the following skills:
  
  Module-specific:
  - Linguistic analysis of rhetorical texts
  - Criticism of linguistic theory and practice
  - Identification of formal linguistic features
  
  Generic:
  - Qualitative research methods
  - Writing critically and reflectively
  - Presentation skills

  Coursework

  80%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENL3011

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Representing the Working Class (20 credits)

  ×

  Representing the Working Class

  Overview

  This course aims to explore the writing and culture of the working class, to ask how socio-economic distinctions inflect judgements of ‘taste’, and to develop an understanding of the historical role of class in shaping identities across ethno-nationalist lines. A good deal of scholarship in recent decades has signalled a growing awareness of British working-class writing, though Irish Studies, by comparison, has tended to neglect issues of social class. We will therefore engage the more substantial body of scholarship on British working-class literature to inform our discussion of Irish working-class writers, signalling new and exciting possibilities for future scholarship.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of this course, students will have refined their broad critical understanding of key thinkers in cultural materialist and left-wing literary theory. They will have applied this understanding to over a dozen key texts (including films), engaging a range of historical and social contexts across twentieth-century British and Irish writing, analysing the recurrence of key themes and ideas in working-class writing. Students will also have related these readings to developments in postcolonial, postmodern and feminist theories, where applicable, drawing on a broad range of cultural and intellectual perspectives.

  Skills

  During this module, students will have the opportunity to practise the following skills:
  - Critical analysis of key debates in literary and cultural theory;
  - Engagement with interdisciplinary debates regarding historiography and the sociology of culture;
  - Application of learning to key texts in working-class writing;
  - Comparative analysis of literary and filmic representations and conventions;
  - Writing critically and reflectively;
  - Presentation skills.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3064

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Contemporary Irish and Scottish Fiction Devolutionary Identities (20 credits)

  ×

  Contemporary Irish and Scottish Fiction Devolutionary Identities

  Overview

  The past decades have not only seen an increasing interest in the historical, political and economic crosscurrents between Scotland and Ireland, but they have also witnessed a remarkable literary renaissance on both sides of the Irish Sea. This course explores the transformed literary landscape of Irish and Scottish fiction since the 1980s in relation to the (d)evolutionary processes of cultural and social change in today’s Atlantic archipelago, concerning in particular the Irish Republic’s economic boom in the 1990s (commonly referred to as the ‘Celtic Tiger’), the Peace Process in Northern Ireland, and the movement towards the reconstitution of the Scottish Parliament. We will examine how these changes and the issues that they raise are reflected in an indicative selection of Irish, Northern Irish, and Scottish novels, focusing on the relationship between the formal and stylistic experiments often found in these writings and the concepts of identity, society, the nation, history, and gender that they draw on, resist, and/or give rise to. In this respect, we will pay due attention to ideas about the role of literature, gender, sexuality, class, race, and religion in the (re)construction of national identity; questions of power, authority and authenticity, and the impact of globalization on cultural production; the politics of place and the rural/urban divide; revisions and representations of history, and issues of trauma and memory; the literary use of non-standard English; narrative tropes, techniques, and typographic experiments.
  
  This course aims to establish a comparative framework in order to trace the shared concerns and noteworthy differences that characterise and constitute a significant part of the contemporary Irish and Scottish literary scene. It is designed to introduce students to dominant critical and literary paradigms as well as key debates in Irish and Scottish Studies raised by postcolonialism, postmodernism, (post-) nationalism, gender studies, and feminism. To that end, literary texts will be read alongside theoretical and cultural perspectives in both fields, copies of which will be provided in a course reader.

  Learning Outcomes

  By the end of the module, students will have gained a in-depth knowledge of 11 Irish and Scottish novels and developed an understanding of the corpus of, and crosscurrents between, contemporary Scottish and Irish fiction. The module will introduce students to dominant critical and literary paradigms as well as key debates in Irish and Scottish Studies raised by postcolonialism, postmodernism, (post-) nationalism, gender studies, and feminism. They will be able to apply the knowledge they have gained in textual analysis of contemporary Irish and Scottish fiction, expanding their sense of new developments in subject matter, literary technique, and language use.

  Skills

  Students will gain a range of subject-specific, intellectual, practical and transferable skills: they will develop their critical assessment of texts and gain deeper analytic and textual competence. They will also hone their presentation and writing skills and learn to present and discuss complex issues with clarity and cogency, both orally and in writing, write clearly and succinctly, and organise study time effectively.

  Coursework

  80%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3060

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Televising the Victorians (20 credits)

  ×

  Televising the Victorians

  Overview

  This module aims to raise questions about the relation between works of fiction set in the Victorian period, and made-for-TV reappropriations of these texts. It considers the way that we ‘read’ the Victorian period through visual image, and the impact of technologies of the visual on the written word. It introduces different theoretical approaches to film, and explains, by means of example, the differences between cinema and television. It explores connection between cinematic practice (montage, the shot, editing, sound, space and mise-en-scène) and notions of writing. It will ask questions about the nature of genre, spectatorship, and issues of ideology and effect. The module will concentrate on identifying the range of different resources required to understand the flow of images on the TV screen, and will examine how ‘adaptation’ is conceptualised, particularly the ways in which the comparison of book and film is haunted by notions of faithfulness and the ‘original’ primacy of the literary work.

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, you should have refined your ability to analyse literary texts sensitively in relation to films made for TV. You should have developed your skills in constructing written and spoken analyses and arguments, based on assembling appropriate primary and secondary evidence from textual and visual media. You should have developed an ability to conceptualise adaptations, to speak in a theoretically informed manner about reappropriations of works set in the Victorian period, to distinguish between film and television as visual media, and to read visual images in such a way as to appreciate how literature and film work together to produce cultural artefacts.

  Skills

  This module should enable you to build upon and substantially enhance the skills that you have already acquired during the course of your degree, and in particular should allow you to acquire and demonstrate the following: broad comprehension of modern scholarly debates concerning adaptations; understanding of how Victorian social and cultural contexts are translated or interpreted for the modern age; understanding of the fundamentals of film and television art; the ability to analyse critically the interrelation between works of fiction and their made for tv counterparts, in the process identifying their complexities and contradictions; effective oral and written communication skills.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3069

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Double Dissertation English Literature (40 credits)

  ×

  Double Dissertation English Literature

  Overview

  Students will undertake a piece of independent research and write a dissertation presenting that research and their conclusions. They will have the guidance of a tutor, but the emphasis is on their own independent research and writing. There should be no overlap between the chosen topic and work done for other modules. Students will be expected to develop and exhibit suitable theoretical and methodological frameworks for their chosen topic.

  Learning Outcomes

  The module will provide an opportunity to explore, to investigate and to identify themes for research within English. Students will be able to draw from a variety of theoretical, textual, analytical techniques, to examine and evaluate a given research problem.

  Skills

  By the end of the module students will:\n\nhave a developed critical understanding of an area of literary study;\n\nhave developed the skills needed to conduct an independent line of research;\n\nbe able to write a cogent, well-illustrated dissertation, which displays originality of consistent thinking and application of ideas, concepts and theories.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  40

  Module Code

  ENG3000

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  24 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Speech Worlds: Phonology in Acquisition and Disorder (20 credits)

  ×

  Speech Worlds: Phonology in Acquisition and Disorder

  Overview

  The module focuses on four main areas of phonetics. First, you will refine your existing skills in phonetic description and transcription by expanding your knowledge of articulatory categories and distinctions. We then examine methods of profiling speakers' phonetic and phonological systems, using a range of appropriate models. The third component of the module concentrates on intonational aspects of speech. Here, we will examine recent theoretical developments alongside traditional accounts, and we will assess the role of intonation in various communicative situations. Finally, you will gain knowledge of and practical ability in the acoustic analysis of speech. Building on the basic acoustic skills you acquired in Patterns of Spoken English, you will now move on to understand the role of instrumental analysis in the quantification of speech production characteristics. In each of these four areas, we will analyse speech from a wide range of contexts, including disordered speech and children's speech. Throughout the module, you will be encouraged to develop your aural phonetic skills by means of an audio-tape, specifically designed to accompany the course, along with CD-ROM packages.

  Learning Outcomes

  This module should equip you with a firm understanding of the role of advanced phonetic study in assessing and profiling speech. You should be in a position to undertake a detailed analysis of a speaker's output and to account for breakdowns in speech production using appropriate and informed explanations. Your experience of this module should encourage you to appreciate the value of detailed phonetic knowledge in, for example, English teaching where a detailed understanding of oracy skills can be central to educational development, in foreign language teaching and learning, and in clinical speech contexts.

  Skills

  The central aim of this module is to develop your theoretical and practical skills in phonetics. We will achieve this aim by examining the processes involved in the production of speech and describing/ transcribing them in detail; by understanding and evaluating models for phonetic analysis; by applying phonetic and phonological analysis as a means of understanding the structure of normal and disordered speech, and by using techniques of acoustic analysis in investigating phonetic data.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENL3003

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Shakespeare on Screen (20 credits)

  ×

  Shakespeare on Screen

  Overview

  The late twentieth century has seen a proliferation of Shakespeare on screen. This module investigates the phenomenon through the cinematic history of four plays - Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Othello. It looks at the work of directors such as Laurence Olivier, Franco Zeffirelli, Orson Welles, Kenneth Branagh, Baz Luhrmann, Oliver Parker and Michael Almereyda. Debate will focus upon the following areas; the relationship between the playtext and the film; the malleability of Shakespeare as a cultural icon; the relevance of Shakespeare to a modern audience; the shifting status of Shakespeare as a signifier of gender, race, technology and politics.

  Learning Outcomes

  This module aims to inculcate an in-depth knowledge of the multifarious ways in which Shakespeare is appropriated in late twentieth-century cinema; to enable students to discriminate between various filmic versions of a play; to gain the confidence and capability to deploy critical and theoretical tools to talk about film constructively; and to reflect upon connections between Shakespearean production and the preoccupations of a particular historical moment.

  Skills

  Having successfully completed this module, you should have become familiar with a range of ways in which Shakespeare is appropriated in the cinema; you should have learned how to utilise a theoretical filmic vocabulary in the interests of larger analyses; you should be able to discriminate between various filmic versions of a play and to identify some of their cultural and intertextual influences; you should have further honed your presentational skills and, through regular teamwork, learned the value of collaborative practice.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3087

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Women's Writing 1680-1830 (20 credits)

  ×

  Women's Writing 1680-1830

  Overview

  This module considers how women writers have been constrained by but have also exploited literary traditions and traces the indexes of conformity and subversion in their writing by placing them in contexts of prevailing discourses on femininity. In order to situate women's writing of this period, we will also examine constructions of femininity in visual art and conduct writings. Key texts will include fiction by Eliza Haywood, Mary Wollstonecroft Jane Austen, poetry by Aphra Behn, Anne Finch, Anna Laetitia Barbauld and labouring women poets such as Mary Leapor and Ann Yearsley, the 'Turkish Embassy' letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and scandal memoirs by Margaret Leeson.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students should be able to address the ways in which literary productions by women have been marginalised by traditional syllabi and to redress the balance, so that the importance of women's writing in literary history can be examined and understood; to examine both the ways in which women writers have adopted literary traditions and the cultural meanings of femininity in the eighteenth century; to situate women's writing in a range of contexts - the material contexts of patronage and publishing, political and discursive contexts concerning class, gender and nationality.

  Skills

  In taking this module, students should acquire a knowledge of major concerns in eighteenth-century women's writing and will be expected to communicate their understanding of the relationships between literary form and production and the social and political issues of proper femininity, class and nationality. Seminars and assessments should require students to address specific issues and to articulate conclusions from their reading clearly and confidently, demonstrating an awareness of the critical debates surrounding women's writing of this period and independent engagement with these debates.

  Coursework

  80%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  20%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3020

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Double Dissertation English Language (40 credits)

  ×

  Double Dissertation English Language

  Overview

  Students will undertake a piece of independent research and write a dissertation presenting that research and their conclusions. They will have the guidance of a tutor, but the emphasis is on their own independent research and writing. There should be no overlap between the chosen topic and work done for other modules. Students will be expected to develop and exhibit suitable theoretical and methodological frameworks for their chosen topic.

  Learning Outcomes

  The module will provide an opportunity to explore, to investigate and to identify themes for research within English. Students will be able to draw from a variety of theoretical, textual, analytical techniques, to examine and evaluate a given research problem.

  Skills

  By the end of the module students will:\n\nhave a developed critical understanding of an area of language study;\n\nhave developed the skills needed to conduct an independent line of research;\n\nbe able to write a cogent, well-illustrated dissertation, which displays originality of consistent thinking and application of ideas, concepts and theories.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  40

  Module Code

  ENL3000

  Teaching Period

  Full Year

  Duration

  24 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Contemporary US Crime Fiction: the Police, the State, the Globe (20 credits)

  ×

  Contemporary US Crime Fiction: the Police, the State, the Globe

  Overview

  This module examines some of the different manifestations of contemporary U.S. crime fiction since the late 1960s. Beginning with a section on ‘policing the city’ and the ways in which the genre negotiates the complex inter-relationship of race, class and capitalism, the module moves on to consider state violence and public corruption before concluding with an examination of the limitations of state power and the international reach of some crime fiction. Rather than arguing for the genre as a singular, static entity, the module examines its proliferation and diversity in the contemporary era (focusing on novels, TV series and films) and explores connections between crime fiction and other genres (e.g. urban realism and espionage fiction). In doing so, the module aims to situate different kinds of crime fiction as a series of complex negotiations with different forms of political authority (e.g. the police, the state, capitalism etc.).

  Learning Outcomes

  Having completed this module, students will have acquired the ability to analyse a broad range of exemplary U.S. crime fiction (novels, films, TV programs) in light of their understanding of particular theoretical approaches and different theoretical approaches in the light of their understanding of particular set texts. They will have developed an ability to identify particular generic traits, speak about the genre’s development since the late 1960s in a theoretical informed way and situate this development in relation to particular social, cultural, political and economic circumstances in the U.S and the global realm. They will have developed their skills in constructing written and spoken arguments drawing on appropriate primary and secondary evidence.

  Skills

  This module will allow students to build upon the skills that they have acquired in first and second year and in particular will allow and permit the following:
  - broad understanding of the development and proliferation of U.S. crime fiction since the 1960s;
  - understanding of the relationship of crime fiction texts to different forms of political authority;
  - an ability to analyse a variety of set texts in the light of particular theoretical approaches and analyse a variety if theoretical approaches in the light of particular set texts;
  - an ability to analyse literary and filmic/televisual texts and articulate sophisticated ideas and arguments in a clear, accessible manner in written and spoken assignments;
  - an ability to work closely in collaboration with other students.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENH3008

  Teaching Period

  Autumn

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Renaissance Performance, Gender, Space (20 credits)

  ×

  Renaissance Performance, Gender, Space

  Overview

  This module will examine gendered dimensions of performance from the late sixteenth century to the Restoration. It will introduce students to ways of reading performance via a range of playwrights, genres and theatrical contexts. Topics will include Shakespeare’s boy actors, the children’s playing companies, female performance, shifting dramatic practices and theatrical innovation. It will raise questions about performance spaces and traditions and the representation of gender, location, status, cross-dressing, the body and the actor on this stage.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students will gain knowledge of modes of representation on the Renaissance stage. They will become familiar with important developments in theatrical practices in this period. They will be able to critically reflect on the ways in which dramatic texts refract contemporary issues of gender, sexuality, status and location and to evaluate these themes across dramatic genres and performance spaces.

  Skills

  Students will develop skills of close analysis of texts in relation to Renaissance performance and cultural contexts. They will develop the ability to explore questions of gender, genre, space and performance. The module will improve students’ written and oral communication skills and enhance their abilities to develop an argument independently and through group work.

  Coursework

  90%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  10%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3181

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Special Topic in Irish Writing: Modern Irish Literature and the Primitive Sublime (20 credits)

  ×

  Special Topic in Irish Writing: Modern Irish Literature and the Primitive Sublime

  Overview

  This is a Special Topic module offered by a visiting Fulbright Scholar. This course focuses on contemporary Irish women writers and their depiction of home in light of the poetic duality of scáth, an Irish word that may be translated as either shadow or shelter. This duality of scáth helps capture the complicated nature of home, especially for Irish women, who have historically been caught somewhere between viewing “home” as a sheltered respite or as an imprisoning shadow. After rooting the Irish female literary tradition in Irish myths, we will study both how today’s authors not only describe this paradoxical relationship but also offer models of women who simultaneously resist the shadows and create their own shelters of beauty and hope without denying or ignoring ugly realities. Sample texts include Emma Donaghue’s Room, Anna Burns’s Milkman, and Maggie O’Farrell’s This Must Be the Place.

  Learning Outcomes

  Students will develop their skills in: close reading of literary texts; analysis of literary texts within cultural, historical, and biographical contexts; oral communication; formulation of critical arguments; research methods; scholarly writing, including the integration of primary and secondary sources and adherence to academic conventions

  Skills

  To be decided.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENH3020

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Special Topic in Creative Writing (20 credits)

  ×

  Special Topic in Creative Writing

  Overview

  This is a Special Topic module offered by a visiting Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in Creative Writing. The contents of the module, which will change on an annual basis, depending on the area of creative writing expertise of the Visiting Scholar, will provide an opportunity for students to work on a specific aspect of creative writing. The specific module content will be announced as early as possible each academic year. Students who sign up for this module will, as normal, have the right to switch to another module if the content does not suit their academic plans.

  Learning Outcomes

  On successful completion of this module students will have examined an aspect of creative writing and will have written extensively in the appropriate form or genre. Objectivity about their own creative practice will have been further fostered by the writing of a self-reflexive commentary to accompany their final submission. Students should have come some way towards developing their own creative voice.

  Skills

  To be decided.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENH3019

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  Marvels, Monsters and Miracles in Anglo-Saxon England (20 credits)

  ×

  Marvels, Monsters and Miracles in Anglo-Saxon England

  Overview

  The very nature of marvels insists on their subjectivity: they are defined by the experience of their viewer. To marvel from the Latin mirari or to wonder from the Germanic wundar is to be filled with awe, surprise, admiration or astonishment. When we try to generalise about the meaning of marvels and the use of wonder in the Middle Ages, we are confronted with multiplicity. How do we read marvels? What’s their role in medieval texts? Are monsters and miracles to be read as marvels? One of the most critical tools for discussing the nature of difference that is central to the marvellous is the idea of the ‘Other’ which offers both psychological and political means of analysing the experience of wonder. The Anglo-Saxons were fascinated by the idea of encounters with strangeness and difference – a fascination that expressed itself in a rich and diverse rang of textual, artistic and geographical representations of such imaginings. Difference was considered both marvellous and monstrous; terrifying and fascinating; disgusting and desirable.
  This module examines the perceptions of the marvellous and monstrous in the literature of the Anglo-Saxons. It investigates the nature of those phenomena which the Anglo-Saxons experienced as marvels, how they interpreted their experiences of astonishment and how they recreated them for others. It analyses the importance of ‘marvellous difference’ in defining ethnic, racial, religious, class and gender identities, as represented in different genres including historiography (i.e. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), travel narratives (Wonders of the East, Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle etc), hagiography (i.e. The Life of St Christopher) and other literary texts including Beowulf, Judith, Genesis B.
  Texts in Latin, Old Norse and Middle English may be used for comparative purposes. Modern English translations will be provided for all the texts. Students are also expected to be able to engage with texts in Old English.

  Learning Outcomes

  On completion of the module students should be able to:
  -Demonstrate a critical awareness of a variety of early medieval concepts and constructions of otherness and difference;
  -Show a familiarity with a range of medieval texts, genres and cultural concepts;
  -Demonstrate the ability to engage with both contemporary critical concepts and their applicability to pre-modern texts;
  -Show evidence of independent research and study skills;
  -Use relevant electronic databases to further their written work;
  -Demonstrate a consistent level of contribution to seminar discussions.

  Skills

  This module will enable students to:
  -Develop an informed sense of the complexity of concepts such as monstrosity, marvellous, superstition, miracle, religion, otherness;
  -Consider and evaluate how difference (racial, religious, gender, national) was conceptualised in early medieval English culture;
  -Acquire an understanding of various literary texts in relation to their cultural context and audience;
  -Develop an ability to engage critically with the primary material as well as familiarity with modern scholarly and critical approaches;
  Apply independent thought and academic research skills.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  ENG3011

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional

  The Structure of Modern French (20 credits)

  ×

  The Structure of Modern French

  Overview

  An exploration of the linguistic structure of contemporary French.This module will look at key elements in French syntax and lexis, notably word order, tense and aspect, as well as neologisms and borrowings. We will analyse and evaluate different theoretical approaches to problematic issues in these areas.

  Learning Outcomes

  To acquire a detailed critical understanding of the linguistic structure of contemporary French, particularly as regards major areas of syntax (tense, word order) and lexis (neologisms, borrowings).

  Skills

  Marshalling and synthesising diverse material; critical awareness; skills in written and oral expression and close textual analysis.

  Coursework

  100%

  Examination

  0%

  Practical

  0%

  Stage/Level

  4

  Credits

  20

  Module Code

  FRH3015

  Teaching Period

  Spring

  Duration

  12 weeks

  Pre-requisite

  No

  Core/Optional

  Optional