English Literature BA (Hons)

This module introduces you in some detail to a broad range of authors, texts, periods and genres from Medieval mystery plays, to later poems and plays that both influenced and were influenced in turn by William Shakespeare. The module will explore and evaluate the reasons both for seeing Shakespeare as being at the heart of the English Renaissance, and for not seeing him as such. 

Compulsory

This module introduces you to literature produced during the 'long' eighteenth century (1660-1832). This period witnessed a growing faith in Enlightenment ideals but was also marked by significant upheaval. The module will consider the relationship between the rise of the novel and the rise of capitalism, the fraught dynamics between women writers and an increasingly commercialised literary marketplace, and literary responses to turbulent historical events. 

Compulsory

This module will introduce you to the most important ideas and debates in gender and sexuality. Covering a wide range of texts, including fiction, poetry, essay, film, and philosophy, you will have the opportunity to engage with key concepts of gender and sexuality, and learn to apply them to other forms of writing. 

Compulsory

This module introduces you to the literature of, and major critical approaches to, the period 1830-1900. As well as considering canonical and non-canonical British poets and novelists, by situating the Victorian era in a global context, this module aims to better understand the effects of empire upon British, Anglophone and indigenous literature. 

Compulsory

This module will consider a range of literature that emerged in the twentieth century from across the Anglophone world. You will seek to gain an understanding and knowledge of both traditional critical conceptions of a modernist period and modernist aesthetic, and alternative modernisms, as well as ideas of ‘late’ modernist work, and modernist inheritance. 

Compulsory

This module introduces you to a selection of 21st century fiction from different national cultures and traditions. The module explores the ways in which fiction of the 21st century engages with and addresses issues of the new century; for example environmentalism, decolonisation, and multiculturalism. 

Compulsory

This module² provides you with an opportunity to reflect upon and gain experience for an approved placement undertaken during your programme. A placement should usually be at least 26 weeks or equivalent; however, each placement will be considered on its own merits, having regard to the ability to achieve the learning outcomes. 

Optional

This module² provides you with an opportunity to reflect upon and gain experience for an approved international study/work placement undertaken during your programme. A work/study placement should usually be at least 26 weeks or equivalent; however, each placement will be considered on its own merits, having regard to the ability to achieve the learning outcomes. 

Optional

Novelists, poets, and essayists do not merely reflect or represent the current moment; they use their art to shape it, and to change the minds and behaviours of their imagined readers. This module will look at the history of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and explore how contemporary authors contribute to racial activism through innovations in literary form. 

Compulsory

French Existentialism is often dismissed as a product of its time; chain-smoking, polo-neck wearing, coffee-drinking introspection in the wake of two World Wars. Despite this, we see manifestations of its tenets time and again across philosophy, culture, politics and art.  This module will cover the main themes of the philosophy, as well as delve into the complexities of its texts and thinkers, before exploring interpretations in culture. 

Optional

This module surveys Gothic literature and cultural production, from its eighteenth-century origins to the film, television and video games of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You will gain a lively appreciation of the Gothic’s enduring relevance in times of climate crisis, geopolitical unrest, and rapid technological change.  

Optional

This module will explore and analyse storytelling in video games and the way in which a player’s narrative experience is influenced by gameplay. It will explore narrative forms within video games and the role of the player within a story-driven game world. You do not need to own a game console and all materials will be accessible digitally. 

Optional

This module aims to introduce you to the literature, philosophy, and theory of the Enlightenment exploring both  eighteenth-century debates about progress and modernity (and their relationship with conceptions of culture, gender, status, race and nationality) as well as  the contemporary significance of ideas about Enlightenment. 

Optional

This module embraces the great diversity of works of fantasy, gothic and science fiction and will explore their relationship to each other, place them within literary traditions and examine the ways in which such popular writing is essentially intertextual and cross-generic. 

Optional

The module focuses on a selection of female-authored texts set in the American West. Employing different genres, the narratives express Western identities that offer alternative perspectives to the masculinist colonial discourses of the American West. 

Optional

This module provides an opportunity for you to exercise independent learning and research skills in the final semester of their degree. You will be able to conceive, plan and carry out an individual programme of discipline-specific research under the supervision of a member of staff, leading to the ultimate submission of a final project in the form of a dissertation, portfolio, or artefact, as appropriate.

Optional