GRT-40030 Research Methods in the Humanities, Media, and Creative Arts (15 credits), Semester 1
You will receive training in the practical and technical skills necessary for postgraduate research in the humanities, so you will be able to plan, then find and use the necessary resources for your research and writing. This includes: relevant University regulations; procedures for managing a research degree; the differences between popular press dissemination of research and academic forms; how to identify issues of research ethics affecting your work; plus how to use real-world and digital archives and be creative in looking for primary research sources, such as film archives, digitised magazines and pamphlets, and first editions of out-of-print literature. You will also develop essential personal and professional skills in time, stress and project management.

GRT-40032 Reflective Practice in the Humanities, Media, and Creative Arts (15 credits), Semester 2
Reflective practice describes a systematic approach to reflection that involves creating a habit, structure and routine around reflecting on our experiences and engaging in continuous learning. Whether you choose to learn from experience as an individual or with others, there are many benefits to be gained from sharing ideas, experiences and considering how you can change or improve your creative practice. Throughout this module, you will be asked to explore the intellectual connections between your research area and wider fields of study. We look at ‘big ideas’ relevant to contemporary society, such as the concept of ‘post truth’, ‘big data’ and the pulling down of statues, and we work to understand them from the perspective of our disciplines.

ENG-40007 Criticism, Analysis, Theory in Literary Studies (30 credits), Semester 1
You will develop your analytical abilities through the study of a selection of key theoretical and critical issues and approaches in contemporary literary and cultural analysis. You’ll be introduced to the variety of interpretive methods currently used within the discipline of English. Collective weekly discussions about selected text examples build your confidence in selecting and applying such theory to a range of literary texts. In your assessments, you can choose to develop a project focusing on literary and filmic texts studied on the course or of your own choice.

ENG-40032 Canon, Anti-Canon, Context (30 credits) Semester 2
You will explore key questions of literary value and function, developing high-level skills in cross-period, comparative reading and the evaluation of literature across a variety of literary periods, national and international contexts, genres and movements. The module asks questions such as: what is a ‘literary’ text, and in what ways is it different from non-literary texts, or from filmic ones? How does a text become ‘canonical’? What prevents other texts from being classified as ‘canonical’? How do canonical and non-canonical texts construct and communicate different constructions of identity? How do these texts and identities come to be recovered, and perhaps evaluated differently in different social and intellectual contexts?

ENG-40034 Dissertation – English (60 credits), Semesters 1, 2 & 3
Guided by extensive one-to-one supervision from an internationally-renowned expert in the field of English Studies, you will research, plan and write a substantial piece of original work, locating your specific topic within the context of relevant debates within the discipline of English literature and the humanities more generally. The final dissertation is 15,000 words, excluding footnotes, bibliography and annexes. Capitalising on expertise across the School of Humanities, you have considerable flexibility when choosing your specialist subject, not just in literature, but also other media, including film studies and television. In the past, student dissertations have ranged from a review of identity and disability in coming-of-age literature, to a focus on modern Japanese literature, to the study of selfhood in post-modernist literature and film.

You will choose either the 30-credit Work Placement module or two 15-credit option modules from the list below. Please note that optional modules are based on individual staff specialisms and subject to change each year. This is an indicative list:

ENG-30073: The Alcohol Question
From celebrations of friendship and sociability to cautionary tales of inebriety and debauchery, from the euphoria of intoxication to the misery of the hangover, from the public house to the home, the stage to the pulpit, literature and the arts have a long and ambivalent relationship with alcohol. This module presents some of the key representations of alcohol and drinking culture from the Renaissance to the present day. You will examine the social and cultural function of different types of alcohol, look at the economic factors that have affected the consumption and licensing of drink, interrogate some of the common myths and discourses which surround alcohol, explore changing medical understanding of subjects such as alcoholism and addiction, and explore the associations that literature often makes between sexuality, class and alcohol. The module covers a comprehensive series of texts – ranging from poetry to prose, film to the fine arts – that each represent a different aspect of what has become known as The Alcohol Question. It invites you to reflect upon the reasons why alcohol is such a pervasive, but divisive, topic and why so many creative minds have felt the need to address its importance to the human condition in such a variety of different ways.

ENG-30053: Postmodernism: Fiction, Film, and Theory
Postmodernism represents an important body of critical theory that developed in the second half of the 20th century, and continues to have relevance in the 21st. It crosses a range of disciplines, but emphasises an interrogative, reflexive and eclectic challenge to many philosophical and aesthetic values and practices. On this module, you will explore the relevance and meaning of some of the ideas associated with postmodernism with respect to selected novels and films. You will assess the influence of key ideas on writers and directors and study the main themes and techniques used in postmodern fiction and film. The module also encourages a critically-informed assessment of the implications of postmodern thinking for contemporary notions of history, identity, sexuality, politics and consumer society. Fiction and film likely to be studied on the module include Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10 Chapters; Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit; Martin Amis, Other People; Ali Smith, How To Be Both; The Hours (dir. Stephen Daldry); The Company of Wolves (dir. Neil Jordan); The Matrix (dir. the Wachowskis); and Mulholland Drive (dir. David Lynch).

ENG-30072 Writingscapes
How do you see the world around you? Imaginary geographies play an important role in understanding the spaces and places we encounter in our lives. During this module, you will read a range of critical material on relationships between humans and natural (other-/more-than-human) and social environments. You will draw on this reading to produce your own creative writing (poetry and/or fiction and/or creative nonfiction). You will also learn how to give and take constructive critique on your work from your peers, which will help you shape your writing through revision.

ENG-40057: Work Placement for Humanities Postgraduates
This module is designed to give you an opportunity to contribute to the world beyond the University, in any workplace where the research, analytical, and communication skills developed as part of a postgraduate Humanities degree can be used. The chosen workplace may be, for example, a local museum, theatre, charity, library, school or education provider, marketing company, PR firm, local newspaper, local radio, or another suitable opportunity identified by you and approved by the module leader. While on the placement, you will produce a theoretically informed portfolio critically reflecting on and giving evidence of the activities/outputs completed at your chosen workplace. These may include, for example, researching and producing materials advertising or supporting current or proposed exhibits or performances, researching and producing written or audio pieces, and/or planning small group educational activities on Humanities-related topics. Advice will be given on identifying and contacting placements and composing a CV in Semester 1, and support will be provided throughout the placement, which will usually take place in Semester 2.

ENG-30096 Words and Pictures: The Contemporary American Graphic Novel 
The graphic novel is becoming an increasingly important form and is proving itself worthy of scholarly attention. For many readers coming to graphic novels for the first time, the form poses specific challenges in the sense that it requires new modes of attention, new ways of reading. One of the exciting aspects of this module is that it offers students guidance in those new ways. Time is taken with each primary text, reflecting both the scope and ambition of the texts themselves, and also the need for reflection throughout the module on the reading process itself. Content is not neglected, however, and students will have the opportunity to explore the startling variety of themes, ideas and issues tackled in graphic novels, from racial identity to sexual politics, teenage angst and 9/11. The module is particularly suitable for students with at least a literature background.

ENG-30108 Thresholds: Young Adult Fiction 
Why do young adults love Young Adult Fiction? Why do we still love those books we read at that age, even when older? Young Adult Fiction, mindful of its borderline status between children's fiction and adult fiction, often focuses on moments of crisis, its characters caught between innocence and ruin, naivety and understanding, or sometimes literally between two worlds. What is it about young adulthood that invites these creative explorations of the threshold, the liminal, or the disastrous? How can we read 'growing up', through these fictions, as not merely gradual development but as a series of shocks? This module will look at a selection of YA Fiction, from the twentieth century to the present day, through the lens of liminality and crisis. Students will suggest, and then vote on, the final text of the year: what do you want to read and discuss?

ENG-30070 Shakespeare on Film: Adaptation and Appropriation 
How have Shakespeare's works been adapted by the film industry, and why do screenwriters and directors make the creative decisions they make? In 'Shakespeare on Film' you will explore a range of Shakespeare plays adapted for film, and develop your understanding both of the original works and of the possibilities they offer for reinterpretation and adaptation. You can practise film adaptation yourself, as you explore possibilities for cutting and modernising Shakespeare’s text for the screen.

ENG-30077 Gender and Power in Restoration Literature 
In 1660, Charles II was restored to the throne following a particularly tumultuous time in English history where, for just over a decade, England was ruled as a republic. Charles’s return and the decadence of his newly-restored court brought about a new literary engagement with sexual and social freedom: writings produced in this period frequently engage with erotic as well as political and philosophical subjects, revealing scepticism about received moral and social codes of behaviour, and still have the ability to shock and surprise readers today. During the module we will consider a variety of literary works from the period 1660-89 that are concerned with power relations and courtship, including poems, plays, and prose narratives, and explore how these texts engage with the larger social and political concerns of the period. A particular focus of the module will be engaging in comparisons between the approaches of male writers towards issues of power and gender, and the approaches of women writers, including the most prolific and successful playwright of the period, Aphra Behn. Behn’s writings, in particular, offer exciting criticisms of male authority and the constraints placed on women’s behaviour, and highlight the contradiction between these constraints and the period’s more general fascination with liberty and sexual freedom. Writers studied on the module may include Aphra Behn, John Dryden, Sarah Fyge Egerton, Margaret Cavendish, the Earl of Rochester, and William Wycherley.

ENG-30138 Working-Class Fictions 
This module introduces you to the practices of working-class fiction, a genre grounded in matters of identity and social realism. You will explore literary traditions through a series of set texts (e.g. Angry Young Men of the 60s, Shuggie Bain), film adaptations, and protest songs to inspire your own practice. You will be alerted to debates and propaganda that continue to influence whilst exploring how to experiment with media to best represent the class-subject past and present.