English Options Booklet 2013/2014 - Royal Holloway, University of ...

Royal Holloway University of LondonDepartment of EnglishCOURSE UNIT OPTIONS2013/2014Please Note: The course informationcontained in this booklet may changeslightly before the start of term, but isaccurate at time of release.

Please read the information carefully for each degree path and makesure you are clear on what courses you can choose from.If you are in any doubt about the process please make anappointment to see your personal tutor for clarification. For queriesregarding specific courses, see the designated contact for the course.The enclosed course descriptions are intended to give you theinformation that you will need in order to make an informed choice ofyour options for next year. Please check the Department Web Pagefor more detailed course information or contact the course tutor.Once you have made your choices make an appointment with yourpersonal tutor who will have a copy of the relevant form that youneed. Your personal tutor will sign the form and forward it to theDepartmental Office. There will also be forms outside the EnglishOffice.You must arrange an appointment with your personal tutor betweenMonday 25 th February and Friday 15 th March 2013 to discuss youroptions choices and to obtain a signature on your form. Your tutor willthen return completed forms to the Senior Faculty Administrator, DebbieWheeler by the 19 th March 2013. You will be advised of the outcome ofcourse allocations during the first week of the Summer Term.When making your choices, please note the following:While the Department will attempt to offer students their firstchoices where possible, you are asked to make alternativechoices on the form. Some courses, particularly half-units, arecapped at 36. Timetabling constraints may also affect courseavailability.Some courses may not run if there are insufficient numbers.Course details as listed here are correct at the time of issue.However, these may change due to circumstances beyond ourcontrol. If these amendments are known before the end of theSummer Term, notices will be put on the monitor or notice boardand email alerts will be sent. Any course which is listed as ‘Incourse of Validation’ may be subject to changes but these willbe minimised. Occasionally, a text may go out of print betweenthe publication of this booklet and the start of the course. Wherethis happens, the tutor will usually decide on a replacement inconsultation with the students at the start of the course.You are welcome to approach any of the course tutors for moredetailed course information or your personal tutor if you needadvice on course choices.2

A provisional timetable will be available. Please note, however,that this is provisional and will almost certainly change before thestart of session in September 2013 and is for guidance only.Changing courses after second-year teaching has beentimetabled by the Department is unlikely to be permitted.Third-Year Creative Writing courses have prerequisites: Pleasecheck before making your third-year choices to make sure thatyou have the necessary prerequisite.3

SECOND YEAR COURSE OPTIONS 2013-14These are the structures for each degree pathway in the EnglishDepartment for the Second Year:FOR SINGLE HONOURS STUDENTS You must choose three whole units and two half units. Note that over your second and third years you must take atleast:One Medieval half unit andOne whole unit or two half units of courses focusing onliterature from 1550-1780. Please note that Shakespearecourses are excluded from these courses, but thatEN2010 Renaissance counts as a whole unit of literature1550-1780.This makes a total of four whole units.FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN ENGLISH AND CLASSICS orLANGUAGES or COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND CULTURE Students must take one of the following:EN1001 Medieval Literature OR EN1106 Shakespeare Two further half-units or one whole unit completes your course.Over your 2nd and 3rd years, at least one half unit must be froma course which focuses on literature from before 1780. Pleasenote that taking Shakespeare courses and/or EN1001 will notfulfil this requirement.This makes a total of two whole units in the English Department. You will also take two whole units from your other Departmentnegotiated with them.This makes a total of four whole units.4

FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN ENGLISH AND DRAMA The following English-Drama course is compulsory:EN2500 Shakespeare from Page to Stage (whole unit) You then choose one and a half units in any combination ofwhole and half units from the range of options in English(including EN1101 Medieval but excluding EN1106 Shakespeare) In Drama you will take:Theatre and Performance –making 2 (whole unit)Theatre and Ideas 2 (half unit)This makes a total of four whole units.FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN ENGLISH AND CREATIVE WRITINGYou must take one whole unit from the range of English wholeunits offeredYou must take a further two half units or another whole unit fromthe range of English units offered (which includes EN1001Medieval Literature or EN1106 Shakespeare)You must ensure that over your second and third years you takeat least one whole unit or equivalent (i.e. two half units) in pre-1780 literature. Note that taking Shakespeare course units do notcontribute towards this requirement.You must also take two whole units from a choice of threeCreative Writing Specialism Options:CW2020 Fiction orCW2030 Poetry orDT2310 Playwriting (in Drama Department)This makes a total of four whole units.FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN ENGLISH AND FILM STUDIESYou must take one whole unit from the range of English wholeunits offered5

You must take a further two half units or another whole unit fromthe range of English units offered (which includes EN1001Medieval Literature)You must ensure that over your second and third years you takeat least one half unit in pre-1780 literature. Note that takingShakespeare course units do not contribute towards thisrequirement.This makes a total of two whole units in the English Department. You will also take two whole units from the Media ArtsDepartment negotiated with them.This makes a total of four whole units.FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN DRAMA AND CREATIVE WRITINGYou must also take two whole units from a choice of threeCreative Writing Specialism Options:CW2020 Fiction orCW2030 Poetry orDT2310 Playwriting (in Drama Department)You will also take two whole units from the Drama Departmentnegotiated with them.This makes a total of four whole units.FOR ENGLISH (Major) WITH PHILOSOPHY (Minor) STUDENTS One course unit is compulsory:EN2324 Contemporary Debates in Literary and Critical Theory You must take one whole unit from the range of second yearEnglish whole unit options You must then take one whole unit or two half units from therange of second year options in English. You must ensure that over your second and third years you takeat least one half unit of pre-1780 literature. Note thatShakespeare course units do not contribute towards thisrequirement.6

This makes a total of three whole units in the English Department.You will also take one whole unit from the PhilosophyDepartment negotiated with them.This makes a total of four whole units.7

LIST OF COURSE OPTIONS IN SECOND YEARIt is important to keep a balance of work between first and secondterms: in any one term you may choose to do no more than a total ofthe equivalent of 2.5 units.Whole UnitsTerm 1 Term 2EN2010 Renaissance LiteratureEN2212 Victorian LiteratureEN2213 Romantic LiteratureEN2324 Contemporary Debates in Criticaland Literary TheoryEN2325 Modernist LiteratureFor E/D students only: (Compulsory)EN2500 Shakespeare from Page to Stage (E/D Students only)For J/H students only: (Choose one)EN1106 Shakespeare (Term 1) or EN1001 Medieval Literature (Term 2)For C/W students only: (Choose two)CW2020 Fiction (Both Terms)CW2030 Poetry (Both Terms) orDT2310 Playwriting (Both Terms in Drama Department)A: Medieval:Half Unit OptionsTerm 1 Term 2EN2001 Middle English PoetryEN2004 Medieval Dream & VisionEN2016 Literature after the Conquest,1066 – 1340 (to be validated)EN2319 Tolkien’s Roots8

B: 1550-1780:Term 1 Term 2EN2110 Eighteenth-Century BodiesEN2012 Drama and WitchcraftEN2015 Paradise in Early ModernLiteratureEN2014 Early-Modern BodiesNote: EN2010 Renaissance Literature falls within this time period and cantherefore be chosen to fulfil the course requirements.C: Other:Term 1 Term 2EN2209 Fictions of SensationEN2214 Aspects of ForsterEN2215 Creative Writing: Structureand StyleEN2011 Intensive Shakespeare:Comedy, History, TragedyEN2217 Queer Histories:Contemporary Gay and LesbianBritish Fiction (to be validated)EN2309 Literature of the Fin de SiècleEN2321 Dark ReformPY2005 Philosophy and artNote: if you choose your two half units only from group C and do not selectEN2010 The Renaissance as a whole unit, then in the third year you will haveto make sure that a half unit is taken from group A and a whole unit (orequivalent) from group B.9

THIRD YEAR COURSE OPTIONSThese are the structures for each degree pathway in the EnglishDepartment for the Third Year:FOR SINGLE HONOURS STUDENTSYou choose three whole units from the three following options:o Special Author Projecto Special Topico DissertationAnd two half units from the range of half-unit options.Please note: it is important to keep a balance of work between first andsecond terms: in any one term you may choose to do no more than atotal of the equivalent of 2.5 units. So you may, for example, take yourtwo half units in any one term, rather than a half unit in each term.This makes a total of four whole units.FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN ENGLISH AND CLASSICS orLANGUAGES or COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND CULTURECore Option: You choose ONE unit from the three followingoptions:o Special Author Projecto Special Topico DissertationAnd one further course unit from the range of whole or half unitoptions in English.This makes a total of two units in the English Department.You will also take Two further course units from your otherDepartment negotiated with themThis makes a total of four whole units.10

FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS ENGLISH AND DRAMAYou take the COMPULSORY English-Drama Research Seminar: DT3500 English-Drama Research SeminarPlus you choose ONE unit from the four following options: Special Author Project Special Topic Dissertation Final Year Project (DT)You take the equivalent of ONE unit from the range of whole orhalf unit options in ENGLISH andONE unit from the range of options in DRAMAThis makes a total of four units.FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN ENGLISH AND CREATIVE WRITINGONE Creative Writing Core Course unit is compulsory: CW3103 Creative Writing Special Focus - this is over bothterms and is split into two half modules.Plus one other Creative Writing Specialism Option:CW3010 Playwriting orCW3020 Fiction orCW3030 PoetryPlease note, that there is a prerequisite to your choice: you must havecompleted the relevant genre course during your second year.Plus you choose ONE whole unit in English from the threefollowing options: Special Author Project Special Topic DissertationAnd you take the equivalent of ONE unit from the range of wholeor half unit options in English.This makes a total of four units.11

FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN ENGLISH AND FILM STUDIESCore Option: You choose ONE unit from the three followingoptions:o Special Author Projecto Special Topico Dissertation (see note below)NB: Students may only write one dissertation: if the dissertation issupervised in Film Studies, students must choose either the SpecialAuthor Project or Special Topic.And one further course unit from the range of whole or half unitoptions in English.This makes a total of two units in the English Department.You will also take Two further course units from the Media ArtsDepartment negotiated with themThis makes a total of four whole units.FOR JOINT HONOURS STUDENTS IN DRAMA AND CREATIVE WRITINGONE Creative Writing Core Course unit is compulsory: CW3103 Creative Writing Special Focus – this is over bothterms and is split into two half modules.Plus one other Creative Writing Specialism Option:CW3010 Playwriting orCW3020 Fiction orCW3030 PoetryPlease note, that there is a prerequisite to your choice: you must havecompleted the relevant genre course during your second year.This makes a total of two Creative Writing units.In addition you take two whole units from the DramaDepartment options.This makes a total of four units.12

FOR ENGLISH (Major) WITH PHILOSOPHY (Minor) STUDENTSCore Option: You choose TWO whole units from the threefollowing options: Special Author Project Special Topic DissertationAnd you take the equivalent of ONE unit from the range of wholeor half unit options in English.This makes a total of three whole units in the English Department.You will also take one whole unit from the Philosophy Departmentnegotiated with them.This makes a total of four units.13

LIST OF COURSE OPTIONS IN THIRD YEARPlease note: it is important to keep a balance of work between firstand second terms.WHOLE UNITSYou have the option to choose up to three whole units from:a) Special Author ProjectEN3504EN3507EN3511EN3513EN3514EN3515EN3517EN3519ConradChaucerBrontësAshberyDonneDickensCoetzeeWordsworth & Coleridge (to be validated)b) Special TopicEN3202 C19th Literature and CultureEN3223 The Girl in the BookEN3224 Ideas in Contemporary FictionEN3303 African American LiteratureEN3325 Theatre and the City 1590 - 1730EN3225 Children’s Literature (to be validated)EN3226 The Post-Colonial Novel: The Art of Resistance (to bevalidated)EN3227 The Pre-Raphaelite Movement in Art and Literature (to bevalidated)EN3311 Poetic Practicec) EN3401 Dissertation14

THIRD YEAR HALF UNITSYou then choose up to two half units from the following options:A: Medieval:Term 1 Term 2EN3001 Re-Creating BeowulfEN3024 Medieval Dream & VisionEN3016 Literature after the Conquest,1066 – 1340 (to be validated)EN3003 Tolkien’s RootsEN3021 Medieval PoetryB: 1550-1780:Term 1 Term 2EN3015 Paradise in Early ModernLiteratureEN3012 Drama and WitchcraftEN3110 Eighteenth-Century BodiesEN3014 Early-Modern BodiesEN3204 Reading Tristram ShandyC: Other:Term 1 Term 2EN3011 Advanced ShakespeareEN3118 Shakespearean AdaptationEN3121 Critical Editions (to bevalidated)EN3120 Exploring Joyce Ulysses (to bevalidated)EN3209 Fictions of SensationEN3119 Painting & WritingEN3122 Renaissance Now (to bevalidated)EN3217 Queer Histories :Contemporary Gay and LesbianBritish and Irish Fiction15

EN3316 Odysseus’ ScarEN3317 Art of NoiseEN3319 Lives of WritingEN3328 Visual and Verbal in the longnineteenth centuryEN3329 The Great American NovellaCreative Writing Core CourseCW3103 Creative Writing Special FocusTerm 1 Term 2ScreenwritingScreenwritingWriting in the Expanded FieldWriting Men: The burden ofmasculinityWriting and the Short StoryWriting about MusicEnglish-Drama Pathways whole unit DT3500 English-Drama Research Seminar16

COURSE INFORMATION RELATING TOOPTIONAL WHOLE UNITS AND HALF UNITSFor Joint honours only:EN1001 Medieval LiteratureTutors: Jenny Neville, Cath Nall & Alastair BennettWhole Unit: Spring TermDescription: This is a full course-unit, taught over one term, in Term 2. It isan introductory course taken by all first-year Single Honours students and somesecond-year Joint Honours students. Its purpose is to provide students with elementaryknowledge of the cultural, linguistic and literary contexts of Old and Middle Englishliterature, and to examine representative works from the rich variety of verse, proseand drama of the period. Texts change from year to year, but they ofteninclude: The Battle of Brunanburh, The Wanderer, The Dream of the Rood, Beowulf,Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Malory's Morte d'Arthur, and Sir Gawain and the GreenKnight. It is necessary that you prepare yourself for this course by reading the longerworks in advance and by doing some background reading. Please consultthe Summer Reading List.Teaching: You will attend two lectures, one language workshop, one seminar, andone study group per week over 11 weeks. A detailed schedule for the course,including dates for the submission of assignments, will be listed in the course booklet,which can be found on the Moodle site. The Moodle site also provides detailedinstructions for work to be done week by week and resources to support your study.Coursework: In addition to work that you prepare for your study groups and seminars,you will complete three hand-in assignments during the course. These include atranslation and commentary on a passage from Old English, a translation andcommentary on a passage from Middle English, and a research essay. Details for allthese assignments will appear in your course booklet and on Moodle.Assessment: The grade for the course is made up from the marks from the threecoursework assignments. The breakdown of marks is as follows:Total: 100% Old English Translation & Commentary 10% Middle English Translation and Commentary 10% Research Essay 80%EN1106: SHAKESPEARETutors: Christie Carson, Eric LangleyWhole Unit: Autumn TermDescription: This innovative lecture-led course opens with the ElizabethanShakespeare of the comedies and histories. The latter half of term is then devoted tothe tragedies and late plays of the Jacobean Shakespeare.You will be studying: The Merchant of Venice; As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Henry IVPart I, Henry V and then Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest.Unless you intend to buy most of the plays in individual editions you will need to havea copy of Shakespeare's complete works. We recommend that you buy The NortonShakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt.17

When you are studying particular plays in depth, you will also need to make use ofthe editions of individual plays. The Oxford Shakespeare and the New CambridgeShakespeare (both available in paperback) are the series we recommend. These willbe available in the campus bookshop.Teaching: Three hour-long lectures a week incorporating a critical overview of thetext; collaborative close reading of the text in question; and lectures on the plays inperformance.Coursework: One essay of 1,500 words.Assessment: Take Away Exam Paper at the end of the Autumn Term (100%)SECOND-YEAR WHOLE UNIT CREATIVE WRITING OPTIONSCW2020 – FICTIONTutors: Ben Markovits/Doug CowieWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: This is a course option available to all second-year Creative Writingstudents. It is designed to provide students with the opportunity to develop theirfiction-writing skills within a structured workshop-based environment. The course seeksto pick up on the grounding in the theory and practice of creative writing studentsacquired in their first year.The first term will focus on the short story. We will look at a selection of published shortstories through the term and will use practical exercises to respond to stories and todevelop skills. The course places a strong emphasis on critical feedback as a meansof developing editorial and fiction-writing skills. The last part of each weekly seminarwill be a workshop, led by the tutor, in which students give each other detailed andconstructive feedback on their weekly assignment.The second term will focus on the novel. Students are expected to read the novels onthe reading list. The emphasis, again, is on craft so we shall read the novels as writersand discuss them in terms of character, structure, point of view, narrative voice etc,and what may be learned from them.In this term students are working toward completing the first chapter of a novel or along short story and so each workshop session will also include a short individualpresentation in which students discuss their proposed project. It is understood thatideas may change between the planning and writing stage and students are notcommitted to the plans they present.Teaching: Two hour seminars each week over both terms.Coursework: One short story (1500 words), and an accompanying 500 wordanalytical essayAssessment Autumn Term One short story that draws on exercises from the seminar(3,000-4,000 words) and an accompanying 1000 word analytical essay on the (50%).Assessment Spring Term: Either the opening chapter of a proposed novel or acomplete short story (5,000 words) and an accompanying 1000 word analytical essayon the proposed novel or story (50%)18

CW2030 - POETRYTutor: Kristen KreiderWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: On this course you will work through some of the fundamentalelements of poetry: subject, duration, image, language, sound, rhythm, visualpoetics, performance, etc. We shall do so through encountering and discussingdifferent approaches to and examples of these fundamental elements as they arisein poetry as well as in background readings across an historical range and betweendisciplinary boundaries. The course aims to develop your familiarity with a variety oftechniques available to the contemporary poet, thereby informing and enhancingyour own creative practice. It likewise aims to further your understanding andappreciation of poetry as an artistic medium of thought and communication. Thecourse will concentrate on lyric rather than dramatic or narrative poetry; however,throughout the course you will be encouraged to expand your creative practicealongside your thinking; to write and consider longer sequences of poems as well asalternative styles of poetic practice.Teaching: Two hour seminars each week over both terms.Coursework: Weekly creative work for portfolio reviewed in tutorialsAssessment: Presentations plus Portfolio of Poems submitted in both Spring andSummer Terms.DT2310 – PLAYWRITINGTaught in Drama DepartmentWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: The first term will focus on a series of dramaturgical elements, looking atthe way that these elements are exemplified in various set texts and trying to developthem through writing exercises. For example, students may be asked to readChekhov’s Three Sisters thinking specifically about dramatic structure; in class they willalso examine the second part of Aristotle’s poetics, and construct exemplarystructures around dramatic scenarios offered by the group to test these ideas out.Towards the end of the first term and for the first half of the second term, the studentswill be engaged in developing a series of ideas for plays that they will then write insmall groups; these plays will be given a performance of some kind in the middle ofthe second term, the experience of which will form the basis for a final rewrite beforesubmission. During this period, the content of the classes will be driven by thedemands of the developing scripts. As appropriate, specific topics (dialogue,character, subtext, etc.) will be introduced to contribute to the development of theclass. For the last few weeks of the second term, students will be concentrating ontheir own short, single-authored plays, and we will revisit issues of structure, style,language and inspiration.Teaching: Weekly sessions combining mini-lectures, seminars, and workshops, as thematerial demands. Students will be required to produce writing for most classes andin the first term will be required to read a play a week for discussion in class.Coursework: Portfolio of short creative playwriting exercises and analyses ofplaywritingAssessment: Collaborative play, written in groups of 5 and lasting no more than anhour (60%). Short, individually-written play of approximately 20 minutes in length (40%)19

EN2010: RENAISSANCE LITERATURETutors: Roy Booth/Deana Rankin/Eric LangleyWhole Unit: Both termsDescription: This course is designed as an introduction to the literature of the EnglishRenaissance, beginning in the 1590s with erotic narrative poems by ChristopherMarlowe and William Shakespeare, and concluding with John Milton's drama,Samson Agonistes, first published in 1671. Marlowe and Thomas Middleton representthe extraordinarily rich drama of the period, while John Donne and Andrew Marvellare the most famous of the so-called metaphysical poets. A feature of the course isthe attention given to situating these works in their historical and cultural contexts. Theonline course book has several seminar texts, some of which are also available in theprinted version.Teaching: This course will be taught by one or more of the following methods:lectures, seminars, study groups, directed reading, on-line discussion, etc.Coursework: 1 essay of 1,000-1,500 wordsAssessment: Commentary of 1500-2000 words (40%) and take-away paper (2 essayquestions) in Summer Term (60%)EN2212: VICTORIAN LITERATURETutors: Sophie Gilmartin, Vicky Greenaway, Ruth Livesey, Anne VartyWhole Unit: Both termsDescription: This survey course on Victorian literature is framed by the personal: itbegins with Queen Victoria’s private diaries of her happiest days in Scotland, andends just beyond the Victorian period, with one troubled man’s intensely-felt accountof his Victorian childhood. Within these bookends, other ways of being Victorianemerge in figures such as ‘the factory lad’, the opium addict, the chimney sweep,lady farmer, wartime nurse, financial mogul and gentleman-traveller. Revealedthrough the dramatic monologues of Tennyson and Browning are the many masksthat men and women wear. In this great period of realist narrative the novel tends tofocus on personal stories of social climbing, struggle against injustice, forging anEmpire and finding a husband (or wife), but the course also explores other ways inwhich the Victorian obsession with personal stories is satisfied or criticized, through thepantomime, which has it beginnings in this period, poetry, the short story, play andpolemic. We will study great examples of the novelistic form, including sensation,Romantic, domestic realist and sentimental novels. Some works on the course arewell-known and truly canonical, while others will be excitingly unfamiliar; all howeverwill contribute to a sense of the variety and contradictions inherent in being Victorian.Teaching: One one-hour lecture per week and one one-hour seminar per fortnight for20 weeks, plus fortnightly study groups.Coursework: One oral presentation of formal seminar paper (1000–1500 words) withfeedback in class. Paper must be uploaded to MOODLE website as precondition ofsubmitting assessed essay.Assessment: One three hour exam in the Summer Term (100%)Course texts: While most of the texts below will be studied on the course, occasionallythere may be some minor changes to course content.Queen Victoria, Leaves from a Journal of Our Life in the Highlands 1848-61 (1868)20

John Walker, The Factory Lad (1832) (pdf on Moodle)Robert Browning, Dramatic Lyrics (1842)Alfred Tennyson, selected poems (1842)Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (1847)Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton (1848)Florence Nightingale, Cassandra (1852) (google books)A. H. Clough, Amours de Voyage (1858)George Eliot, Adam Bede (1859)H. J. Byron, Aladdin (1861) (pdf on Moodle)Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies (1863)Wilkie Collins, Armadale (1866)Tom Robertson, Caste (1867) (pdf on Moodle)Richard Blackmore, Lorna Doone (1869)Anthony Trollope, The Way we Live Now (1872)Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd (1874)Christina Rossetti, Selected PoemsMatthew Arnold, Selected Poems (1849-69)R. L. Stevenson, “The Beach of Falesa” (1892)Gosse, Father and Son (1907)EN2213: ROMANTIC LITERATURETutors: Judith Hawley, Adam Roberts, Vicky GreenawayWhole Unit: Both termsThis course provides a broad yet complex introduction to the field of Romantic Poetry.Initially, the work of four prominent Romantic poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byronand Shelley) will be examined. As well as examining each poet’s work in detail, keytheoretical concepts of the age, including the Sublime and ideas of Romantic poeticidentity, will be explored.The course will then move on to explore work by a number of lesser-known and lessstudiedRomantic poets and writers. Through exploring the Gothic writings of MaryShelley and John Polidori (Frankenstein and The Vampyre), the work of Romanticwomen poets (in an intensive five-week block), and the poetry of Sir Walter Scott, theideas and identities of Romanticism (as constructed within the Romantic period andbeyond) will be interrogated, broadened, and at times challenged.This course aims, then, to get you thinking about Romantic poetry in a complex andcritical way, to acquaint you with both dominant and less well-studied Romanticwriting, and to get you to evaluate the politics of the 21 st century literary canon in itsselection of certain writers over others.Teaching: One one-hour lecture per week and one one-hour seminar per fortnightfor 20 weeks, plus fortnightly study groups.Coursework: One non-assessed essay in Term 1 and a non-assessed practical criticismexercise in Term 2.Method of assessment: 20% assessed essay, 80% exam in the Summer Term.EN2324 Contemporary Debates in Literary and Critical TheoryTutor: Robert EaglestoneWhole Unit: Both Terms21

Description: This course will familiarise you with a range of influential critical andtheoretical ideas in literary studies, influential and important for al the areas andperiods you will study during your degree. It aims:to introduce you to the work of key thinkers who have shaped literary theory;to introduce you to a selection of contemporary schools of literary theory intheir intellectual, political and social contexts;to open up contemporary ideas and arguments about literature;to outline the 'state of theory' at the present moment;to look at two theoretical texts in detail.By the end of the course, you should:have read and become familiar with the work of particular thinkers who aresignificant for literary studies;be familiar with selected significant schools of critical thought;have explored the relationship between these ideas and the work of othercritics and thinkers;honed your abilities of analysis and interpretation, argument, abstract thoughtand critical engagement with texts.Texts: There will be two books to buy: the rest of the texts are available on moodle.Teaching: This course will be taught by lecture and seminars across both terms.Assessed work: 2 essays of 2000 words with feedback during term (25% each), plus 2-hours exam (50%). The exam will contain questions on specific areas and questionsthat cover issues on the whole course.EN2325: MODERNIST LITERATURETutors: Finn Fordham & Will MontgomeryWhole Unit: Both TermsCourse Description: The aim of this course is to provide an introduction to the study ofliterary modernism, a period of intense experimentation in diverse sets of culturalforms. It will deal with such issues such as modernist aesthetics; genre; the fragment;time and narration; stream-of-consciousness; history, politics and colonialism;technology, and the status of language and the real.In the first five weeks you will explore novels by Joseph Conrad, James Joyce andVirginia Woolf and short stories by Katherine Mansfield, D.H. Lawrence and SamuelBeckett. In the next five weeks you will explore modernist poetry by William CarlosWilliams, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens and others. Further details of texts will beannounced over summer.Teaching: The course is taught over both terms with lectures and seminars.Coursework: Presentation uploaded to Moodle each term.Assessment: Two 3,000 word essays (50% each). Essays will be due after Term 1 and inthe Summer Term.22

SECOND-YEAR HALF UNIT OPTIONSEN2001: MIDDLE ENGLISH POETRY (EN3021 for Third Years)Tutor: Alastair BennettHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: This half unit course provides students with an opportunity to study central14th- or 15th-century Middle English poetic texts in close detail. The course isdesigned to equip students with an accurate reading knowledge of and familiaritywith some of the best of Middle English poetry. The reading skills developed will behelpful in the more accelerated study required in courses such as EN2002-9, EN3222Special Topic: Violence, Sex, and Magic in Medieval Literature, and EN3507: SpecialAuthor, Chaucer. The course will also provide a more concentrated alternativeoption to the wide-ranging generic medieval options. Lectures will introduce thepoems and their literary contexts and draw attention to critical responses. Use will bemade of audio-visual aids where appropriate. Seminars will involve close readingand interpretation.Teaching: One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks.Coursework: Oral Presentation and mid-term essay of 1000 – 1500 words.Method of Assessment: One final essay of 2000 – 2500 words.EN2004: MEDIEVAL DREAM AND VISION (EN3024 for third years)Tutor: Catherine NallHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: This half-unit explores a major literary genre which attracted all the greatpoets of late medieval England: the dream vision. It considers the use of the genre inthe works of Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain-poet, as well as examining thevisions in mystical writing. These authors’ treatments of the genre repeatedly ask us toreflect on the relationship of literature to experience, poetic authority and identity,and the development of English as a literary language. Lectures will explore thecultural, religious and social background to these works, as well as focusing onindividual authors and texts.Middle English texts will be read in the original; Latin and French texts will be read intranslation.Teaching: One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar each week for 10 weeksCoursework: Second Year Students: One mid-term essay of 1000 – 1500 wordsThird Year Students: One mid-term essay of 1500 - 2000 wordsMethod of Assessment: One final essay of 2000 – 2500 wordsEN2011: INTENSIVE SHAKESPEARE: COMEDY, HISTORY, TRAGEDYTutors: Kiernan Ryan & Eric LangleyHalf Unit: Spring Term23

Description: This half-unit explores in depth three supreme examples ofShakespearean comedy, tragedy and historical drama that are not covered by thefirst-year Shakespeare course EN1106: Richard III (1592-3), A Midsummer Night's Dream(1595-6), and Macbeth (1606). It allows for a closer, more concentrated study of therange of Shakespeare's drama than was possible in EN1106, and is designed to pavethe way for the advanced third-year Shakespeare option EN3011. However, it is not apre-requisite for EN3011. Teaching for the course consists of 10 two-hour seminarsdevoted to a close reading of the plays and detailed discussion of the complexcritical and theoretical issues they raise. Students will be required to give one oralpresentation of a formal seminar paper (1000-1500 words) on a relevant topic of theirchoice. Clips of film productions will be used throughout. The course has its ownMOODLE website, which provides the agenda and copies of the required reading foreach week of the course, direct online access to further reading, access to feedbackon uploaded seminar papers, and a range of information resources including a fullbibliography and a list of Shakespeare websites.In preparation for the course, which begins with Richard III, you are expected to readall three plays in the following editions, together with the editors' introductions:Richard III, ed. John Jowett, Oxford World's Classics (2000); A Midsummer Night'sDream, ed. Peter Holland, Oxford World's Classics (1994); Macbeth, ed. NicholasBrooke, Oxford World's Classics (1998).You should also view the film versions of the plays available in the College library andin the English Department. Especially recommended are: Olivier's Richard III (1955)and Loncraine's Richard III, starring Ian McKellen (1996); A Midsummer Night's Dreamdirected by Elijah Moshinsky for the BBC (1988), Adrian Noble for the RSC (1996) andMichael Hoffman (1999); and the versions of Macbeth directed by Roman Polanski(1971,) Greg Doran for the RSC (2003), and Rupert Goold for the BBC (2011).Teaching: One two-hour seminar each week for ten weeks.Coursework: One oral presentation of formal seminar paper (1000–1500 words) withfeedback in class. Paper must be uploaded to MOODLE website, where it will receivefurther written feedback, as a precondition of submitting the examined essay.Assessment: One assessed essay of 2000-2500 words, to be submitted in SummerTerm.EN2012: DRAMA AND WITCHCRAFT 1576-1642 (EN3012 for Third Years)Tutor: Roy BoothHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: The texts covered span virtually the whole period in which early modernEnglish drama flourished: from Marlowe in c.1593 to 1634. The texts range from famousplays like Macbeth and The Tempest to little-known comedies like The Wise-woman ofHogsden. Two central texts will be The Witch of Edmonton and The Late LancashireWitches, plays which deal with historically documented witchcraft accusations andscares. The phenomenon of witchcraft, and the persecution of witches duringoutbreaks of witchcraft hysteria has fascinated historians: the historical component ofthis course will be large. Accordingly, non-dramatic texts about witchcraft are alsoincluded for study in the course. These will include news pamphlets, works by learnedcontemporaries expressing their opinions about witchcraft, popular ballads and otherarchival texts.Learning outcomes: By the end of the course a wide, even disparate, series of textswill have been read and studied. Some of these plays still do not have modernscholarly editions that present the text in modernised spellings, or the usual editorial24

assistance to the reader in the form of footnotes and additional editorial stagedirections. Therefore there will sometimes be the challenge of reading anunmediated text, and of making judgements on texts where there is no largerepertoire of critical commentary to consult. The plays may well also seem artistically,even morally inadequate to the inherently distressing subject they handle. The course,therefore, confronts the participant with coping with historical sources, withevaluating minor plays from outside the normally anthologised canon, and thechallenge of assessing plays in which the moral authority of the dramatist is itselfdebatable.Course requirements: One essay of a comparison of the two central texts, The Witchof Edmonton and The Late Lancashire Witches.Teaching: Ten lectures and ten seminars in the term.Assessment: Presentation and a take-away paper in the Summer term.EN2014: EARLY MODERN BODIES (EN3014 for Third Years)Tutor: Eric LangleyHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription:Variable, and therefore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well,and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz’d with sodaine change; … that which issecret, is most dangerous. … The pulse, the urine, the sweat, all havesworn to say nothing, to give no indication, of any dangerous sicknesse.Donne, Devotions, 7 & 52Charting a progression from Galenic humoral theory to Cartesian dualism, Early-Modern Bodies considers the representation and significance of corporeality insixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts. Reading Renaissance plays and poetryalongside anatomical textbooks, manuals of health, erotica, and philosophicalessays, the module seeks to contextualise the period’s literary treatment of the body;authors and works studied will range from familiar names such as Marlowe, Donne,and Sidney, to the comparatively less canonical (for example, the plague tracts ofThomas Lodge; Jacques Ferrand’s cure for love-sickness, Erotomania; or HelkiahCrooke’s anatomical treatise, Microcosmographia). Renaissance depictions of thebody variously condemn the ‘filthy fleshy pleasures’ of ‘bodily matter, superfluous andunsavery’ while celebrating ‘the Wisdom of the Eternal Mind’ exhibited in a wellorderedcadaver. This module shows how Renaissance writers exhibit period uneaseabout the workings and mysteries of the body, returning compulsively to what is botha site of meaning and a site of corruption. During the course of this module we willexplore issues of metamorphosis, humoral theory, gender and race, healthymoderation and grotesque over-indulgence, examining bodies heroic and maternal,bodies articulate and disarticulated, infected by physical desire and plagued bycontagious disease. Although Donne’s ‘pulse... urine [and] sweat, all have sworn tosay nothing’, nevertheless we will attempt to read the early-modern body andanatomise its meanings.Teaching: One lecture and one seminar each week for ten weeksCoursework: One seminar presentation or one critical commentaryMethod of Assessment: One assessed essay of 2500-3000 words, to be submitted inthe Summer Term25

EN2015: PARADISE IN EARLY MODERN LITERATURE (EN3015 for ThirdYears)Tutor: Roy BoothHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: The Renaissance Literature course (EN2010) does not include ParadiseLost among its major texts. This half unit offers the opportunity to study one veryimportant and characteristic aspect of Milton’s epic: his depiction of Eden, theparadise that was lost at the fall. Throughout his account of Paradise, Milton works tomake the loss of paradise poignant by lavishing on it all his evocative powers as apoet. We will spend at least three sessions looking at Milton’s epic, covering aspectssuch as Edenic sex and marriage, Eden’s fauna and flora, and work in Eden.Throughout the course images of Paradise will be given attention, starting withHieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delight’. Alongside art works, we will touchbriefly on some of the Bible scholarship which tried to locate the site of paradise, anddeduce its fate. Other texts covered on the course will include:~ The rescue of Rinaldo from Armida’s bower in Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, translatedby Fairfax (1600)~ Spenser, ‘Bower of Bliss’ and its destruction in The Faerie Queene (1590)~ Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana (1596)~ The Abbaye Thélème episode in Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel~ Aldous Huxley’s Island (1962)As well as work by Montaigne, Traherne, Vaughan, Margaret Cavendish, Marvell andWalton.Teaching: One lecture and one seminar each week for ten weeksCoursework: Formative essay (1000-1500 words) with feedbackMethod of Assessment: ‘portfolio’ essay of revised and extended essay (2500-3000words) due in the Summer Term.EN2016 LITERATURE AFTER THE CONQUEST: 1066 -1340 (to be validated)(EN3016 for Third-Years)Tutor: Alastair BennettHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: This course provides an introduction to English literature from the Normanconquest to the birth of Chaucer. This period has been described both as a period ofpolitical crisis and also as a period of cultural renaissance. It saw the conquest andcolonization of England, the rise of new forms of scholarship and spirituality, and,according to some accounts, the development of new ways of thinking aboutnational and individual identity. The course will offer a survey of English writing fromthis period, considering established genres like lyric, epic and satire alongside newliterary forms like romance, fabliau and beast fable. Core texts include King Horn, anearly romance of exile, love and revenge, Laȝamon’s Brut, a magisterial verse historyof the British, saints lives from the ‘Katherine-group’ with their powerful accounts ofphysical endurance and religious desire, and The Owl and the Nightingale, perhapsthe first example of comic writing in English. Not all English literature from this periodwas written in English; students will have an opportunity to read these early MiddleEnglish texts alongside contemporary writing in Latin and French (using modernEnglish translations), and to think about the implications of a tri-lingual literary culture.Once a largely-forgotten period in English literary history, 1066-1340 has seen a revivalof critical interest in recent years. The course will introduce students to some of thebest recent criticism on this literature, and give them a stake in the ongoing project ofrecovering and reinterpreting it.Teaching: One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks.26

Assessment (second years): Mid-term essay of 1000-1500 words (20%), final essay of2000-2500 words (80%).EN2110: EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BODIES (EN3110 for Third-Years)Tutor: Elaine McGirrHalf Unit Autumn TermDescription: This course will explore the changing notions and representations ofidentity throughout the long eighteenth century. While our focus will be on gender,we will also be looking at the ways in which gender intersects with other schema:national identity, class identity, ethnic identity, and religious identity.Readings will cover a broad range of cultural productions, including novels, drama,popular periodicals, and poetry. Texts may include: The Expedition of HumphryClinker, The Irish Widow, Nourjahad, Love’s Last Shift and The Relapse, and The Rapeof the Lock.Teaching: Two-hour lecture/seminar each week for 10 weeksCoursework: Formative essay (1000-1500 words) with feedbackMethod of Assessment: ‘portfolio’ essay of revised and extended essay (2500-3000words) due in the Summer Term.EN2209: FICTIONS OF SENSATION (EN3209 for Third Years)Tutor: Dr Sophie GilmartinHalf Unit Autumn TermDescription:No London social ’season’ of the mid-Victorian period was complete without its‘sensation’: the sensational new ballerina, actress, explorer, soprano or writer waslionized by society and invited everywhere. Newspapers were full of ‘sensation’ too:stories of scandal, bigamy, bankruptcy and murder transmitted their shocks fromnewspaper print along the nerves of readers to become literally sensational. Thesensation novel, which became widely popular in the 1850s and 60s, took the plotlines and the visceral effects of the sensational, to create narratives which exploredcultural anxieties about marriage, the criminal, law, the rise of the detective, thedemonic woman, the private self. The course aims to explore the Victorian conceptof the 'sensational' across a range of novels dating from the height of the sensationperiod in the 1850s and 60s. We will explore together some of the magazines in whichthese novels were originally serialized. Issues such as the role of public spectacle, thefirst detectives, advertising, domestic crime and the demonic woman will beexplored in relation to the cultural and social context of this novelistic genre. Studentswill build upon work done for EN1107; build up an awareness of various genres andtrends in the history of the novel; be introduced to important nineteenth-centurynovelists, both 'major' and 'minor' writers; and build up an understanding of the social,historical and cultural contexts influencing and influenced by the novel in this period.Primary Texts:Note: There may be some minor changes to this list, but they are likely to include thefollowing:Wilkie Collins, The Woman in WhiteMrs Henry Wood, East LynneMary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s SecretWilkie Collins, The Moonstone27

Charles Dickens, Bleak HouseCoursework: One formative essay of 1000 –1500 words and one seminar presentation.Teaching: Two hour seminarsMethod of Assessment: Two-hour written exam in Summer TermEN2214: ASPECTS OF FORSTERTutor: Betty JayHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: In addition to the five novels he published during his lifetime, this coursewill examine a number of Forster’s short stories and some of his critical writings. Adetailed textual study his work will form the basis for an exploration of critical debatesabout Forster’s place within the liberal-humanist tradition, as well as more recentdiscussions concerning empire, sexuality and race in his work. Alongside thisengagement with Forster and his critics, the course will also seek to place his writingswithin a number of different contexts. This will lead to a consideration of Forster’srelation to the Victorians, to Modernism, Bloomsbury and Cambridge and to anassessment of where Forster himself can be located in terms of literary and culturaltraditions.Primary Texts:Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905)The Longest Journey (1907)A Room with a View (1908)Howards End (1910)A Passage to India (1924)Aspects of the Novel (1927)Collected Short Stories (1947)All primary texts are available in Penguin editionTeaching: One lecture and one seminar each week for ten weeks.Coursework: One non-assessed essay (1,000-1,500 words) and one seminarpresentation.Assessment: One examined essay (2,000-2,500 words).EN2215: CREATIVE WRITING STRUCTURE AND STYLENB: This course is only available to English Single Honours and Joint Honoursstudents (not to students registered for the Creative Writing Pathway)Tutor: To be confirmedHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: This half-unit is deigned to give Single Honour and Joint Honour studentswho are interested in doing some creative writing (but not those enrolled in theCreative Writing programme) the opportunity to work through some issues associatedwith short-story and/or novel writing. Classes will alternate seminar discussions ofaspects of the craft of writing with workshops in which students interact critically andcreatively with one another’s work.Course layout:1. Combined session: Narrative, story and plot2. Workshop3. Combined session: Characterisation28

4. Workshop5. Combined session: Style6. Reading Week7. Combined session: Beginnings and Endings8. Workshop9. Combined session: Revision10: Workshop11. Combined session: PracticalitiesTeaching: Teaching is delivered in two modes: two-hour continuous workshops arealternated with one hour plus one hour combined sessions. Workshops are interactiveclass sessions, in which students will either discuss prepared and pre-circulated workby their peers, or else will work on specific creative tasks within the two-hour session.In combined sessions, an hour-long presentation by the course leader on aspects ofcreative writing will lead into group discussion.All face-to-face teaching will be supported with online resources: a Moodle site forthe course, but also a separate reviews blog, set up by the course director, on which,following the principle that writers read as extensively as possible, all students will beexpected to post reviews of books they are reading.Method of Assessment: The bulk of assessment (75%) will be derived from a portfolio ofwork each student develops during the term. This will consist of no more than 6000words of creative prose: either a number of short stories or chapters adding up to thatword-length, or a single piece of work. 15% will be their book reviews, and 10% onworkshop effectiveness.EN2217: QUEER HISTORIES: Contemporary Gay and Lesbian British andIrish Fiction (to be validated) – (EN3217 for Third-Years)Tutor: Mark MathurayHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: Since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain in 1967, gay andlesbian writers have had the freedom to explore openly in their work their sexualitywithout fear of prosecution. The early writings of the post-decriminalisation periodwere often celebratory (there was an explosion of affirming, and sometimes trite,‘coming out’ stories) and archival (the excavation of the submerged currents ofhomosexuality in English literary history was seen as an important project for thereclamation of a specifically gay and lesbian history). And then AIDS cast its darkshadow in the 1980s. Out of the disillusionment that beset the gay and lesbiancommunity, out of the belief that hard-won rights were under threat in ThatcheriteBritain, out of a mood of apocalyptic despair, the combative discourse of queertheory emerged. Where previous theories of gay and lesbian liberation had stressedequality, queer theory demanded a radical re-thinking of the categories of genderand sexuality. This course will examine a range of novels by gay and lesbian writers inBritain and Ireland which have emerged in the wake of the AIDS catastrophe andqueer theory. We will focus on interesting though rather peculiar trends in the postqueernovel: queer historical and biographical fictions, and explore the reasonsbehind the dominance of these approaches in recent gay and lesbian literature. Wewill also explore the various literary and political strategies employed by these writerssuch as historical and literary reclamation, the queer destabilisation of fixedcategories of identity, the figuring of desire’s ambiguous textures, a studiedengagement with form etc. By focussing on prominent contemporary writers, we willexplore the evolution of gay and lesbian British fiction beyond the dictates of queertheory.Learning Outcomes: After taking the course, students will have- Engaged critically with a range of novels by contemporary gay and lesbianwriters.29

- Have developed a detailed knowledge and understanding of the histories,politics and theoretical concepts engaged by queer theory and its aftermath.- A clear understanding of the evolution of gay and lesbian fiction since thedecriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain.- Engaged the formal challenges posed by these novelists to the tradition of theEnglish novel.Teaching and learning methods: Ten two-hour seminars. Students will be encouragedto offer seminar papers of about 15 minutes. Such papers may be used as ways ofdeveloping ideas and frameworks for essays.Key Texts:- Bristow, Joseph. Effeminate England: Homoerotic Writing After 1885(1995)- Dellamora, Richard. Apocalyptic Overtures: Sexual Politics and the Sense of anEnding (1994).- Mathuray, Mark (Ed.). Sex and Sensibility in the novels of AlanHollinghurst(2013)- Sinfield, Alan. Gay and After: Gender, Culture and Consumption (1998)Course Outline:Jeanette Winterson1. The Passion (1987)2. Sexing the Cherry (1989)Alan Hollinghurst: 1980s3. The Swimming-Pool Library(1988)4. The Line of Beauty (2004)Sarah Waters: Neo-Victorianism5. Tipping the Velvet (1998)6. Fingersmith (2002)Return to Wilde7. Peter Ackroyd, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)8. Will Self, Dorian: an Imitation (2002)Colm Toibin9. The Story of the Night (1996)10. The Master (2004)Method of Assessment:Formative: One draft essay of 1000 words to be submitted on the first day afterreading week. The essay will be marked and feedback given to students in one-toonetutorials.Summative: One final essay of 2000-35000 words to be submitted in Summer TermEN2309: LITERATURE OF THE FIN DE SIÈCLETutor: Ruth LiveseyHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: The aim of this course is to examine the 'dark' topics of late-Victorian andEdwardian literature. Perhaps the most important cultural influence on these texts isthe negative possibility inherent in Darwinism: that of 'degeneration', of racial orcultural reversal, explored in texts like Wells's The Time Machine, and often related tothe Decadent literature of Wilde and others. Dorian Gray, used by Nordau and othersas evidence of degeneration, also provides a location for such pathologies: in the'borderland' of the demi-monde and in the East End of London, with its fantasizedcriminal zones, opium dens, and white slavers.Teaching: One lecture and one seminar per week for 10 weeksCoursework: One non-assessed mid-term essay of 1000-1500 words.30

Method of Assessment: One final essay of 2000-2500 words.EN2319: TOLKIEN’S ROOTS (EN3003 for Third Years)Tutor: Jenny NevilleHalf Unit : Spring TermDescription: With the release of the movies based on The Hobbit and The Lord of theRings, Tolkien seems to be as popular as ever. This course examines Tolkien’s workfrom the perspective of his engagement with Old English poetry, a subject whichconstituted an important part of his scholarly activity. We will focus on three OldEnglish poems (in the original and in translation) and Tolkien’s two most popular worksof fiction, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.Scope of the Course:- Old English poems: Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, Judith- works by Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other short textsAims of the Course:- critical appreciation of Tolkien’s adaptation of his sources- critical appreciation of adaptations of TolkienLearning Outcomes:- knowledge of Old English language and literature- understanding of the importance of Old English language and literature inTolkien’s imaginative fiction- increased skill in argument, abstract thought, and critical engagement withtextsTeaching: 10 two-hour classesCoursework: Oral presentation and coursework essayMethod of Assessment: 100% assessed essay: Translation (20 lines, 10%); Commentary(500 words, 10%); and Essay (1,500- 2,000 words, 80%)EN2321: DARK REFORM: SCANDAL AND SATIRE IN AMERICAN ARTSTutor: Professor Tim ArmstrongHalf Unit Spring TermDescription: This course aims to provide an introduction to American literature via thetradition which David Reynolds labels 'dark reform'; a satirical and often populistmode which seek out the abuses which lie beneath the optimistic surface ofAmerican life, often through grotesque, scatological, sexualized and carnivalesqueimagery. It explores the contention that because of America's history, with its notionsof national consensus and fear of class conflict, political critique in America has oftenhad to find indirect expression.As well as studying a range of literature (mainly prose, with some poetry and drama),and some visual material and film, students will be expected to gain a basicgrounding in elements of American history, and read some political and culturaltheory. Topics which will be discussed include: race and class in America; the critiqueof 'big business'; conspiracy theories and the Jeremiad; the carnivalesque; issues ofgenre and audience.Teaching: The course is taught by a weekly lecture and one-hour seminar.31

Assessment: One mid-term essay of 1000 – 1500 words (20%) and one final essay of2000 – 2500 words (80%).PY2005: PHILOSOPHY AND THE ARTSTutor: Neil GascoigneHalf Unit: Spring TermCourse OutlineWhy do we tell stories, paint pictures, make movies, compose music, write poems,make theatrical performances? Is art and culture essentially frivolous escapism ordoes it have fundamental value to human life? Do we have limitless freedom ofinterpretation of a work of art? Does the intention of the artist constrain what we cantake from a work of art? Are there objective standards for what makes a good film,poem, play, novel, or painting? Or is everyone’s valuation of art equally valid? Is therea valid distinction to be made between high art and low culture? Does art simplyreflect the values of the society and the times it came from or does it transcend itstime?This half unit course will expose students to current philosophical debates inaesthetics, including questions about the nature and value of art; the roles ofintention, imagination and interpretation; and the emotional and ethical responsesthey provoke. Although theoretically informed, each presentation will be take as itsfocus particular case studies –a play, poem, musical composition, movie, TV show,novel or any other forms of creative expression – to ground and illuminate thedebates.StructureThe course will be delivered as a ten-week lecture course. Each 90-minute lecture willoffer a structured presentation of the key debates, with interactive opportunities forstudents to develop their own ideas, engaging directly in debates about issues of thelecture. Opportunities for student engagement and debate will be further facilitatedthrough a special Moodle site, available only to students enrolled on the course.AssessmentFormative: one page essay plan (0%)Assessed Essay: 2500 – 3000 words (100%)Third Year Whole Unit Courses: Special TopicsEN3202: NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURETutor: Ruth LiveseyWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: This course explores aspects of nineteenth-century literature, science andculture in some depth and brings well-known works like Charlotte Brontë’s Villette,Eliot’s Middlemarch and Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend into conversation with theevolutionary thought of Charles Darwin, the social investigations of Henry Mayhewand nineteenth-century writings on psychology. It will range across a number ofgenres including novels, poetry, journalism, science writing, autobiography, history, artcriticism and introduce elements of contemporary visual culture. The course isarranged into linked sessions, the first session of each pair introducing an aspect ofnineteenth-century social thought and cultural practice (generally through nonfictionalprose) and the second exploring a major nineteenth-century text in the lightof these ideas. The course concentrates on the period from the late 1830s to the early1870s.32

The five topic clusters that will form the focus of the course are: ideas of economy;geology, time and extinction; progress, Darwinism and evolution; masculinity,femininity and self-writing; psychology, mind and madness; sexuality.Teaching: One one-hour lecture and one one-hour seminar each week for theAutumn Term and for the first half of the Spring Term.Coursework: One peer-led small group activity relating to that week’s textAssessment: One mid-term essay of 1500 – 2000 (20%) words plus final essay of 5000 –6000 words (80%).EN3223 THE GIRL IN THE BOOKTutor: Betty JayWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: This course examines fictional representations of the girl across a range oftexts, from Lewis Carroll’s surreal Victorian portrait of Alice through to Antonia White’sCatholic schoolgirl and Ian McEwan’s remorseful Briony Tallis. As well as enabling anexploration of female development and subjectivity, the texts under considerationalso engage with a range of questions relating to sexuality and desire, place andbelonging, knowledge and resistance, art and creativity. While some of these textsadopt the traditional form of the Bildungsroman, others seek to adapt or subverttraditional literary and generic conventions. For this reason, a concern with the formaland aesthetic qualities of these fictions will run alongside discussion of conceptualand ideological issues.Primary TextsGeorge Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, [1860] (Vintage, 2010)Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, [1865] (Penguin, 2003)Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, [1868] (Penguin, 2007)Henry James, What Maisie Knew, [1897] (Penguin, 2010)Willa Cather, My Antonia, [1918] (Virago, 1997)Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness, [1928] (Virago, 2008)Antonia White, Frost in May, [1933] (Virago, 2006)Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding, [1946] (Penguin, 2008)Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, [1960] (Vintage, 2007)Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, [1961] (Penguin, 2000)Angela Carter, The Magic Toyshop, [1967] (Virago, 2001)Jeanette Winterson, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, [1985] (Vintage, 2009)Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Childhood Among Ghosts,[1975] (Vintage, 1989)Ian McEwan, Atonement, [2001] (Vintage, 2007)Teaching: There will be a two hour seminar in both the Autumn and Spring Terms.Coursework: One essay of 2,000 words (20%) plus either a presentation or anappropriate short pieceMethod of Assessment: One examined essay of 5500 – 6000 submitted in SummerTermEN3303 AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURETutor: Professor Tim ArmstrongWhole UnitDescription: This course provides a survey of Afro-American literature in relation to thetroubled history of race in America. It begins with the first writings of black Americans33

around 1800, mainly slave narratives, and charts the emergence of more literaryforms, culminating in the explosion of activity in Harlem in the 1920s. In the periodwhich follows we examine the political novel in the wake of Richard Wright's NativeSon; modernist and postmodernist writings; and recent black women writers.The course aims to provide students with an understanding of the context of Afro-American culture, including oral culture, the blues, and folklore, and the debateswhich surround these cultural forms; it addresses notions of race, dislocation (theMiddle Passage), religion, and other topics in Afro-American history; and therelevance of gender, class and other issues. It also considers the signifying practicesand problematics of the tradition: call-and-response, 'signifying', the divided self,'passing', etc.Teaching: Two-hour seminar each week over both term, Autumn and Spring (there willbe gaps at various points, with film screenings)Coursework: Students are required to submit one essay of 2,000-2,500 (20%) words inthe first term. Short presentations may also be required in class.Method of Assessment: One final essay of 5500 - 6000 words.EN3311 POETIC PRACTICETutor: Dr Dell OlsenWhole UnitWe are not interested in the poem as precious object on the page, with a lot of whitespace all around, but only in the poem or writing as part of long-term process & asleading to more experiments & investigations...Bernadette MayerDescription: The course is designed to introduce students to a range of contemporaryand experimental poetic writing and to situate writing practices in relation tocontemporary theory and criticism. On this course we will consider methods,processes and techniques used by experimental and innovative writers in order toprovide you with a range of methodologies for making your own poetic practice.Each week we will look at different writers whose work raises theoretical and practicalquestions and we will use these questions as starting points for our own practice. Thismight mean attempting to write a mesostic in the style of John Cage or making apoem from words found in the daily newspaper. We might then consider what criticaland theoretical implications arise as a result of such undertakings.Assessment: Seminar Presentations, two essays (one each term) and a portfolio ofyour own work produced during the courseEN3325 THEATRE AND THE CITY 1590-1730Tutor: Deana RankinWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: This course explores the connections between the rise of London as ametropolis and the flourishing of English drama in the Renaissance and Restoration. Itexamines how the stage shows the city; how, as the city evolves, urban space isrepeatedly represented and problematized for the entertainment of its citizens.We will read six pairs of plays (one play per week) which open up questions ofgender, commerce, city limits, urban action, underbellies and architecture in theurban space: Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker’s Holiday (1599); Ben Jonson,Bartholomew Fair (1614); Thomas Dekker and Thomas Middleton,The Roaring Girl(1607-10); Ben Jonson, Epicoene or the Silent Woman (1609); Christopher Marlowe,34

The Jew of Malta (1592); William Rowley, Thomas Dekker, John Ford,The Witch ofEdmonton (1621); William Wycherley,The Country Wife (1675); Sir George Etherage,The Man of Mode (1676); William Congreve,The Way of the World (1700); SusannahCentlivre, The Busie Body (1709); Aphra Behn, The Rover (1677); George Farquhar, TheBeaux’ Strategem (1707); Epilogue: John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera (1728)We will also read a selection of useful theory on the subject from commentators suchas Freud, Benjamin, Bachelard and Lefebvre. At intervals throughout the course, wewill spend time reflecting on how theory informs, enhances and/or disrupts ourreadings of the plays.Most of these plays can be found individual editions as well as collections eg.Renaissance Drama: An Anthology of Plays and Entertainments ed. A.F. Kinney(Blackwell 1999) and Restoration Drama: An Anthology ed. D. Womersley (Blackwell2000). Jen Harvie’s short study Theatre and the City (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), whileit deals mainly with modern theatre, offers a good (cheap!) introduction to some ofthe questions addressed in the course.Teaching: One lecture and one seminar per week in both the Autumn and SpringTerms.Coursework: One group presentation.Method of Assessment: One 2000 word mid-term essay (20%) and one 5000-6000 wordessay (80%)EN3224 IDEAS IN CONTEMPORARY FICTIONTutor: Professor Robert EaglestoneWhole UnitDescription: The fiction of the last twenty years or so is a gigantic and diverse field.Now global in dimension, the range of novels and writers is simply enormous, and thefield is growing at frantic speed. It’s very hard to find out what’s going on, to identifytrends and significance. The aim of this special topic unit, then, is to offer a sense ofsome of the larger themes and patterns in contemporary fiction. It will focus on sevenareas which are important for this understanding: Globalism and terror; Memory andTrauma; Nature; History; Technology; Belief and Commitment; the real.The course will proceed by reading at least one novel each week, with somecompulsory additional reading to frame and shape our debates. The novels on thecourse will be British and American, with one or two works in translation. Novelists willinclude Jim Crace, Mohsin Hamid, David Eggers, Sarah Waters, David Mitchell,Jonathan Safran Foer, Ian McEwan, Marilynne Robinson. This course will also allow youto engage with the wider range of contemporary fiction you have read in othercontexts.Teaching: Two hour weekly seminarCoursework: One essay of 2,000 words (20%) plus either a presentation or anappropriate short pieceMethod of Assessment: One examined essay of 5500 – 6000 (80%) submitted inSummer Term35

EN3225 CHILDREN’S LITERATURE (To be validated)Tutor: Adam RobertsWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: This course aims to provide students with the chance to study a broadrange of writing for children from the nineteenth through to the twenty-first centuries.Course Content:Week 1. Children’s Literature: definitions and historiesWeek 2. Grimm’s Fairy TalesWeek 3. William Roscoe, The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast (1802)http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20860Week 4. Frederic W Farrar, Eric, or, Little by Little (1858)http://www.gutenberg.org/files/23126/23126-h/23126-h.htmWeek 5. Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby (1863)http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1018Week 6. Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865); Through the LookingGlass (1871)http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11Week 7. Oscar Wilde, The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/902Week 8. J M Barrie, Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up (1904)http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16Week 9. A A Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926); The House at Pooh-Corner (1928)Week 10. J R R R Tolkien, The Hobbit (1937)Week 11. Enid Blyton Five on a Treasure Island (1942)Week 12.C S Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)Week 13. Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (1963)Week 14. J K Rowling, Harry Potter (1997-2007)Week 15. Toy Story 3 (2010)Teaching: Two hour seminar in both the Autumn and first five weeks of the SpringTerm. The final five weeks of the Spring Term will be student-lead workshops.Coursework: Annotated bibliography and one short critical response (500-1000words).Method of Assessment: Two assessed essays totalling no more than 8000 words due inthe Summer Term (100%).EN3226: THE POST-COLONIAL NOVEL: The Art of Resistance (To bevalidated)Tutor: Mark MathurayWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: The end of the various colonial empires in the middle of the twentiethcentury saw an explosion of literatures from the newly emergent postcolonialsocieties. Rather than provide a survey of the field of postcolonial studies, this courseaims at engaging the recent debates in postcolonial writing, theory and criticism. Inthe first term we will critically examine a range of postcolonial novels from Britain’serstwhile empire, paying attention to issues such as the boons and contradictions ofwriting in the language of the colonial powers, the postcolonial reclamation of theWestern canon etc. and focussing on genres such as postcolonial modernism, magicrealism, and postcolonial science fiction. In the second term, we will engage thepotential conjunctures/disjunctures between gender identity, feminism andpostcolonialism. Close attention will be paid to novels and their historical legacies of36

colonialism and resistance. The course aims also to highlight the literary dynamismand lively debate that characterise the field.Learning Outcomes: After taking the course, students will have- Engaged critically with a range of postcolonial novels.- Developed a detailed knowledge and understanding of the histories, politicsand theoretical concepts engaged by the term postcolonial/ism.- Worked with different postcolonial theoretical approaches and criticalstrategies and relate them to literary texts.- A clear understanding of the evolution of the postcolonial novel.- Found different approaches to what is meant by such terms as ‘other’,‘diaspora’, ‘terror’, ‘representation’, ‘difference’Key Texts:1. Ashcroft, Bill et al. (eds.), The Post-Colonial Studies Reader (Routledge, 1995).2. Boehmer, Elleke, Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the PostcolonialNation (2009).3. Said, Edward W. Orientalism (Penguin Books, 2003).Course Outline:Term 1: The Post-Colonial NovelWriting Back1. Conrad versus Achebe: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart.2. Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North.Postcolonial Despair3. Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance.4. Helon Habila, Waiting for An Angel.Magic Realism5. + 6. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children.7. + 8. Ben Okri, The Famished Road.Science Fiction9. Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome.10. Lauren Beukes, Zoo City.Term 2: Postcolonialism and GenderPostcolonialism vs Gender1. Bessie Head, A Question of Power.2. Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy.3. JM Coetzee, Foe.Indigenous Tensions4. Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood.5. Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Nervous Conditions.6. Anita Desai, Fasting, Feasting.7. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things.Diasporic Transgressions8. Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night.9. Chris Abani, The Virgin of the Flames.10. Zadie Smith, White Teeth.Teaching and learning methods: Two-hour seminars. Students will be encouraged tooffer seminar papers of about 15 minutes. Such papers may be used as ways ofdeveloping ideas and frameworks for essays.Method of Assessment:Formative: One draft essay of 1000- 1500 words. The essay will be marked andfeedback given to students in one-to-one tutorials.Summative: Two essay of 3500-4000 words each to be submitted during the Springand Summer Terms.37

EN3226: THE POST-COLONIAL NOVEL: The Art of Resistance (To bevalidated)Tutor: Mark MathurayWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: The end of the various colonial empires in the middle of the twentiethcentury saw an explosion of literatures from the newly emergent postcolonialsocieties. Rather than provide a survey of the field of postcolonial studies, this courseaims at engaging the recent debates in postcolonial writing, theory and criticism. Inthe first term we will critically examine a range of postcolonial novels from Britain’serstwhile empire, paying attention to issues such as the boons and contradictions ofwriting in the language of the colonial powers, the postcolonial reclamation of theWestern canon etc. and focussing on genres such as postcolonial modernism, magicrealism, and postcolonial science fiction. In the second term, we will engage thepotential conjunctures/disjunctures between gender identity, feminism andpostcolonialism. Close attention will be paid to novels and their historical legacies ofcolonialism and resistance. The course aims also to highlight the literary dynamismand lively debate that characterise the field.Learning Outcomes: After taking the course, students will have- Engaged critically with a range of postcolonial novels.- Developed a detailed knowledge and understanding of the histories, politicsand theoretical concepts engaged by the term postcolonial/ism.- Worked with different postcolonial theoretical approaches and criticalstrategies and relate them to literary texts.- A clear understanding of the evolution of the postcolonial novel.- Found different approaches to what is meant by such terms as ‘other’,‘diaspora’, ‘terror’, ‘representation’, ‘difference’Key Texts:4. Ashcroft, Bill et al. (eds.), The Post-Colonial Studies Reader (Routledge, 1995).5. Boehmer, Elleke, Stories of Women: Gender and Narrative in the PostcolonialNation (2009).6. Said, Edward W. Orientalism (Penguin Books, 2003).Course Outline:Term 1: The Post-Colonial NovelWriting Back6. Conrad versus Achebe: Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart.7. Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North.Postcolonial Despair8. Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance.9. Helon Habila, Waiting for An Angel.Magic Realism10. + 6. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children.8. + 8. Ben Okri, The Famished Road.Science Fiction11. Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome.12. Lauren Beukes, Zoo City.Postcolonialism vs Gender11. Bessie Head, A Question of Power.12. Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy.13. JM Coetzee, Foe.Indigenous TensionsTerm 2: Postcolonialism and Gender38

14. Buchi Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood.15. Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Nervous Conditions.16. Anita Desai, Fasting, Feasting.17. Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things.Diasporic Transgressions18. Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night.19. Chris Abani, The Virgin of the Flames.20. Zadie Smith, White Teeth.Teaching and learning methods: Two-hour seminars. Students will be encouraged tooffer seminar papers of about 15 minutes. Such papers may be used as ways ofdeveloping ideas and frameworks for essays.Method of Assessment:Formative: One draft essay of 1000- 1500 words. The essay will be marked andfeedback given to students in one-to-one tutorials.Summative: Two essay of 3500-4000 words each to be submitted during the Springand Summer Terms.EN3227: THE PRE-RAPHAELITE MOVEMENT IN ART AND LITERATURE(To be validated)Tutor : Vicky GreenawayWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood have been described as the first avantgardemovement in British art. The first term of this twenty week course will focus onthe formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (formed, aptly, in the 'year ofrevolutions' 1848), its tenets, and its major productions (in art, literature and criticism).As well as focussing in detail on the role and contributions of the three major PRBartists - Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, William Holman Hunt - the course will alsoaddress peripheral figures including Ford Madox Brown, the sculptor Thomas Woolner(and his poetry) and journalism and criticism authored by group members.The second half of the course will investigate the broader movement of Pre-Raphaelitism that continued beyond the Brotherhood into the 1860s and which builtupon its originating principles in the arena of art and aesthetics. We will follow thecareer of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, arguably the Brotherhood's most influential member,through his work of the 1860s and his Poems (1870). Rossetti's innovations in this periodand his influence upon other young and daring artists and writers of the decade(A.C.Swinburne, William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones) will be traced, demonstratinghow their work created the basis for Aestheticism and the idea of Art for Art's Sake inthis crucial transitional decade in the Victorian cultural century.The course will divide its attention equally between the study of painted, drawn andsculpted art objects and written works. Training in the analysis of visual materials willbe given as part of the course.Teaching: Two-hour seminars once a week in the Autumn and Spring Term.Coursework and Assessment: The course will be assessed by portfolio essay. That is,you will write three 1000-1500 word non-assessed essay over the first fifteen weeks ofthe course; after feedback and consultation you will then select one of these essaysto develop into a 6,000 word essay. That revised and extended essay will be due inthe Summer Term and will constitute 100% of your mark for this course.Third Year Whole Unit Courses: Special Authors39

EN3504: SPECIAL AUTHOR: CONRADTutor: Robert HampsonWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: This course will study a wide range of Conrad's fiction from the earlyMalay novels to the late novels with their concern with gender. The course willengage with politics, race, and gender as well as considering Conrad's narrativemethods and ideas about fiction. Conrad will also be considered as a writer of shortstories.Preparatory Reading: Almayer's Folly Tales of Unrest Heart of Darkness Lord Jim Nostromo The Secret Agent Under Western Eyes Victory ChancePlease note that some of these works are fairly long, so advance reading is essential.Teaching: Two-hour seminars once a week in the Autumn and Spring Term.Coursework: One essay of 2,000 words (20%), plus either a presentation or anotheressay.Assessment: One examined essay of 5,500- 6,000 (80%) submitted in the Summer TermEN3507: SPECIAL AUTHOR: CHAUCER: THE CANTERBURY TALESTutors: Alastair BennettWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: Intellectually demanding, surprising and fun, Chaucer has beenimportant to readers and writers of English for 600 years, and has been voted by IanMcEwan as his ‘man of the millennium’. The first great English poet of the Europeanrenaissance, his work still represents the Gothic style and structure which lends itself tomodern interpretative approaches. This specialist paper offers an opportunity tofollow up the Chaucer studied in previous courses with more detailed study of his last,ambitious project, the Canterbury Tales. The entire work is studied in relation toinfluences, sources, the language and literature of the period, contemporary themesand genres, and various critical approaches. The course offers an optional and veryeducational day-long visit to sites which include the Vintry, Southwark Cathedral andWestminster Hall and Abbey. By the end of the year you will know The CanterburyTales, you will have some idea of the range and scope of literary issues that haveconstellated around it, and the wide range of critical approaches to it.Teaching: There will be a two hour seminar in both the Autumn and Spring Terms.Coursework: One translation and commentary or other appropriate short pieceMethod of Assessment: One examined essay of 2000 words (20%) to be handed in atthe start of the Spring term plus one examined essay of 5000-6000 words (80%) to behanded in at the start of the Summer TermEN3511 SPECIAL AUTHOR: BRONTES40

Tutor: Dr Betty JayWhole UnitDescription: The principle aim of this course is to provide an opportunity for close anddetailed study of the seven novels that collectively form the Brontë canon. Thiscentral focus will be supported by work designed to provide a clearer sense of thecultural, ideological and historical contexts that inform these texts. It will besupplemented by material that will enable students to trace the development ofcritical work on the Brontës from the emergence of the Brontë myth in the midnineteenth-centuryto more recent feminist and post-colonial readings.Teaching: There will be a two hour seminar in both the Autumn and Spring Terms.Coursework: One examined essay of 2000 words (20%) to be handed in at the start ofthe Spring term plus one presentation.Method of Assessment: One examined essay of 5000 - 6000 words (80%) to behanded in at the start of the Summer Term.EN3513: SPECIAL AUTHOR: ASHBERYTutor: Dr Will MontgomeryWhole UnitDescription: This course provides an overview of the entire career of America's mostsignificant living poet. Starting with Turantdot and Other Poems (1953) we will workthrough such influential texts as the formally radical The Tennis Court Oath (1963), theprose-based Three Poems (1972) and the Pulitzer-prize-winning Self-portrait in aConvex Mirror (1975), concluding with recent works such as A Worldly Country (2007)and Planisphere (2009). Ashbery's early involvement with the New York School ofpoets will be discussed, as will his critical reception and his own critical writing. We willwork principally from two volumes: the Selected Poems and the Notes from the Air:Selected Later Poems. All students must purchase both and are advised to readwidely in these volumes before the course begins.Teaching: Weekly two-hour seminar for fifteen weeks.Coursework: One examined essay of 2000 words (20%) to be handed in at the start ofthe Spring term plus one presentation.Method of Assessment: One examined essay of 5000 - 6000 words (80%) to behanded in at the start of the Summer Term.EN3514: SPECIAL AUTHOR: DONNETutor: Roy BoothWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: “If men be worlds, there is in every one / Some thing to answer in someproportion / All the worlds riches…”This course will involve discovering the riches of the whole range of Donne’s poetry(love poems, satires, religious poems, the ‘Anniversaries’ and funeral elegies). Aselection of Donne’s prose writings will also be included (extracts from ‘Paradoxesand Problems’, Biathanatos, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, and selectedsermons).41

Donne will be read in the context of Ovid and anti-Petrarchism, with reference topoems written by his friends in his various literary coteries, and finally through hisinfluence on subsequent writers in the ‘Metaphysical’ school.An important strand of the course will look at the status of Donne in the earlier criticalheritage, and the late 20 th century debate about the attitudes manifested in his work.Donne will be familiar to all single honours students from the EN2010 course. If you feltthat you were coping with the often dense texture of argued meaning in his poetry,‘Special Author: John Donne’ offers a chance to study in detail an author who mayhave proved repulsive to some readers, but whose work flashes with undeniablebrilliance.Teaching: There will be a two-hour seminar in both the Autumn and Spring terms.Coursework: One essay of 2,000 words (20%) plus either a presentation or anappropriate short piece.Method of Assessment: One examined essay of 5500 – 6000 submitted in the SummerTerm.EN3515: SPECIAL AUTHOR: DICKENSTutor: Juliet JohnWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: The course aims to provide students with the chance to study thecomplete career of Charles Dickens (1812-1870), with detailed discussion of eightnovels in their historical and cultural contexts. We will look at Dickens’s life and times,and the cultural discourses that shaped his fiction; the serialisation and illustration ofhis work, and the themes, forms and structures of his writing. But above all the coursewill encourage students to pay close attention to the richness and specificity ofDickens’ actual work.Teaching: There will be a two-hour seminar in both the Autumn and Spring Terms.Coursework: One essay of 2,000 words in Term 2Method of Assessment: One presentation (20%) in Term 1 and one examined essay of5000-6000 words submitted in the Summer Term (80%)EN3517: SPECIAL AUTHOR: COETZEETutor: Dr Mark MathurayWhole UnitWinner of the Nobel Prize and the Booker Prize (twice), J.M Coetzee is regarded asone of the foremost writers of our times. His works, which range from the allegorical tothe realist, from the meta-fictional to the modernist, engage with both the ways wethink about literature and literary studies and the historical conditions of the variousforms of imperialism. His novels negotiate the uneasy generic boundaries betweenmodernism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. Through close readings of a widearray of his novels, and by being properly attentive to the historical backgrounds andtheoretical concerns of Coetzee’s texts, we will explore the development of his writingfrom the 1970s to the present day.Teaching: There will be a two-hour seminar for fifteen weeks.42

Coursework: One examined essay of 2000 words (20%) to be handed in at the start ofthe Spring term plus one presentation.Method of Assessment: One examined essay of 5000 - 6000 words (80%) to besubmitted in the Summer Term.EN3519: SPECIAL AUTHOR: WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGETutor: Judith Hawley & Adam RobertsWhole Unit: Both TermsDescription: The course aims to provide students with the chance to study thecomplete careers of William Wordsworth (1770-1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge(1772-1834), both his poetry and prose. We will look at their life and times, and thepoetic and philosophical discourses that shaped his writing and thought. Students willbe required to respond crucially both their poetry and his prose.PoetryWeek 1. Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads. Peasant poetryWeek 2. Lyrical Ballads:Week 3. Conversation Poems: ‘The Eolian Harp’; ‘Frost at Midnight’ ‘This Lime-TreeBower My Prison’Week 4. Gothic 1: Cristabel and Kubla KhanWeek 5. Gothic 2: Rime of the Ancient MarinerProse and contextsWeek 6. WordsworthWeek 7. WordsworthWeek 8. Wordsworth.Week 9. Biographia Literaria (1817) 1-4Week 10 WordsworthCharacters and MoodsWeek 11. Biographia Literaria (1817) and plagiary: German philosophyWeek 12. Depression: ‘Verse Letter to Sara Hutchinson’; ‘Dejection: An Ode’ (1802)Week 13. Imagination: Biographia Literaria (1817) 12-13Week 14. Wordsworth: Biographia Literaria (1817) 14-22Week 15. WordsworthTeaching: There will be a two-hour seminar in both the Autumn and Spring Terms.Coursework: Annotated bibliographies and one short critical response (500 – 1000words).Method of Assessment: Two assessed essays together totalling no more than 8000words submitted in the Summer Term (100%).EN3401 DISSERTATIONWhole Unit: Supervision OnlyDescription: The dissertation is an opportunity to undertake a substantial piece ofindependent work in an area of your choice, and thus to deepen your understandingof literature, culture and critical theory. The topic is negotiated with the Departmentand is subject to approval by the Sub-board of Examiners. In proposing a topic, youshould bear in mind the range of teaching and research interests available in theDepartment. The purpose of the dissertation is to allow the student to identify aspecific topic of particular interest to him/herself; to assemble and analyse relevant,available evidence on the topic; to analyse issues at length and to reach clear and43

independent conclusions as to the nature and significance of the topic chosen in thelight of recent relevant critical and/or theoretical work in the field.The dissertation builds on experience gained in essay-writing in the first and secondyears. It draws on time-management skills, and the ability to work independently. Youwill need to show knowledge, not only of primary texts, but also of relevant secondarysources.Teaching and Learning Methods: Students proposing to write a dissertation will beasked to indicate the topic of the dissertation early in the Summer Term. If the topic isaccepted by the Sub-Board as (a) appropriate and (b) within the Department’srange of teaching and research interests, and if you achieve at least 63% average inyear 2 examinations, then you will be required to produce a title for approval at thestart of the Autumn Term. This must be accompanied by an outline of thedissertation and a bibliography. After that, you are entitled to a total of 2 hourssupervision. The supervisor will also read a 2,000 word sample. This submission of 2,000words should either constitute a substantial attempt to define the overall scope of theprojected dissertation or be a draft of a section of the dissertation. The supervisor isnot allowed to read more of the thesis. Students will be required to submit an overallplan for the thesis to submit with this sample. The plan is, of course, provisional butcould provide the basis for useful discussion with the supervisor.The library also holds advice sessions on the use of secondary sources and researchresources.Length and Format: 7,500-8,000 words. Dissertation should conform to therequirements of the Stylesheet and Advice on Essays in the Student Handbook.Approximate Deadlines for submissionMay 2013: Proposed dissertation topic for initial consideration by Department BoardOctober 2013: Final Title and Bibliography, showing primary and secondary texts,together with a detailed plan of the dissertationNovember 2013: 2,000 word section of dissertationMarch 2014: Two bound copies of the dissertation.44

THIRD-YEAR HALF UNIT OPTIONSEN3001: RE-CREATING BEOWULFTutor: Jenny NevilleHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: Beowulf is a literary masterpiece. It is unique, not only in the context ofEnglish literature, but also in the context of Old English literature. Although we canattempt read it in the terms learned from other Old English texts, Beowulf alwayschallenges and exceeds the structures erected to contain it. Nevertheless, poets, filmmakers,song-writers, playwrights, translators, critics, and readers have been inspiredto attempt to read—and thus create—Beowulf again and again.In this course we will be reading and creating Beowulf, too, but at the same time wewill be looking at those previous creations of the poem in various media (songs, films,poems, and, of course, translations, among others). We will also address questionsthat arise from the act of translation. The course aims to improve your translation skills,to deepen your knowledge of the Old English poetic tradition, to explore issuesinvolved in the translation of poetry, and to develop creative responses to Old Englishpoetry.Teaching: Ten 2-hour seminarsCoursework: Weekly translations, oral presentations (on translations and re-creationsof the poem), and coursework essay of 1,300-1,500 words.Method of Assessment: Translation of approximately 50 lines from the set text (10% offinal mark) to be submitted one week after the end of the course; essay of 1,800-2,000words (50%) to be submitted one week after the start of the spring term; translation ofapproximately 100 lines from outside the set text (40%) to be submitted at the start ofthe summer term.EN3003: TOLKIEN’S ROOTS (EN2319 for Second Years)Tutor: Jenny NevilleHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: With the release of the movies based on The Hobbit and The Lord of theRings, Tolkien seems to be as popular as ever. This course examines Tolkien’s workfrom the perspective of his engagement with Old English poetry, a subject whichconstituted an important part of his scholarly activity. We will focus on three OldEnglish poems (in the original and in translation) and Tolkien’s two most popular worksof fiction, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.Scope of the Course:- Old English poems: Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon, Judith- works by Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other short textsAims of the Course:- critical appreciation of Tolkien’s adaptation of his sources- critical appreciation of adaptations of TolkienLearning Outcomes:- knowledge of Old English language and literature- understanding of the importance of Old English language and literature inTolkien’s imaginative fiction- increased skill in argument, abstract thought, and critical engagement withtexts45

Teaching: 10 two-hour classesCoursework: Oral presentation and coursework essayMethod of Assessment: For third year students, the coursework essay contributes 20%toward the final mark; the final assignment contributes the remaining 80%. The finalassignment comprises: one Translation (20 lines, worth 10% of final assignment); oneCommentary (500 words, worth 10% of final assignment); and one Essay (2,000 – 2,500words, worth 80% of final assignment).EN3011: ADVANCED SHAKESPEARE: THE PROBLEM PLAYSTutors: Kiernan Ryan and Eric LangleyHalf Unit: Autumn Term[NB: No prerequisite: open to all students]Description: This half-unit course affords an opportunity to study in depth three ofShakespeare‘s darkest and most disturbing plays: Troilus and Cressida (1601-2), All’sWell That Ends Well (1602-3) and Measure for Measure (1604).Teaching for the course consists of 10 two-hour seminars devoted to a close readingof the plays and detailed discussion of the complex critical and theoretical issues theyraise. For the first six weeks students will devote a fortnight of close study anddiscussion to each of the plays, beginning with Troilus and Cressida. Weeks 8, 9, 10and 11 will re-examine each play in the light of the others to identify key points ofcongruence and contrast. The aim of these last four sessions is to sharpen yourunderstanding of what is at stake in these plays, considered both individually and asa group, in preparation for the writing of your assessed essay. In preparation for thecourse, you are required to read all three plays in the following editions, together withthe editors‘ introductions: Troilus and Cressida, ed. David Bevington, ArdenShakespeare, third series (1998); All’s Well That Ends Well, ed. Susan Snyder, OxfordShakespeare (1993); Measure for Measure, ed. Brian Gibbons, 2nd edition, NewCambridge Shakespeare (2006). You will also find it helpful to view the film versions ofthe plays available in the College library and in the English Department Office. TheBBC Shakespeare All’s Well, directed by Elijah Moshinsky, the BBC2 version of Measuredirected by David Thacker, and the BBC‘s 2004 live broadcast of Measure from theGlobe are especially recommended.Clips of film productions of the plays will be used throughout. The course has its ownMOODLE website, which provides the agenda and copies of the required reading foreach week of the course, direct online access to further reading, access to feedbackon uploaded seminar papers, and a range of information resources including a fullbibliography.Teaching: One two-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks.Coursework: One oral presentation of formal seminar paper (1500 words) withfeedback in class. Paper must be uploaded to MOODLE website, where it will receivefurther written feedback, as a precondition of submitting the examined essay.Assessment: One assessed essay of 3000-3500 words, to be submitted one week afterthe end of Autumn Term.EN3012: DRAMA AND WITCHCRAFT 1576-1642 (EN2012 for second years)46

Tutor: Roy BoothHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: The texts covered span virtually the whole period in which early modernEnglish drama flourished: from Marlowe in c.1593 to 1634. The texts range from famousplays like Macbeth and The Tempest to little-known comedies like The Wise-woman ofHogsden. Two central texts will be The Witch of Edmonton and The Late LancashireWitches, plays which deal with historically documented witchcraft accusations andscares.The phenomenon of witchcraft, and the persecution of witches during outbreaks ofwitchcraft hysteria has fascinated historians: the historical component of this coursewill be large. Accordingly, non-dramatic texts about witchcraft are also included forstudy in the course. These will include news pamphlets, works by learnedcontemporaries expressing their opinions about witchcraft, popular ballads and otherarchival texts.Learning outcomes: By the end of the course a wide, even disparate, series of textswill have been read and studied. Some of these plays still do not have modernscholarly editions that present the text in modernised spellings, or the usual editorialassistance to the reader in the form of footnotes and additional editorial stagedirections. Therefore there will sometimes be the challenge of reading anunmediated text, and of making judgements on texts where there is no largerepertoire of critical commentary to consult. The plays may well also seem artistically,even morally inadequate to the inherently distressing subject they handle. The course,therefore, confronts the participant with coping with historical sources, withevaluating minor plays from outside the normally anthologised canon, and thechallenge of assessing plays in which the moral authority of the dramatist is itselfdebatable.Course requirements: One essay of a comparison of the two central texts, The Witchof Edmonton and The Late Lancashire Witches.Teaching: Ten lectures and 10 seminars in the term.Assessment: Presentation and a take-away paper in the Summer term.EN3014: EARLY MODERN BODIES (EN2014 for Second Years)Tutor: Eric LangleyHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription:Variable, and therefore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well,and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz’d with sodaine change; … that which issecret, is most dangerous. … The pulse, the urine, the sweat, all havesworn to say nothing, to give no indication, of any dangerous sicknesse.Donne, Devotions, 7 & 52Charting a progression from Galenic humoral theory to Cartesian dualism, Early-Modern Bodies considers the representation and significance of corporeality insixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts. Reading Renaissance plays and poetryalongside anatomical textbooks, manuels of health, erotica, and philosophicalessays, the module seeks to contextualise the period’s literary treatment of the body;authors and works studied will range from familiar names such as Marlowe, Donne,and Sidney, to the comparatively less canonical (for example, the plague tracts ofThomas Lodge; Jacques Ferrand’s cure for love-sickness, Erotomania; or HelkiahCrooke’s anatomical treatise, Microcosmographia). Renaissance depictions of thebody variously condemn the ‘filthy fleshy pleasures’ of ‘bodily matter, superfluous andunsavery’ while celebrating ‘the Wisdom of the Eternal Mind’ exhibited in a well-47

ordered cadaver. This module shows how Renaissance writers exhibit period uneaseabout the workings and mysteries of the body, returning compulsively to what is botha site of meaning and a site of corruption. During the course of this module we willexplore issues of metamorphosis, humoral theory, gender and race, healthymoderation and grotesque over-indulgence, examining bodies heroic and maternal,bodies articulate and disarticulated, infected by physical desire and plagued bycontagious disease. Although Donne’s ‘pulse... urine [and] sweat, all have sworn tosay nothing’, nevertheless we will attempt to read the early-modern body andanatomise its meanings.Teaching: One lecture and one seminar each week for ten weeksCoursework: One seminar presentation or one critical commentaryMethod of Assessment: One assessed essay of 3000-3500 words, to be submitted atthe start of Spring Term.EN3015: PARADISE IN EARLY MODERN LITERATURE (EN2015 for SecondYears)Tutor: Roy BoothHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: The Renaissance Literature course (EN2010) does not include ParadiseLost among its major texts. This half unit offers the opportunity to study one veryimportant and characteristic aspect of Milton’s epic: his depiction of Eden, theparadise that was lost at the fall. Throughout his account of Paradise, Milton works tomake the loss of paradise poignant by lavishing on it all his evocative powers as apoet. We will spend at least three sessions looking at Milton’s epic, covering aspectssuch as Edenic sex and marriage, Eden’s fauna and flora, and work in Eden.Throughout the course images of Paradise will be given attention, starting withHieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delight’. Alongside art works, we will touchbriefly on some of the Bible scholarship which tried to locate the site of paradise, anddeduce its fate. Other texts covered on the course will include:~ The rescue of Rinaldo from Armida’s bower in Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, translatedby Fairfax (1600)~ Spenser, ‘Bower of Bliss’ and its destruction in The Faerie Queene (1590)~ Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of Guiana (1596)~ The Abbaye Thélème episode in Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel~ Aldous Huxley’s Island (1962)As well as work by Montaigne, Traherne, Vaughan, Margaret Cavendish, Marvell andWalton.Teaching: One lecture and one seminar each week for ten weeksCoursework: Formative essay (1500 words) with feedbackMethod of Assessment: ‘portfolio’ essay of revised and extended essay (2500-3000words) due in the Summer Term.EN3016 LITERATURE AFTER THE CONQUEST: 1066-1340 (to be validatedTutor: Alastair BennettHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: This course provides an introduction to English literature from the Normanconquest to the birth of Chaucer. This period has been described both as a period ofpolitical crisis and also as a period of cultural renaissance. It saw the conquest and48

colonization of England, the rise of new forms of scholarship and spirituality, and,according to some accounts, the development of new ways of thinking aboutnational and individual identity. The course will offer a survey of English writing fromthis period, considering established genres like lyric, epic and satire alongside newliterary forms like romance, fabliau and beast fable. Core texts include King Horn, anearly romance of exile, love and revenge, Laȝamon’s Brut, a magisterial verse historyof the British, saints’ lives from the ‘Katherine-group’ with their powerful accounts ofphysical endurance and religious desire, and The Owl and the Nightingale, perhapsthe first example of comic writing in English. Not all English literature from this periodwas written in English, and you will have an opportunity to read these early MiddleEnglish texts alongside contemporary writing in Latin and French (using modernEnglish translations), and to think about the implications of a tri-lingual literary culture.Once a largely-forgotten period in English literary history, 1066-1340 has seen a revivalof critical interest in recent years. The course will introduce you to some of the bestrecent criticism on this literature, and give you a stake in the ongoing project ofrecovering and reinterpreting it.Teaching: One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks.Assessment (third years): Mid-term essay of 1500-2000 words (20%), final essay of 2500-3000 words (80%).EN3021: MIDDLE ENGLISH POETRY (EN2001 for second years)Tutor: Alastair BennettHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: This half unit course provides students with an opportunity to study central14th- or 15th-century Middle English poetic texts in close detail. The course isdesigned to equip students with an accurate reading knowledge of and familiaritywith some of the best of Middle English poetry. The reading skills developed will behelpful in the more accelerated study required in courses such as EN2002-9, EN3222Special Topic: Violence, Sex, and Magic in Medieval Literature, and EN3507: SpecialAuthor, Chaucer. The course will also provide a more concentrated alternativeoption to the wide-ranging generic medieval options. Lectures will introduce thepoems and their literary contexts and draw attention to critical responses. Use will bemade of audio-visual aids where appropriate. Seminars will involve close readingand interpretation.Teaching: One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar each week for 10 weeks.Coursework: Oral Presentation and mid-term essay of 1000 – 1500 words.Method of Assessment: One final essay of 2500-3000 words.EN3024: MEDIEVAL DREAM AND VISION (EN2004 for third years)Tutor: Catherine NallHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: This half-unit explores a major literary genre which attracted all the greatpoets of late medieval England: the dream vision. It considers the use of the genre inthe works of Chaucer, Langland and the Gawain-poet, as well as examining thevisions in mystical writing. These authors’ treatments of the genre repeatedly ask us toreflect on the relationship of literature to experience, poetic authority and identity,and the development of English as a literary language. Lectures will explore thecultural, religious and social background to these works, as well as focusing onindividual authors and texts. Middle English texts will be read in the original, Latin andFrench texts will be read in translation.49

Teaching: One-hour lecture and one-hour seminar each week for 10 weeksCoursework: One mid-term essay of 1500 - 2000 wordsMethod of Assessment: One final essay of 2500 - 3000 wordsEN3110: EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BODIES (EN2110 for Second Years)Tutor: Elaine McGirrHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: This course will explore the changing notions and representations ofidentity throughout the long eighteenth century. While our focus will be on gender,we will also be looking at the ways in which gender intersects with other schema:national identity, class identity, ethnic identity, and religious identity.Readings will cover a broad range of cultural productions, including novels, drama,popular periodicals, and poetry. Texts may include: The Expedition of HumphryClinker, The Irish Widow, Nourjahad, Love’s Last Shift and its sequel The Relapse, andThe Rape of the Lock.Teaching: Two-hour seminar each week for 10 weeksTeaching: Two-hour lecture/seminar each week for 10 weeksCoursework: Formative essay (1000-1500 words) with feedbackMethod of Assessment: ‘portfolio’ essay of revised and extended essay (2500-3000words) due in the Summer Term.EN3316: ODYSSEUS' SCAR: TIME IN MODERN LITERATURE AND FILMTutor: Professor Tim ArmstrongHalf Unit Spring TermDescription: Beginning with Erich Auerbach's classic analyses of time in Homer andWoolf, this course will explore the way in which the flow of time is conceptualised inmodern literature. It aims to relate the modernist understanding of time to changes intechnology, especially the rise of cinema, and to theories of consciousness andtrauma.The bulk of the course will focus on literary, philosophical and psychological texts ofthe modernist period in which, in the work of Henri Bergson, William James and otherstime becomes 'thickened', a topic for investigation rather than a constant vector. Theimpact of technological and social developments on the sense of time - thewristwatch, telegraphic time-signals, uniform railway timetables, international timeagreements, time-and-motion study, cinema - will also be discussed. Other topicsconsidered will include time and linguistic tense; story and narration; memory andhistory; the time-loop plot; shell-shock and trauma. The circle between technologyand time will be completed with an analysis of the inheritance of modernistexperimentation in two recent cinematic plots.Teaching: The course will be taught by two-hour seminars.Coursework: One mid-term essay of 1500 words.Assessment: One final essay of 3000 – 3500 words (100%)50

EN3118: SHAKESPEAREAN ADAPTATIONTutor: Dr Christie CarsonHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: This course aims to introduce the students to a range of historical andrecent adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays in order to illustrate the creative dialoguethat these works have inspired over time. The analysis of the texts of theseadaptations will be combined with an exploration of their social, political and culturalcontexts in order to articulate the connection between creative work and socialenvironment raising the questions: why adapt Shakespeare and what constitutesadaptation? The course charts the performance history of adaptations of four ofShakespeare’s key texts as they have been performed and adapted to suit audiencetastes across time (Richard III, Macbeth, Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew).The first five weeks of term consider historical texts and their staging. This includes ananalysis of the important adaptations of the plays by politically sensitive writers suchas Colley Cibber and Bertolt Brecht. After reading week the course looks at the waythat Shakespeare on stage and screen has formed a significant part of the culturaldebate around ‘Identities’ in the 20 th and 21 st centuries. Students will be encouragedto take on projects for their assessed essay that tackle a wide range of historicalmoments and political movements.Teaching: The course is taught in 10 two hour seminarsCoursework: One short oral presentation OR one coursework essay (20%) (1500 words)Assessment: One final piece of writing (either an essay or student adaptation withcritical explanation) (80%) (3000-3500 words)EN3119: PAINTING & WRITINGTutor: Dell OlsenHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: This half-unit explores the relationship between painting and writing. Thecourse will begin by introducing students to traditions of ekphrastic writing (writing inresponse to the visual) with examples drawn from Homer to Conceptual Poetics.Students will then consider a cross-section of paintings, drawn from many art historicalperiods, alongside a series of short texts and individual poems by a number of writersthat will include: W.H. Auden, Frank O'Hara, Barbara Guest and John Ashbery. We willend the course by examining the relationship between conceptual art that uses textand the recent turn to a conceptual poetics (as anthologised by Craig Dworkin andKenny Goldsmith, 2011) that borrows for poetics many of the traditions of conceptualart.During the seminars we will discuss a number of individual paintings in detail andstudents will be encouraged to write both critically and creatively in response tothem. Seminars will also provide a space for the discussion critical essays by arthistorians and theorists such as Roland Barthes, James Heffernan, John Berger, CharlesHarrison, T.J. Clark, Jacques Derrida and W.J.T. Mitchell, all of whom have theorisedthe relationship between painting and writing. Students will have the option of anassessment that is split between creative and critical components, or to follow asolely critical essay based assessment.Teaching: 2 hour seminar each week for 10 weeks.Coursework: Oral Presentation of critical and creative work. Critical and creativework submitted to online forum for discussion (800 - 1000 words).51

Assessment: One final essay of 2500 - 3000 words or One final essay of 1200-1500words and 6 - 8 pages of creative work.EN3120 EXPLORING JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES (to be validated)Tutor: Finn FordhamHalf Unit: Autumn TermThis ten week course will be devoted to just one book, a novel that is considered oneof the greatest and also most complex of the 20 th Century – James Joyce’s Ulysses.Written during and after the First World War, and published in 1922, just as the Irish FreeState was being established (soon to become the Republic of Ireland), it was metwith a wide range of strong responses from around the world: from praise andwonder, to bafflement, shock and censorship. Since then, critics and scholars,novelists and poets, have pored over the book to discover and bask in its intricatedesign, its extraordinary range of styles, its humour, its radical narrative techniques, itsinnovations of subject matter, and its relation to the big questions of the 20 th Century:about sex, gender, politics, religion, nationalism, human nature, shopping and gossip.Its influence has been enormous. Getting to know Ulysses means acquiring a keywhich helps unlock much literature and criticism written in its wake. Many criticalapproaches – psychoanalytic, post-structuralist, feminist, biographical, historicist,textual – have sharpened its tools on this text. We will explore this book, reading itclosely, in various contexts and from various approaches.Teaching: One two-hour seminar each weekCourse work: one seminar presentation with feedbackAssessment: one essay of 3000-3500 words due after the end of Term 1..EN3121 Critical Editions (to be validated)Tutor: Adam RobertsHalf Unit: Autumn TermA third-year half unit in which students select one text from a given list, and produce acritical edition of it, comprising: introduction, text, notes and bibliography. Theprimary texts are chosen because they are:(a) short, or otherwise of manageable proportions,(b) poorly served by critical editions, or not served at all.The list of available texts for this course during its first year of running is:William Gilpin, A Dialogue upon the Gardens of the Right Honourable the LordViscount Cobham at Stow in Buckinghamshire (1748)William Combe, The Diaboliad, a Poem: dedicated to the Worst Man in HisMajesty’s Dominions (1776)William Lisle Bowles, Sonnets, Written Chiefly on Picturesque Spots (1789)William Holloway’s The Chimney-Sweeper’s Complaint; a Poetic Tale (1806)Letitia Landon, The Fate of Adelaide, a Swiss Romantic Tale (1821)Arthur Henry Hallam, Timbuctoo (1829)Walter Savage Landor, Popery: British and Foreign (1851)‘A.L.O.E.’ (Charlotte Maria Tucker), Wings and Stings (1856)‘A.L.O.E.’ (Charlotte Maria Tucker), The Story of a Needle (1858)George Eliot, Brother and Sister (1869)Augusta Webster, Mother and Daughter: an Uncompleted Sonnet Sequence,with an Introduction by William Michael Rossetti (1895)52

Teaching: Teaching will involve one group session at the start of term, and individualmeetings with the course director as required thereafter. All students will meet withthe project supervisor at least four times, and no more than nine times, during theterm. The finished project will be submitted on the first day of the following term.Assessment: will be based upon this submission, as a group mark; and it will be subjectto a 10% individuation, based upon the short personal reflection all of you will submitalongside the edition. We may also take things like the Group Log into account whenindividuating your mark.EN3122 RENAISSANCE NOW (to be validated)Tutor: Christie CarsonHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: This course aims to introduce the students to new writing for the theatrethat responds directly to the plays of Shakespeare and his period. The texts selectedcome from the new writing work of the Royal Shakespeare Company andShakespeare’s Globe that has been commissioned to be performed in their theatres.The analysis of the texts of these new plays will be combined with an exploration oftheir social, political and cultural contexts. This course charts the development of newwriting looking at two of Shakespeare’s texts and the plays that respond to them (TheTaming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed by John Flecther; Macbeth andDunsinane by David Grieg), as well as four other plays that help to expand anunderstanding of the period in which he was writing (House of Desires by Sor JuanaInes de la Cruz and The Heresy of Love by Helen Edmundson; Anne Boleyn and InExtremis both by Howard Brenton). The course begins chronologically with anassessment of what can be known about responses to Shakespeare’s own theatricalwriting and then jumps to the present to focus on living writers. The students will beencouraged to work on research that incorporate a range of sources, bothperformance-oriented and textual, to produce either a critical or a creative finalpiece of writing.Teaching: The course is taught in 10 two hour seminarsCoursework: Short oral presentation OR one 1500 word essay (20%)Assessment:, One final piece of writing (either an essay or student adaptation withcritical explanation) (80%) (3000-3500 words)EN3204: READING TRISTRAM SHANDYTutor: Judith HawleyHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: An exploration of the reading process in Tristram Shandy: Sterne'sreading, readers in the novel, and readings of the novel.Introduction to the Aims of the Course: Is Tristram Shandy the first postmodern novel?Published in instalments from 1759 to 1767, it is rooted in the eighteenth century, butnevertheless anticipates many of the techniques of experimental fiction of thetwentieth century by laying bare the conventions of the novel. Readers find it at oncestrikingly modern and a kind of encyclopaedia of the Enlightenment. This third-yearhalf unit will experiment with reading Tristram Shandy on a number of levels: we willexamine Laurence Sterne's own reading, and his exploration of the reading process inthe novel, and study critical and theoretical readings of the novel. The aim will be toelucidate this challenging text and to use it as a starting point for an examination ofelements of narrative theory and practice.53

Teaching and Learning Methods: Either ten weekly two-hour seminars, or ten weeklylectures plus one-hour seminars. We will also make use of CD-ROM and webresources. Each week we will concentrate on a different volume of Tristram Shandyand read it alongside other texts. Students are required to do any reading orpreparation before the seminar and to participate actively in seminars.Coursework: PresentationsMethod of Assessment: One mid-term essay of 1500 words and one final essay of2500-3000 wordsEN3209: FICTIONS OF SENSATION (EN2209 for second years)Tutor: Sophie GilmartinHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription:No London social ’season’ of the mid-Victorian period was complete without its‘sensation’: the sensational new ballerina, actress, explorer, soprano or writer waslionized by society and invited everywhere. Newspapers were full of ‘sensation’ too:stories of scandal, bigamy, bankruptcy and murder transmitted their shocks fromnewspaper print along the nerves of readers to become literally sensational. Thesensation novel, which became widely popular in the 1850s and 60s, took the plotlines and the visceral effects of the sensational, to create narratives which exploredcultural anxieties about marriage, the criminal, law, the rise of the detective, thedemonic woman, the private self. The course aims to explore the Victorian conceptof the 'sensational' across a range of novels dating from the height of the sensationperiod in the 1850s and 60s. We will explore together some of the magazines in whichthese novels were originally serialized. Issues such as the role of public spectacle, thefirst detectives, advertising, domestic crime and the demonic woman will be exploredin relation to the cultural and social context of this novelistic genre. Students will buildupon work done for EN1107; build up an awareness of various genres and trends inthe history of the novel; be introduced to important nineteenth-century novelists, both'major' and 'minor' writers; and build up an understanding of the social, historical andcultural contexts influencing and influenced by the novel in this period.Primary Texts:Note: There may be some minor changes to this list, but they are likely to include thefollowing:Wilkie Collins, The Woman in WhiteMrs Henry Wood, East LynneMary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s SecretWilkie Collins, The MoonstoneCharles Dickens, Bleak HouseCoursework: One formative essay of 1000 –1500 words and one seminar presentation.Teaching: Two hour seminarsMethod of Assessment: Two-hour written exam in Summer TermEN3217: QUEER HISTORIES: Contemporary Gay and Lesbian British andIrish FictionTutor: Mark MathurayHalf Unit: Spring Term54

Description: Since the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain in 1967, gay andlesbian writers have had the freedom to explore openly in their work their sexualitywithout fear of prosecution. The early writings of the post-decriminalisation periodwere often celebratory (there was an explosion of affirming, and sometimes trite,‘coming out’ stories) and archival (the excavation of the submerged currents ofhomosexuality in English literary history was seen as an important project for thereclamation of a specifically gay and lesbian history). And then AIDS cast its darkshadow in the 1980s. Out of the disillusionment that beset the gay and lesbiancommunity, out of the belief that hard-won rights were under threat in ThatcheriteBritain, out of a mood of apocalyptic despair, the combative discourse of queertheory emerged. Where previous theories of gay and lesbian liberation had stressedequality, queer theory demanded a radical re-thinking of the categories of genderand sexuality. This course will examine a range of novels by gay and lesbian writers inBritain and Ireland which have emerged in the wake of the AIDS catastrophe andqueer theory. We will focus on interesting though rather peculiar trends in the postqueernovel: queer historical and biographical fictions, and explore the reasonsbehind the dominance of these approaches in recent gay and lesbian literature. Wewill also explore the various literary and political strategies employed by these writerssuch as historical and literary reclamation, the queer destabilisation of fixedcategories of identity, the figuring of desire’s ambiguous textures, a studiedengagement with form etc. By focussing on prominent contemporary writers, we willexplore the evolution of gay and lesbian British fiction beyond the dictates of queertheory.Learning Outcomes: After taking the course, students will have- Engaged critically with a range of novels by contemporary gay and lesbianwriters.- Have developed a detailed knowledge and understanding of the histories,politics and theoretical concepts engaged by queer theory and its aftermath.- A clear understanding of the evolution of gay and lesbian fiction since thedecriminalisation of homosexuality in Britain.- Engaged the formal challenges posed by these novelists to the tradition of theEnglish novel.Teaching and learning methods: The course will be taught in the Spring Term in tenconsecutive two-hour seminars. Students will be encouraged to offer seminar papersof about 15 minutes. Such papers may be used as ways of developing ideas andframeworks for essays.Key Texts:- Bristow, Joseph. Effeminate England: Homoerotic Writing After 1885(1995)- Dellamora, Richard. Apocalyptic Overtures: Sexual Politics and the Sense of anEnding (1994).- Mathuray, Mark (Ed.). Sex and Sensibility in the novels of AlanHollinghurst(2013)- Sinfield, Alan. Gay and After: Gender, Culture and Consumption (1998)Course Outline:Jeanette Winterson11. The Passion (1987)12. Sexing the Cherry (1989)Alan Hollinghurst: 1980s13. The Swimming-Pool Library(1988)14. The Line of Beauty (2004)Sarah Waters: Neo-Victorianism15. Tipping the Velvet (1998)16. Fingersmith (2002)Return to Wilde17. Peter Ackroyd, The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)55

18. Will Self, Dorian: an Imitation (2002)Colm Toibin19. The Story of the Night (1996)20. The Master (2004)Method of Assessment:Formative: One draft essay of 1000 words to be submitted on the first day afterreading week. The essay will be marked and feedback given to students in one-toonetutorials.Summative: One essay of 2000-35000 wordsEN3317: ART OF NOISETutor: Will MontgomeryHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: The Art of Noise is an interdisciplinary course that explores the role ofsound in the literature and art of the 20th and 21st centuries. Sound is discussed as thesubject matter of literature; as a feature of the performance or reading of a text; andas the medium for non-literary and non-musical artworks. The unit begins withdiscussion of the impact of industrialisation and recording technology in the 19thcentury. We then look at the ways in which the changing aural landscape of theearly 20th century is registered in some literary texts. The course also explores thetreatment of sound and language in some major modernist texts and in suchmovements as Futurism and Dada. Students will read examples of drama andcontemporary poetry. They will also be introduced to sound- oriented work written forthe screen and to the relatively new field of sound art.Teaching: One two-hour seminar each weekCoursework: One oral presentation of seminar paper (1000–1500 words) withfeedback in class. A fully written-up version of the paper, with bibliography, must beuploaded to MOODLE website, where it will receive further written feedback, as aprecondition of submitting the examined essayMethod of Assessment: One essay of 2500 – 3000 wordsEN3319 LIVES OF WRITINGTutor: Finn FordhamHalf Unit: Autumn TermDescription: This course will introduce and question the various meanings, uses of andvalues given to literary manuscripts in the last two hundred years. Recently, literarymanuscripts and writing processes have come under increasing scrutiny – not onlywithin Universities but in novels themselves (in Byatt’s Possession and Cunningham’sThe Hours for instance). In lectures and seminars we will get behind the printed pagesof texts and discover the processes that went into their production, bringing freshinterpretations as a result. We will analyse ‘avant-textes’ to find out what they tell usabout form, intention, authorship and process. It is planned that the course willinvolve ‘hand-on’ workshops with literary manuscripts in and around London. You willhave the chance to work on manuscripts that no-one has worked on before.Teaching: One two-hour seminar each weekCoursework: One presentationMethod of Assessment: One final essay of 3000-3500 words.56

Method of Assessment: One assessed essay of 2500-3000 words.EN3328: VISUAL AND VERBAL IN THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURYTutor: Dr Vicky GreenawayHalf Unit Spring TermDescription: This course will address the relationship between literature (includingnovels, poetry and prose) and the visual arts from c.1760 to the 1890s. Theoreticalissues of how we are to define the visual and the verbal arts, and the question of theircompatibility, will be explored through a number of case studies of visual-verbalinterrelations and conversations throughout the period studied.The course will also address the rise of the visual as the dominant cultural formof the Victorian period, tracing the development of illustrated media and new visualtechnologies including photography and early cinema, and the concomitant rise ofthe new phenomenon of the art critic – the professional interpreter of images - in the1890s. Week 5 will include a study-visit to the Royal Holloway Picture Gallery.The subject of the visual denotes not only questions of seeing, but questions ofbeing – as both our route of access to the external world and as ‘windows to thesoul’, our eyes reveal, expose and define our sense of self. This course will also explore,then, the scientific study of optics in the 19thC to explore its implications for ideas ofsubjectivity and knowledge. In addition, the ideological use of ‘looking’ as aninstrument of power and control will be investigated through examination of Victoriansocial and penal policies, and the racial and class profiling engendered by the new‘pseudo-science’ of physiognomy.Course outline:1. 18thC topographical poetry and Landscape painting. Pope, ‘Epistle toBurlington’; Wordsworth, ‘An Evening Walk’.2. Visual & Verbal in 18thC theory and practice: issues of compatibility. G. E.Lessing, Laocoon; William Blake’s Illuminated Books.3. Literary ekphrasis: poems speaking to silent works of art. Keats, ‘Ode on aGrecian Urn’; Wordsworth, ‘Upon the Sight of a Beautiful Picture, Painted by SirG. H. Beaumont’ and ‘Elegaic Stanzas, … Peele Castle in a Storm’.4. Dickens, Hogarth and Cruikshank: narrative art and the literary ‘sketch’ of the1830s. Dickens, Sketches by Boz and Oliver Twist including Cruikshank’sillustrations to both.5. Victorian spectacle and visual cultures. Advertising, the illustrated press;panoramas, photography and early cinema. VISIT TO PICTURE GALLERY tostudy Luke Fildes’ Admission to a Casualty Ward and W. P. Frith’s The RailwayStation.6. The Politics of Viewing. Foucault, Discipline and Punish.7. The Science of Seeing. 19thC discussions of optics.8. Visual-verbal case study: the art and literature of the Pre-RaphaeliteBrotherhood (1848-51)9. Art, looking, and the rise of the art critic: Ruskin and Pater; Wilde The Critic asArtist.10. Impressionism in Decadent art and literature: Whistler’s Thames paintings;poetry by Wilde, Johnson and Symons.Teaching: A one hour lecture and one hour seminar per week.Assessment: 1000-1500 word mid-term essay (20%); one final 2000-2500 word essay(80%).EN3329 THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVELLA57

Tutor: Ben MarkovitsHalf Unit: Spring TermDescription: The aim of this course is to approach questions about the GreatAmerican Novel (what it means, why it matters) by looking intensely at a series ofshorter works that all offer themselves for close reading and analysis. The course willconsider these works from the point of view of the writer – the sorts of decisions thewriters made in fitting their texts within a tradition, and adding something new to it.The Great American novel is a useful starting point for a certain kind of discussion –about quality, as much as anything else. This course will put questions of quality at theforefront of literary analysis, offering in an English class the kind of perspective onliterature most commonly confined to creative Writing: questions of what works, why,and what doesn’t will make up a part of each seminar, and students will beencouraged to treat all the primary sources on their own merits without recourse tosecondary material.By the end of this course students will have a working overview of two centuries ofAmerican literature and a clear sense of the choices made by a series of writers intackling a similar task: how to turn a small story about a person into a much largerstory about a place and a time. They will be able to respond to literary texts withoutrecourse to secondary material and they will be able to analyse the relationshipbetween a fictional form and the history of a country.Novellas under discussion will include The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne), Bartleby theScrivener (Melville), Daisy Miller (James), Ethan Frome (Wharton), The Awakening(Chopin), The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway), Seize the Day (Bellow), Goodbye,Columbus (Roth), and The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon). Assessment will be by extendedessay.Teaching: One two-hour seminar each weekAssessment: One assessed essay of 2500-3000 words58

THIRD-YEAR CREATIVE WRITING CORE COURSECW3103: CREATIVE WRITING SPECIAL FOCUS – Whole Unit: Both termsCourse Description: The Creative Writing Special Focus course concentrates on aparticular mode of writing, genre, theme, issue or idea. Each focus draws on anindividual staff area of interest and expertise, with the focus changing each term.Students take one particular focus in the Autumn term and one in the Spring.Students will be encouraged to make creative work in relation to the focus, and todevelop their writing practice in relation to wider contexts relevant to thecontemporary writer. This will make an important connection between the creativeambitions of the course and writing beyond the University.Learning Outcomes: By the end of this course, students will have become familiar witha variety of contemporary practices which involve writing. They will have engagedcritically with contemporary debates involving writers and the practice of writing.They will have reflected on their own work in presentations and in essay forms. Theywill have developed their own writing practice in relation to an expanded field ofwriting practice and theoretical debate.Teaching: The course will be taught in 2-hour weekly seminars across Term 1 and Term2. The course tutors will also be available for one-to-one discussions during OfficeHours or by appointment.Assessment: Spring Term, Portfolio (10-12 pages or equivalent) (25%) Essay (2000-2500words) (25%). Summer Term, Portfolio (10-12 pages or equivalent) (25%) Essay (2000-2500 words) (25%)Special Focus Options: Choose one half unit each termScreenwritingTerms: Autumn and SpringTutor -Sebastian Secker-WalkerThis course is designed to introduce students to the craft of writing drama forthe screen, both at a theoretical level and through the process of writing andre-writing a 12-minute screenplay of their own.Over ten weeks, students will be introduced to a range of themes and skills,including: how to express stories visually; the 3-Act structure; the sevenarchetypal stories; genre; conflict; plot; character; dialogue and use oflocation. They will learn to brainstorm ideas with other students and critiqueone another’s material, as well as how to pitch their projects, combined witha broad introduction to standard film industry practice.All of these topics will be taught with reference to a wide range of films,excerpts from which will be shown in class, as well as an in-depth study of thefilm (and Academy Award Winning Screenplay) “Thelma and Louise”.Students will be required to produce a variety of written material throughoutthe ten weeks, culminating in a 12-minute, professionally formattedscreenplay, as well as a 2,500 word essay, 700 words of which is to be acritical reflection on their own work, the remaining 1800 words an in-depthanalysis of 12-minutes of a feature film script.Reading List3 Categories:59

A) “How to write” manuals. Students should read as many of these as possibleduring their time on the course and certainly the first two. Hal Ackerman: Writing Screenplays that Sell Blake Snyder: Save the Cat! Michael Tierno: Aristotle’s Poetics for Screenwriters Dancyger & Rush: Alternative Scriptwriting: Successfully Breaking theRules Karl Iglesias: Writing for Emotional Impact Sol Saks: Funny Business: The Craft of Comedy Writing Bob MacKee: Story (Very long-winded, but some of his terminology hasbeen adopted as “the norm” in script development circles, so aspiringscreenwriters should at least browse/skim through it).B) Commentaries on the state of the movie business. Not essential, but hugelyentertaining! William Goldman: Adventures in the Screen Trade David Mamet: A Whore’s Profession; Writing in Restaurants; Bambi vsGodzilla. Kevin Conroy Scott (Editor): Screenwriters’ Masterclass: Screenwriterstalk about their greatest movies Julia Phillips: You’ll Never Eat Lunch in this Town Again Peter Biskind: Easy Riders, Raging BullsC) Classic works of drama most of which predate the invention of film as amedium, but they all offer useful archetypal examples of certain charactersand plots. Not essential. Euripedes: Orestes Sophocles: The Three Theban Plays Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, Twelfth Night,Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream Chekhov: The Three Sisters Ibsen: An Enemy of the People, Ghosts Brecht: The Resistible Rise of Arturo UiWriting in the Expanded Field Tutor - Kristen KreiderTerm: AutumnAims and ObjectivesThis course will introduce you to a range of writing practices across disciplines,modes and mediums in order to consider writing in an expanded field ofcreative practice. You will look at the effect of other art forms on thedevelopment of poetry, fiction and play-writing and be encouraged tosituate your own writing practice in relation to art, architecture, film, musicand performance. This course will involve some historical material, culturaland theoretical debate and place an emphasis on the development of yourown writing in relation to the discussion and study of wider cultural contextsrelevant to the contemporary writer.Course ContentWe will look specifically at writing as and in performance, film, video,installation, drawing and site-specific practice. We will also look at howprocesses such as adaptation and collaboration shift writing off of the pageand into spaces of performance and publicity. An introduction to recentcritical and theoretical debates will allow you to situate and analyze writing inthis wider field, while specific writing exercises will allow you to develop yourown practice as writers in relation to this context.60

Learning OutcomesBy the end of this course you will have: become familiar with a variety of contemporary practices whichinvolve writing; engaged critically with contemporary debates involving writers andthe practice of writing; reflected on your own work in presentations and in essay forms; developed your own practice as writers in relation to an expandedfield of writing and theoretical debate.Related Practitioners to InvestigateLaurie AndersonFiona BannerSamuel BeckettSteven BerkoffSophie CalleTheresa Hak Kyung ChaSusan HillerJenny HolzerRoni HornRebecca HornJoan JonasMiranda JulyIlya KabakovJoseph KosuthChris MarkerBruce NaumanAlain Robbe-GrilletDiller & ScofidioNaoKo TahaHashiFiona TempletonBackground Reading ListBarthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. London: FontanaPress, 1977.de Oliveira, Nicolas and Nicola Oxley, Michael Petry with texts by MichaelArcher. Installation Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 1994.Dean, Tacita and Jeremy Millar. Place. London: Thames and Hudson, 2005.Goldberg, RoseLee. Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. London:Thames and Hudson, 1988.---. Performance: Live Art Since the 60s. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004.Morley, Simon. Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art. London:Thames and Hudson, 2003.Rush, Michael. New Media in Art (World of Art). London: Thames andHudson, 2005.---. Video Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2003.Sayre, Henry. The Object of Performance: The American Avant-Garde Since1970.61

Wallis, Brian, ed. Blasted Allegories: An Anthology of Writings byContemporary Artists. Foreword by Marcia Tucker. Cambridge, MA: TheMIT Press, 1987.Writing and the Short StoryTerm: AutumnTutor - Redell OlsenThis course will involve the reading of a selection of modernist andcontemporary short stories. Students will be encouraged to produce their ownwriting in response to the examples set and to consider some of the criticalcontexts of the short story form. Each seminar will focus on the discussion of atleast one significant short story and some related further reading. Students willbe asked to give presentations of their own work and to present their ideasand research on the story and / or writer under discussion. The course willexplore how the short story might help writers to develop their practice in newand interesting ways across a variety of genres, narrative techniques, poeticforms and literary styles.Primary Reading:The course will include a selection of stories from classics of the modern shortstory such as those of Anton Chekov and Samuel Beckett through to modernand contemporary writers such as Ali Smith and Lydia Davis. We will use twomain anthologies: A.S. Byatt, The Oxford Book of English Short Stories. Oxford:OUP, 2009 and Kasia Boddy, The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories:from Washington Irving to Lydia Davis. Penguin: 2011.Further Reading:Allen, Walter,The Short Story in English. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.Bayley, John,The Short Story: Henry James to Elizabeth Bowen. Brighton:Harvester Press, 1988.Benjamin, Walter ‘The Storyteller’, in Illuminations. London: Fontana, 1973.Cox, Alisa, Writing Short Stories. Oxford: Routledge, 2005.Chambers, Ross, Story and Situation: Narrative Seduction and the Power ofFiction. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1984.Poe, Edgar Allan ‘The Philosophy of Composition’, in Selected WritingsHarmonsworth: Penguin Books, 1967, 480-92.Thomas, J. Ed. Flash Fiction: Very Short Stories. Norton, 1992.Writing Men: The Burden of MasculinityTerm: SpringTutor - Anna WhitwhamThroughout this course we will consider some of the ways men andmasculinity are presented across a range of texts which show heroes asaggressors and outsiders. We will develop ideas around constructs ofmasculinity – its needs and delusions and the tactics of a sometimes batteredmasculinity in our post- industrial age. We will look at the constructions of theheroic through war, violence and territorial man.How do authors create these myths of masculinity? We will study the internalnightmares of these dysfunctional men, the crisis of masculinity and theconsequence of such a limited code.During the course, we will devise and develop our own prose to createheroes that follow in this tradition.Reading62

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe (Harper Perennial 1958)A Kind of Loving, Stan Barstow (Penguin Books 1962)The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (Simon and Schuster 1995)Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk (Henry Holt and Company 1996).P.1280, Jim Thompson (Zomba Books, 1983)The Fight, Norman Mailer (Penguin Books, 1991)The Long Firm, Jake Arnott (Hodder and Stoughton, 2000)Further ReadingLodge, David, The Art of Fiction (Penguin 1992)On Boxing, Joyce Carol Oates (Penguin Books 1987)Pulp Culture and the Cold War, Woody Hault (Serpent’s Tail 1995)Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800 (Routledge, 1991)FilmsDrive, Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011The Fighter, David O. Russell , 2010This Sporting Life, Lindsay Anderson, 1963Raging Bull, Martin Scorcese, 1980When We Were Kings, Leon Gast, 1996Writing about MusicTerm: SpringTutor - Douglas CowieThis course will consider various ways of writing about music. We will read andwrite music history, reviews, essays, interviews and fiction. The reading listincludes writing about classical, folk, jazz and various forms of popular music.Reading (Indicative; :Richard Crawford, America’s Musical LifeGreil Marcus, Mystery TrainLester Bangs, Psychotic Reactions and Carbeuretor DungStuds Terkel, And They All SangSteve Albini, “What I Hate About Music” from Commodify Your Dissent(http://www.negativland.com/albini.html)Bob Dylan, Chronicles Volume OneLuc Sante, selected essays from Kill All Your DarlingsDorian Lynskey, 33 Revolutions Per MinuteTiffany Murray, Diamond Star HaloKazuo Ishiguro, NocturnesBernard Maclaverty, Grace NotesTHIRD-YEAR DRAMA PATHWAY – Whole Unit: Both termsDT3500 Nation/AdaptationTutors: Dr Lynette Goddard and Dr Deana RankinCourse Description: A look at the current West End schedules – War Horse; TheWoman in Black; The Mousetrap; Les Misérables; Mathilda, The Musical - demonstratesthat literary adaptations for the stage fuel our cultural economy. This course focuseson a number of less familiar, but nonetheless highly influential adaptations producedby Irish, British-Asian and Black-British theatre-makers over the past twenty years. Itexplores how they have used adaptation to explore - and often to subvert – notionsof national and ethical identity and of cultural belonging.63

This course begins with an exploration of adaptation theory, in particular the idea ofthe ‘cultural capital’ attached to the work of adapting. It explores why and how theadaptation has become mainstream; the issues around adaptation and ownershipand the problems which duplication and replication present for those who seek tocreate a vibrant, contemporary, politically-alert theatre. Throughout the course, wewill engage with a range of theoretical approaches to ask questions aboutadaptation and gender, adaptation and race, the literary canon and identity,historiography and representation of official ‘truths’. We will use a combination ofclose-reading, workshops, seminars and performance to explore a number of wellknownplays and in the end use this knowledge to work towards an adaptation of ourown.Key adaptations to be explored across the two terms will include:Marina Carr, Ariel (2002) inspired by Euripides’ Iphigenia at AulisSeamus Heaney, The Burial at Thebes (2004) a version of Sophocles’ Antigone.Gurinder Chadha, dir. Bride and Prejudice (2004) the Bollywood adaptation of JaneAusten’s Pride and Prejudice (1813).Richard Norton-Taylor (ed.), The Colour of Justice (1999) and Bloody Sunday: Scenesfrom the Saville Enquiry (2005) both edited from transcripts of official inquiries andpresented at the Tricycle Theatre.Oroonoko from Aphra Behn’s 1688 novel to Biyi Bandele’s 1999 play.Ghostdancing, Deepak Verma’s 2001 adaptation of Emile Zola’s novel ThérèseRaquin set in the modern-day Punjab.Mustapha Matura, Three Sisters (1988/2006) an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play set inTrinidad, 1941.Roy Williams, Days of Significance (2007) inspired by Shakespeare’s Much Ado aboutNothing and set in the context of the Iraq War.Teaching: Weekly two-hour lecture/ seminar/ workshops (+ 1 hour student-onlyrehearsal time in the second term).Summative AssessmentAssessment 1: Essay (4000-4500 words) 50%.Assessment 2: Creative Project – class presentation/performance (12-15 minutes) tobe moderated by a 1500 word critical commentary.Formative Assessment: Students will be given continual feedback throughout thecourse about their development and achievements. They will also have anopportunity to make a presentation on the week’s reading in term one and apresentation of ideas towards their creative piece for comments and feedback interm two.64