MA American Studies

Course Code DNT2T700201
Duration 2 Years
Attendance Part Time
Award Degree of Master of Arts

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Course Profile
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Overview

Why does the United States of America matter so much to us all?
Wealth, but world-wide credit crisis? Automobiles and highways? War on terror? First black president? International movie industry? The American dream? Patriotism and flag waving?

Whatever the reasons the United States matters to you, studying for one of our MA degrees [American History; American literature; American Studies; or American Studies and Film] will allow you to explore the events and forces that shaped the United States, and gain a deeper understanding of how this powerful nation moulds and influences the cultural, political, and economic lives of its own peoples and the world.

Why Study America at UEA?
The School of American Studies is rated one of the top research departments in the UK (Research Assessment Exercise 2008). It always receives the highest scores for quality of teaching and student satisfaction. Our vibrant research community ensures that faculty and graduate students meet regularly for research seminars and social events. The Arthur Miller Centre organises an annual Literary Festival, bringing major North American writers to the campus every year. All our MA programmes are interdisciplinary and are among the most established and prestigious in Britain.

Course Content and Structure:
This MA is offered as a two year, part time taught course. Students build on their undergraduate training to develop exceptionally high levels of theoretical understanding and knowledge of American thought, culture, literature, history, politics and film. Faculty members and students in the School of American Studies work within and across traditional disciplinary boundaries. All teaching is in small seminar groups, which provides students with the opportunity to engage fully with their own ideas and those of others.

MA in American Studies
This is a broad-ranging programme that combines the study of cultural theory, literature, film, history and international relations. All students take Theories of American Culture (team-taught by eight faculty members) and choose two other modules taught within the School of American Studies, for example: Twentieth-Century American Novel; The Black Atlantic; Slave Life in the Antebellum South; Native American History; American Foreign Policy Interventions; Race and Resistance; Gender and Genre in Contemporary Cinema; Postcolonial Theory. The fourth module is a free choice; students can select this additional module within the School of American Studies, or take a module in another School from a complementary MA programme, such as Studies in Fiction, Life Writing, Film Studies, Culture and Communication, History, or International Relations.

Final Dissertation
A dissertation of 12-15,000 words is prepared over the summer for submission at the start of September. Students are encouraged to select topics which have stimulated or grabbed their interest during the course of the year. Each student is allocated a supervisor whose expertise and interests match their chosen dissertation project. All students receive intensive one-on-one supervision and mentoring.

Course Assessment
There is no written examination. Assessment is on the basis of coursework (essays and sometimes class presentations) and the dissertation. The dissertation counts for half the marks of the course.

Research Community
MA students are valued members of the School of American Studies’ research community and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, and interact intellectually and socially with faculty members and Ph.D students. As part of your training you will attend weekly research seminars, where distinguished scholars from the UK, USA and elsewhere present their research for discussion with the UEA American Studies research community. Postgraduate students are encouraged to present their work in this supportive environment, where they can critically engage in scholarly debates.

Transferable Skills:
Many transferable skills are developed through the MA programmes in American Studies, including: research and writing skills; ITC skills; presentational skills; practice in public speaking and academic debate; team-work; time and project management.

Course Organiser

Dr Jonathan Mitchell

Course Brochure

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Year 1
Year 2

Year 1

Compulsory Study (20 credits)

Students will select 20 credits from the following module(s).

Name	Code	Credits	Period
Theories of American Culture This Core Autumn module introduces students to key theories in American Studies. As American Studies is an interdisciplinary field, we require all MA students in our School, whether focusing upon American History, American Literature, Film and American Studies, or American Studies, to familiarize themselves with foundational concepts in the field. The reading list will vary, but will generally have a week of introduction followed by three weeks on literary and textual theory, three weeks on historiography, and three weeks on visual culture and film theory. The aim of the module is to ensure that all students are comfortable with the basic theoretical tools necessary to advanced study in American cultural studies of all varieties. more...	AMSAM009	20	Semester 1

Option A Study (20 credits)

Students will select 20 credits from the following module(s).

Name	Code	Credits	Period
Body Spaces Central to post-war American avant-garde aesthetics and poetics is an investigation of the constructedness of the space we inhabit and of the bodies we occupy. By close and detailed analysis of a range of experimental American texts - painting and especially, poetry - from 1950 to the present day, this module explores the ways in which ideas of the postmodern in America can be seen to 'work' through such politicised constructions of the body as gender, sexuality and subjectivity. Running alongside its reading of poetic and artistic texts, the module will also consider the ways in which theories and theorists of the postmodern reflect the concern of America's experimental arts with an aesthetics of 'process' rather than of 'product'. It thereby questions the extent to which a poetics of the postmodern challenges the cultural space that America has inhabited in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. more...	AMSAM043	20	Semester 1
Civil Rights and American Politics This module offers an in-depth exploration of the history of the Civil Rights movement in the years after World War II. It delves into the rich and ever growing historiography of the subject to take in, among other things, the southern freedom movement and Martin Luther King, Jr; the life and times of Malcolm X; Black Power politics and culture; the political controversies surrounding Lyndon B. Johnson's attempt to mobilize the federal government behind the cause of black equality; the 'long, hot summers' of urban riots, 1964-1968; and the still contested legacy of this most turbulent period of American history. more...	AMSAM029	20	Semester 1
Good Good Girls and Good Bad Boys? American Fictions of Innocence Oscar Wilde wrote that 'The youth of America is their oldest tradition; it has been going on now for three hundred years'. IIs this true? If so, why? This module will seek to account for the preoccupation with youth in America by focusing particularly on the concept of 'innocence', and by examining how various models of innocence are invoked and questioned in American literary texts. Drawing on a wide array of fictional and theoretical works, we will consider the following questions: What is at stake in America's investment in innocence? Major cultural events - such as the Vietnam War and 9/11, for example - are often described as representing a 'loss of innocence' in American culture. What power interests and ideologies are maintained by repeatedly describing America as 'innocent'? How is this investment in innocence revised in different historical moments? How is it challenged? With particular reference to fictions of growing up in America, how is innocence (and loss of innocence) depicted differently for male and female protagonists? more...	AMSAM022	20	Semester 2
Queering America This is a module that engages with queer theory and its inherent complexities in order to read American Studies `across the grain,' to explore the silences and those silenced in accepted readings of America. The module will both scrutinize and utilize the polyphony of theoretical discourses that constitute queer theory's most often (deliberate) discordant approach so as to open-up the liminal spaces in America ' those cities of night to evoke John Rechy's novel on such liminality. The module is not simply an examination of homosexuality in America, but an examination of alterity in its many different forms, and how this alterity conceptualises America in ways that problematize our immediate understanding of the nation. more...	AMSAM033	20	Semester 1
Reading American Women's Lives: Her-Story in the Long Nineteenth Century The module will be structured around eight biographies of different women spanning the Revolutionary and early National period through to the late nineteenth century. The biographies under discussion will include the revolutionary Jane Adams, midwife Martha Ballard, mill girl Eunice Connolly, true women turned plantation mistress Sarah Hicks Williams, women's right activist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the two 'first ladies' of the Civil War era Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Davis reflecting on their experiences in the historical and cultural context in which they lived. The seminars will reflect on the historical conditions that shaped these women's lives and consider the ways in which they negotiated the dominant ideals of the era. The concepts of race, class, region, and age will be considered alongside gender as primary factors that structured these women's experiences, in addition to considering factors such as spousal relationships, the growing ideal of romantic love, the sentimentalisation of women's roles in domestic fiction and wider society, and the developing structures of familial relationships. Biographical materials will be supplemented by historical scholarship and visual media including portraits, pictures, and film. more...	AMSAM042	20	Semester 2
Slave Life in the Antebellum South While popular representations of New World slavery range from the dehumanized slave body to the romanticisation of enslaved life, scholarly work over the last few decades has sharpened our understanding of what it meant to be an enslaved man, woman and child in the context of Atlantic slavery. This module concerns the lived experiences of the enslaved in the slaveholding south. It is structured around the cultural histories of the lives and will consider how concepts such as race, class, gender, and sexuality interacted and were articulated in this particular historical context. Concepts of power and resistance will also be central to the discussion, as both enslaver and enslaved negotiated the limits of control in their own lives and those of others. The module will employ a variety of source materials including slave narratives, folklore tales, work-songs, and fictional representations of slavery in order to try and fully reveal the complexities of enslaved life. more...	AMSAM011	20	Semester 1
The 20th Century Novel This module emphasizes close reading, and exposure to some of the masterpieces of 20th century American prose fiction, over theoretical paradigms or a great deal of critical reading. Each week we will discuss a significant 20th century American novel (and author) in depth, coming to grips with their primary themes, structures, and techniques. However, many of our books have a solid body of scholarship associated with them with which you should also certainly expect to familiarize yourself, and each week's reading will include a required scholarly essay, which will be selected by your classmates for their presentation. more...	AMSAM017	20	Semester 1
The Black Atlantic This module will consider the flow and proliferation of black culture into and within the Americas, through the medium of the middle passage and the `Black Atlantic'. This module offers a comparative perspective on American culture: the experiences of African slaves and their subsequent freedom, physical and ' for some ' also political, will be traced in the contemporary fiction and poetry of the Caribbean and the United States. Given the overwhelming importance of Africa to contemporary Caribbean and African American writing and culture, this unit will begin and end with a focus on West African perceptions of the slave trade. more...	AMSAM018	20	Semester 2
The Dirty South: Reading Southern Cultures In William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, Shreve McCannon asks his Harvard roomate, Mississippian Quentin Compson, to "Tell about the South": "What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all." In this module, we will explore the contrasting ways that those questions have been answered - and, indeed, still continue to be answered - by Southerners and others. Reading widely in Southern literature, we will witness the emergence of a distinct Southern literary identity in the years before the Civil War; consider the effect of slavery on the development of Southern letters; encounter, through Reconstruction and beyond, the effects of defeat, liberation and memory; meet the flowering of the Southern Renaissance; and trace the development of Southern writing through the Civil Rights Era and beyond, up to the present day. But we will also consider a variety of other Southern cultures - music, particularly, from country to hip-hop, but also film and television - and think about the ongoing representations of the South by outsiders. And throughout, we will question the shifting meaning of "the South", and consider its persistent significance in the twenty-first century. more...	AMSAM038	20	Semester 2
The Imperial Origins of the US and Canada The Imperial Origins of the United States and Canada begins with an examination of the condition of North America in 1492, and proceeds to discuss in the next three sessions to analyse the impact of trade, missionary work, European settlement, warfare, slavery and imperial rivalry in three broad geographic regions: 1) The Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic coasts of North America; 2) The St. Lawrence valley, New England and the Canadian Maritime regions; and 3) New Netherland, New Sweden and their successor colonies, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Having laid this foundation, the module continues chronologically, examining the Spanish, French, and British Empires in North America side-by-side, through the period of the American Revolution and on to the War of 1812. Over the long run, the British Empire spawned two huge polities in North America, and the module will close by examining its distinctive legacies on the two sides of the U.S. - Canadian border. more...	AMSAM044	20	Semester 2

Year 2

Compulsory Study (100 credits)

Students will select 100 credits from the following module(s).

Name	Code	Credits	Period
American Studies Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	AMSAM03X	90	Semester 2
Research and Methodology Training Seminar This module is run over two semesters. The Autumn and Spring semester element of the training requires attendance and active engagement at the School research seminars which are run on a weekly basis. In addition, during the Spring semester students will take a half-module concerned with preparation for writing their dissertations over the Summer. Students will present their dissertation proposal at the last of the School's research seminars in the Spring Semester. Assessment will be based on a reflective report, written at the end of the autumn semester, concerning the research seminars students have attended. The spring semester will be assessed through presentation and submission of the dissertation proposal. more...	AMSAM02Y	10	Year Period

Option A Study (20 credits)

Students will select 20 credits from the following module(s).

Name	Code	Credits	Period
Body Spaces Central to post-war American avant-garde aesthetics and poetics is an investigation of the constructedness of the space we inhabit and of the bodies we occupy. By close and detailed analysis of a range of experimental American texts - painting and especially, poetry - from 1950 to the present day, this module explores the ways in which ideas of the postmodern in America can be seen to 'work' through such politicised constructions of the body as gender, sexuality and subjectivity. Running alongside its reading of poetic and artistic texts, the module will also consider the ways in which theories and theorists of the postmodern reflect the concern of America's experimental arts with an aesthetics of 'process' rather than of 'product'. It thereby questions the extent to which a poetics of the postmodern challenges the cultural space that America has inhabited in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. more...	AMSAM043	20	Semester 1
Civil Rights and American Politics This module offers an in-depth exploration of the history of the Civil Rights movement in the years after World War II. It delves into the rich and ever growing historiography of the subject to take in, among other things, the southern freedom movement and Martin Luther King, Jr; the life and times of Malcolm X; Black Power politics and culture; the political controversies surrounding Lyndon B. Johnson's attempt to mobilize the federal government behind the cause of black equality; the 'long, hot summers' of urban riots, 1964-1968; and the still contested legacy of this most turbulent period of American history. more...	AMSAM029	20	Semester 1
Good Good Girls and Good Bad Boys? American Fictions of Innocence Oscar Wilde wrote that 'The youth of America is their oldest tradition; it has been going on now for three hundred years'. IIs this true? If so, why? This module will seek to account for the preoccupation with youth in America by focusing particularly on the concept of 'innocence', and by examining how various models of innocence are invoked and questioned in American literary texts. Drawing on a wide array of fictional and theoretical works, we will consider the following questions: What is at stake in America's investment in innocence? Major cultural events - such as the Vietnam War and 9/11, for example - are often described as representing a 'loss of innocence' in American culture. What power interests and ideologies are maintained by repeatedly describing America as 'innocent'? How is this investment in innocence revised in different historical moments? How is it challenged? With particular reference to fictions of growing up in America, how is innocence (and loss of innocence) depicted differently for male and female protagonists? more...	AMSAM022	20	Semester 2
Queering America This is a module that engages with queer theory and its inherent complexities in order to read American Studies `across the grain,' to explore the silences and those silenced in accepted readings of America. The module will both scrutinize and utilize the polyphony of theoretical discourses that constitute queer theory's most often (deliberate) discordant approach so as to open-up the liminal spaces in America ' those cities of night to evoke John Rechy's novel on such liminality. The module is not simply an examination of homosexuality in America, but an examination of alterity in its many different forms, and how this alterity conceptualises America in ways that problematize our immediate understanding of the nation. more...	AMSAM033	20	Semester 1
Reading American Women's Lives: Her-Story in the Long Nineteenth Century The module will be structured around eight biographies of different women spanning the Revolutionary and early National period through to the late nineteenth century. The biographies under discussion will include the revolutionary Jane Adams, midwife Martha Ballard, mill girl Eunice Connolly, true women turned plantation mistress Sarah Hicks Williams, women's right activist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the two 'first ladies' of the Civil War era Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Davis reflecting on their experiences in the historical and cultural context in which they lived. The seminars will reflect on the historical conditions that shaped these women's lives and consider the ways in which they negotiated the dominant ideals of the era. The concepts of race, class, region, and age will be considered alongside gender as primary factors that structured these women's experiences, in addition to considering factors such as spousal relationships, the growing ideal of romantic love, the sentimentalisation of women's roles in domestic fiction and wider society, and the developing structures of familial relationships. Biographical materials will be supplemented by historical scholarship and visual media including portraits, pictures, and film. more...	AMSAM042	20	Semester 2
Slave Life in the Antebellum South While popular representations of New World slavery range from the dehumanized slave body to the romanticisation of enslaved life, scholarly work over the last few decades has sharpened our understanding of what it meant to be an enslaved man, woman and child in the context of Atlantic slavery. This module concerns the lived experiences of the enslaved in the slaveholding south. It is structured around the cultural histories of the lives and will consider how concepts such as race, class, gender, and sexuality interacted and were articulated in this particular historical context. Concepts of power and resistance will also be central to the discussion, as both enslaver and enslaved negotiated the limits of control in their own lives and those of others. The module will employ a variety of source materials including slave narratives, folklore tales, work-songs, and fictional representations of slavery in order to try and fully reveal the complexities of enslaved life. more...	AMSAM011	20	Semester 1
The 20th Century Novel This module emphasizes close reading, and exposure to some of the masterpieces of 20th century American prose fiction, over theoretical paradigms or a great deal of critical reading. Each week we will discuss a significant 20th century American novel (and author) in depth, coming to grips with their primary themes, structures, and techniques. However, many of our books have a solid body of scholarship associated with them with which you should also certainly expect to familiarize yourself, and each week's reading will include a required scholarly essay, which will be selected by your classmates for their presentation. more...	AMSAM017	20	Semester 1
The Black Atlantic This module will consider the flow and proliferation of black culture into and within the Americas, through the medium of the middle passage and the `Black Atlantic'. This module offers a comparative perspective on American culture: the experiences of African slaves and their subsequent freedom, physical and ' for some ' also political, will be traced in the contemporary fiction and poetry of the Caribbean and the United States. Given the overwhelming importance of Africa to contemporary Caribbean and African American writing and culture, this unit will begin and end with a focus on West African perceptions of the slave trade. more...	AMSAM018	20	Semester 2
The Dirty South: Reading Southern Cultures In William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, Shreve McCannon asks his Harvard roomate, Mississippian Quentin Compson, to "Tell about the South": "What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all." In this module, we will explore the contrasting ways that those questions have been answered - and, indeed, still continue to be answered - by Southerners and others. Reading widely in Southern literature, we will witness the emergence of a distinct Southern literary identity in the years before the Civil War; consider the effect of slavery on the development of Southern letters; encounter, through Reconstruction and beyond, the effects of defeat, liberation and memory; meet the flowering of the Southern Renaissance; and trace the development of Southern writing through the Civil Rights Era and beyond, up to the present day. But we will also consider a variety of other Southern cultures - music, particularly, from country to hip-hop, but also film and television - and think about the ongoing representations of the South by outsiders. And throughout, we will question the shifting meaning of "the South", and consider its persistent significance in the twenty-first century. more...	AMSAM038	20	Semester 2
The Imperial Origins of the US and Canada The Imperial Origins of the United States and Canada begins with an examination of the condition of North America in 1492, and proceeds to discuss in the next three sessions to analyse the impact of trade, missionary work, European settlement, warfare, slavery and imperial rivalry in three broad geographic regions: 1) The Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic coasts of North America; 2) The St. Lawrence valley, New England and the Canadian Maritime regions; and 3) New Netherland, New Sweden and their successor colonies, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Having laid this foundation, the module continues chronologically, examining the Spanish, French, and British Empires in North America side-by-side, through the period of the American Revolution and on to the War of 1812. Over the long run, the British Empire spawned two huge polities in North America, and the module will close by examining its distinctive legacies on the two sides of the U.S. - Canadian border. more...	AMSAM044	20	Semester 2

Option B Study (20 credits)

Students will select 20 credits from the following module(s).

You may pick any of the modules that begin with:

ART-M

Introduction to Cultural Heritage This module defines the concept, scope and history of 'cultural heritage'. It identifies trends in cultural heritage studies, and addresses the key ideas of heritage interpretation as well as the cultural aspects of globalisation. It encourages critical engagement with the ideas of community, national and world heritage by drawing attention to the tensions between the cultual political, legal and touristic aspects of heritage. Throughout, the module will refer closely to the interface between heritage and development studies and incorporate a range of pertinent academic disciplines and methods, which define the activities of the School of World Art Studies, and more generally, 'cultural heritage studies'. The unit is designed to provide analytical reference and departure points from the other Cultural Heritage modules and core development perspectives. This module has two major aims. The first is to provide the conceptual and research skills necessary for advanced academic study in the Humanities. The second is to develop the academic creativity, mental agility, questioning attitude and methodological rigour necessary for pursuing a career in academia or in the arts and heritage sectors. This entails considering the political, social, and ethical issues, problems and responsibilities involved in cultural interpretation. more...	ART-MC13	20	Semester 1
Unwrapping Ancient Egypt: Mummies, Museums, and Mysteries in the European Imagination Ancient Egypt is irrevocably connected with the trajectory of 'western' culture - from Renaissance Italy to revolutionary France and beyond. Focussing on the history of collecting and displaying Egyptian antiquities, including the unwrapping of mummies, this module interrogates the construction of different 'ancient Egypts' in European and North American contexts. Topics include museum displays from the 19th century to the present day; 19th century world fairs and international exhibitions; mummy unwrappings and other stagings of the Egyptian body and related artefacts; 'Egyptomania'; ancient Egypt, race, and Afrocentrism; and archaeological and artistic representations of Egypt. more...	ART-MA67	20	Semester 1
SRU Research Tutorial This semester-long module, delivered through regular tutorials, is available to those wishing to focus on a regional or theoretical interest covered by the specialisations of SRU faculty. Semester long, available either Autumn or Spring (this is an option to replace one of ART-MS01, ART-MS03 or ART-MS05). more...	ART-MS1Y	30	Year Period
Oceania Section This section of the SRU MA course provides candidates with detailed knowledge of the visual arts of Pacific/Oceania, contemporary and historical, while also focusing on the methodological and theoretical issues involved in their analysis and display, both in their original contexts and in the contexts of museums and exhibitions. more...	ART-MS03	30	Semester 1
SRU Museology Timed Essay	ART-MS06	10	Semester 2
SRU Dissertation 10000-15000 word dissertation on a topic on the arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas chosen with advice from the area supervisor. more...	ART-MS0X	80	Semester 2
Africa Section This section of the SRU MA course provides candidates with detailed knowledge of the visual arts of Africa, contemporary and historical, while also focusing on the methodological and theoretical issues involved in their analysis and display, both in their original contexts and in the contexts of museums and exhibitions. more...	ART-MS01	30	Semester 1
Reforming Experience: Pictures and Perception in Sixteenth-Century Germany Protestantism postulated a truly personal relationship to the Divine. But why did this emerge in Germany, in the writings of Martin Luther? And what role was played by altarpieces, secular history paintings, portraits and prints? Are there any marked changes in how individuals were represented? Can we trace any broader impacts on how imagery was made, consumed and understood? To answer these questions, we shall draw on work by artists such as Durer and Cranach and on writings by academics such as Scribner, Baxandall, Moxey and Koerner. The broad aim is to explore what it meant to make and look at pictures in Reformation Germany, in a period of disenchantment with the image. more...	ART-MA66	20	Semester 2
City, Church and Empire: Christian Rome in the First Millennium Rome, the old capital of a world empire, lost its position as seat of imperial governance already in the 3rd century AD but by the end of antiquity had become the centre of an ecclesiastical empire. The city was transformed into a new entity now dominated by the church. In this changing urban matrix a distinctive Christian architectural practice developed. We shall analyse the principal architectural and artistic outcomes of this process from the material reorganization of the church in the time of Constantine until the age of ecclesiastical reform. We will also be considering the lived fabric of the city, on which much new light has been thrown in recent years. more...	ART-MA70	20	Semester 2
Uses of Cultural Heritage in Japan This module focuses on the question of how and why people need, create and use cultural heritage. Various factors will be examined including social, political and economic ones, with reference to examples of cultural heritage in Japan. Two characteristics of cultural heritage are stressed in particular: heritage unites and divides people. Stressing the close link between cultural heritage, memory and identity, the module aims to reveal how cultural heritage has been and is used for the making of community, nation and empire, both in global and Japanese contexts. more...	ART-MC20	20	Semester 2
Introduction to Cultural Heritage in Japan This module comprises two strands. First, it discusses the concept, scope and history of what is generally defined as 'cultural heritage' and addresses recent trends in cultural heritage studies. In this process, particular emphasis is placed on the ideas of local, national and world heritage, as well as the relations and tensions between the social, political, economic and legal aspects of heritage. Second, these theoretical perspectives will be critically evaluated through the examination of various types of cultural heritage in Japan, which include artistic, archaeological, architectural and folk heritage, as well as traditional performance, landscape and pop cultures. Incorporating a range of pertinent academic disciplines and methods, this module is designed to provide departure points for the other Cultural Heritage modules. more...	ART-MC19	20	Semester 1
Cultural Heritage and International Development: Dissertation This consists solely of a dissertation of not more than 12,000 words on a topic relevant to cultural heritage management. Students choose their own topics, subject to the approval of the two Course Directors. The dissertation is to be researched and written independently by each student, though with the support of an appointed supervisor. more...	ART-MC2X	60	Semester 2
Americas Section This section of the SRU MA provides candidates with detailed knowledge of the visual arts of the Americas, ancient and historical, while also focusing on the methodological and theoretical issues involved in their analysis and display, both in their original contexts and in the contexts of museums and exhibitions. more...	ART-MS05	30	Semester 1
Climate Change in Prehistory This module attempts to link climatic and cultural change date back at least as far as the oasis theory of V. Gordon Childe in the early twentieth century. In recent years, the identification of episodes of 'rapid climate change' that coincide with cultural changes, have led to considerable interest in the likelihood of possible links. Other studies have identified potential correlations between climate change and the growth of social complexity. While such links remain contested, a growing body of evidence indicates that key periods of cultural transition have often coincided with periods of climatic and environmental change, particularly periods associated with climatic deterioration associated with increases in resource scarcity or environmental uncertainty. A period of particular interest in this regard is the Middle Holocene, which a large body of evidence suggests was a period of widespread climatic disruption and reorganisation. This MA module will go beyond simple narratives that attempt to link climate change with cultural discontinuities or increasing complexity, and instead, will examine the evidence (or lack thereof) for relationships between climatic, environmental and cultural change in a number of study areas in the wider Mediterranean region, including North Africa and the Sahara, the northern and southern Levant, and southeastern Europe (including Cyprus). more...	ART-MA42	20	Semester 2
Exhibition Project This module introduces the methods and professional skills of exhibition planning, delivered through a combination of seminars, workshops and practical project-work. Areas covered include concept development, negotiation of contracts and loans, budgeting, layout design, installation management and related programming. Students collectively develop an exhibition project at a museum or cultural site in Norwich, from idea through to production. In addition to this, they work on an individual proposal aligned with their own research interests for on-line publication. more...	ART-MU9Y	20	Year Period
Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies: Dissertation This consists of a dissertation of no more than 12,000 words on a topic relevant to the practice and theory of cultural heritage and/or museums. Students choose their own topics, subject to the approval of the Course Director. The dissertation is to be researched and written independently by each student, though with the support of an appointed supervisor. more...	ART-MC3X	60	Semester 2
Cultural Heritage Placement This module provides students with practical heritage management experience, consisting of a two to three week work placement with an appropriate heritage organisation (organised and funded by the student). Assessment consists of a substantial management plan (or project report, subject in consultation with the Course Director), which gives students the experience of analyzing their host institution and producing a professional-standard report. Students will be required to complete their placement successfully to gain credit for this module. more...	ART-MC22	40	Semester 2
Museum Studies (Placement) Students on the MA in Museum Studies undertake a work placement for two days each week from October until May, with the exception of university vacation periods. Students will work on a voluntary basis in a regional museum within daily travelling distance of the University. They are allocated to museums on the basis of their emerging professional interests and aspirations, academic background and, from a practical point of view, their mobility. Each student undertakes a project agreed with their hosts. Assessment consists of a substantial management plan (or Project Report, Subject to consultation with the Course Director), which gives students the experience of analyzing their host institution and producing a professional-standard report. more...	ART-MM1Y	40	Year Period
Museum Studies: Dissertation This consists of a dissertation of no more than 8,000 words on a topic relevant to the practice and theory of museums. Students choose their own topics, subject to the approval of the Course Director. The dissertation is to be researched and written independently by each student, though with the support of an appointed supervisor. more...	ART-MM1X	60	Semester 2
Art and Patronage in East Anglia 1090-1540 Norfolk and Suffolk were two of the richest counties in England in the Middle Ages. They have remained relatively unaffected by subsequent industrialisation and retain very rich resources for the study of art and architecture from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. The region thus offers an exemplary focus for learning about medieval art and architecture and ample opportunities for developing research projects. more...	ART-MA64	20	Semester 2
The Archive Conventionally seen as a technology for the storage of documents, contemporary artists and authors have recently redefined the archive to encompass the entire range of institutions in which the traces of our past are stored. The archive denotes a conceptual space of past utterances collected, curated and stored for future use and as the repository of our knowledge it constitutes the site from which we speak. In this seminar, we will address the archive from a range of texts, media and disciplines in order to examine how the archive authorizes, as Derrida claims. The concept of the archive invites us to raise questions about documents and monuments, authority and truth, memory and forgetting. We will look at the work of contemporary artists Andy Warhol, Susan Hiller, Christian Boltanski, Gerhard Richter, Doris Salcedo and the Atlas Group and we will view movies such as The Specialist (1999) and Incendies (2011) and ask how they conceptualise archival memory. more...	ART-MA48	20	Semester 2
Museums and Heritage: Interpretation, Access, Engagement Museums and cultural heritage institutions share a common set of practices in relation to their public presentation. This module focuses on the role of interpretation in cultural institutions, and vice versa. We will consider how museums and heritage sites engage with their audiences, and who these audiences are. Access, understood in its broadest sense, involves all facets of work in the cultural sector, but presents unique issues as well, which we examine in relation to vocational skills as well as topical research and debates more...	ART-MC24	20	Semester 2
Art, Space and Place: 1960-1980 In the 1960s new trends of art practice emerged which reconsidered the status of the work of art. As Dennis Oppenheim observed, artists began to explore 'new ways to work within old bounds' by challenging the role of the gallery. Oppenheim saw this as a move 'from object to place'. Yet this did not mean that artists simply abandoned the gallery; instead, they sought to test its limits. This testing of the gallery space and the values it perpetuated is now identified as 'institutional critique'. A second trend was a movement beyond the gallery to explore the 'site specific'. This module examines these trends, and the reasons why they are fundamental to an understanding of contemporary art practice. more...	ART-MA52	20	Semester 2
Museum Studies (Fellowship) Each year, up to four bursary-funded year-long Training Fellowships at the SCVA are available, on a competetive basis, to people who have already confirmed their acceptance of a place on the MA in Museum Studies. For students on the MA in Museum Studies who are in reciept of a Museum Training Fellowship, which provides a year-long work placement at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA), this module is the equivalent of ART-MM1Y more...	ART-MM2Y	40	Year Period
Museums and Heritage: Management, Governance, Strategies Museums and cultural heritage institutions share a common framework of management and organisational structures. This module explores institutional issues such as governance, legal responsibilities, policy frameworks, project management and funding, and ethics. Teaching includes a number of guest speakers drawn from the professional sector, plus site visits or excursions. The module places the development of job-specific skills in the context of current academic research and the political and economic climate. more...	ART-MC23	20	Semester 1
Researching Art History This module has two major aims. Firstly, it provides you with the conceptual and research skills necessary for the advanced academic study of art from historical, cultural and environmental perspectives. Secondly it helps you develop the academic creativity, mental agility, questioning attitude and methodological rigour needed for pursuing innovative research. Amongst other things, this involves the critical examination and evaluation of how artefacts and buidlings are interpreted. The module is designed to help you to analyse and work constructively with a range of approaches to art history and is taken by all students reading for the MA in History of Art. It provides an opportunity to explore European art as part of a world wide phenomenon and to theorise how art in particular places developed in distinctive ways. This includes exploring the relationship between history, art, culture and the environment (resources, climate and topography). Both written assignments for the module giving you the opportunity to pursue your own interests as well as discussing and reading around issues raised inthe module as a whole. Key themes include: the nature of intellectual creativity; the conceptual and practical skills necessary to formulate viable research projects; various styles of academic writing; academic team-work; the different perspectives involved in the study of artefacts; the interpretative process and its implications. Key themes include: the nature of intellectual creativity; the conceptual and practical skills necessary to formulate viable resarch projects; various styles of academic writing; academic team-work; the different perspectives involved in the study of artefacts; the interpretative process and its implications. more...	ART-MA71	40	Semester 1
Critical Perspectives in Museum Studies This module provides an introduction to the history and theory of museums, from the origins and inception of the nineteenth century public museum to postmodern and contemporary paradigms. It also explores the vast array of perspectives that have been recently integrated in the study of museums, resulting in a new interdisciplinary area of scholarship known as museum studies, in plural. Using targeted readings and specific case studies, students will engage with contemporary debates about collecting and display, memory and commemoration, institutional ethics and social advocacy, the agency of the audience and the changes brought about by digital culture. While learning to analyze key sources, students will also be encouraged to think critically about the larger implications of these ideas in museum practice and challenge current assumptions about the role of museums, their social responsibilities and their possible futures. more...	ART-MU01	20	Semester 1
Uses of Cultural Heritage While we are currently experiencing a 'heritage fever', resulting in frantic attempts to identify, classify, preserve, and interpret our cultural heritage, the question as to why we are so obsessed with heritage requires examination. While the preservation of cultural heritage perhaps seems primarily of an aesthetic nature, critical studies have revealed heritage conservation to be part of the making of nations and empires, hence intrinsic to processes of nationalism and colonialism. This module deconstructs some of these roles and functions of cultural heritage Yet, in the current heritage revival we can discern other engagements with cultural heritage that may be understood as part of a politics of self-realisation. Heritage can thus contribute to overcome the legacies of slavery, colonialism and civic conflict, thus restoring dignity and providing recognition. Moreover, heritage can provide migrants with 'roots' and create a sense of place in a globalising world. This seminar examines how heritage is used in an attempt to use 'cultural as cure' and therefore looks at what can be called, for want of a better term, 'heritage healing. more...	ART-MC12	20	Semester 2
Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	ART-MA2X	80	Semester 2
Exhibiting Empire This module aims to address those aspects of imperialism and cultural representation that have become the focus of studies in critical museology, anthropology and art history in the past decades. Drawing on and assessing analytical approaches fashioned in post-colonial studies, the module will enable you to debate the visual and material cultures of empire. You will be encouraged to approach historical material within a comparative framework. Through the use of wide ranging historiical, cultural and theoretical case-studies we will develop a committed approach to investigations of the entangled and contested nature of imperial representations. Whilst some of these studies will relate to the British East India Company and the Raj in India, others will draw attention to the processes of empire-building, colonisation and de-colonisation in other global contexts. Issues and debates in studies of visual culture and material culture will be linked directly to histories of collection and display in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, encompassing the Great Exhibition, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Indian Museum, and various other national and international institutions. While intended for art history students, the module may also be of interest to students of cultural geography and history, as it will bring in related themes, such as 'centre/periphery' relations, the global south, knowledge networks and subaltern studies, and this may also allow students of art-related fields to operate and interact in wider disciplinary contexts. more...	ART-MA60	20	Semester 2
Rethinking Romanticism: Art in Britain, 1760-1830 This module traces the visual construction of the 'sensible' and sentimental human subject, that man, woman or child of feeling who emerged (through novels, plays, social practice and art itself) within late eighteenth-century British culture. Out of the ashes of an earlier model of socialised 'politeness', and in the wake of Britain's commercialisation and its radical revision of class and gender identities, new forms of subjectivity were formulated in which interiority, imagination, innate responsiveness and originality were given unprecedented attention. Furthermore, Britain's increasing involvement with cultures outside Europe and with the business of imperialism meant that the possibility of cross-cultural and pan-human subjectivities were evaluated alongside that of 'Britishness' itself. Tears, embraces, passions and groans became - along with visions and nightmares - the signs of inner capacity of raw responsiveness with which the properly human subject was evaluated within British culture. In turn, cruelty, violence and horror entered the British cultural imaginary with spectacular vigour during this period. Through the representation of such types as the doting mother, the desperate slave, the heartless bandit and the artistic genius, the relationship between 'nature' and 'refinement', between the raw and the cultivated, was complicated and reconfigured by late eighteenth-century subjects. The visual arts played a crucial role in shaping these subjectivities and were themselves substantially shaped by that process in turn, not least through the expectations of sensibility, sentimental narrative and aesthetic innovation that contemporary viewers (including the new professional type, the critic) often brought to art. Analysing paintings, drawings and sculpture by artists such as Joseph Wright of Derby, Benjamin West, Thomas Gainsborough, Henry Fuseli, JMW Turner and Willaim Blake, we will look at portraiture, history and landscape painting, the 'fancy' picture and sentimental genre imagery as well as funerary monuments and graphic satire. In so doing, we will draw on a range of recent art-historical and theoretical texts in order to think again about the meanings of 'the Gothic' and 'romanticism' and to remap the relationship between art and subjectivities on the threshold of modernity. more...	ART-MA59	20	Semester 1

FTVFM

Music, Media, Society This module considers the changing role of music within social and cultural practices, its varied relationships with selfhood, media and technology, bodies, everyday lives and social power. In surveying the ways music is and has been bound up in social and cultural formations, the module engages with a range of theoretical issues about how music `works' as well as exploring some of the ways organised sound can be said to `mean' in differing contexts. The module also introduces students to an eclectic range of writings and questions about music in social life, considering questions about the materiality of sound, musical communities, performance, media and affect, positioning such issues in relation to music's production, circulation and consumption. more...	FTVFM062	20	Semester 2
Japanese Film: National Cinema and Beyond This module explores the concept of Japanese cinema in relation to national, transnational and global discourses and seeks to reframe discussions of modern and past Japanese filmmaking. We will examine a variety of Japanese films and the ways in which they interact with the history, techniques and culture of Japan. We will also consider the social and commercial nature of Japanese filmmaking, including the ways in which Japanese films circulate the globe. more...	FTVFM032	20	Semester 2
Film Studies: History, Theory, Criticism This unit aims to provide key terms of reference and research skills in the study of film; to identify key objects, theories and methods in the analysis of film; and to provide a sense of historical development of film. Intended learning outcomes: a) Knowledge and Understanding. By the end of the unit should: have some of the key skills for the study of film at M level; have an awareness of the debates between different approaches to the study of film; be familiar with the key objects, theories and methods in the analysis of film; have some familiarity with the historical development of film. b) Intellectual Skills. By the end of the unit students should be able to: apply the key approaches to the analysis of film; assesses the debates between these different approaches; construct coherent and independent arguments. c) Professional Skills. The unit will develop students' ability to: select, sift and synthesize information from a variety of primary and secondary materials; write accurately and grammatically and present written material suing appropriate conventions. d) Transferable Skills. The unit will also develop students' ability to: manage a large and disparate body of information; use IT to word process assessed work; speak and write cogently about a chosen subject area. more...	FTVFM023	20	Semester 1
Effects, Audiences and the Media The module is designed to explore the debates over media effects. In the process, it will challenge the effects tradition, which motivates many of the concerns with media censorship and regulation, and suggests alternative ways of understanding the ways in which audiences consume contemporary media. In the process, it will examine a range of approaches to the understanding of media consumption. more...	FTVFM046	20	Semester 2
Gender and Culture Providing a conceptual overview of feminist research approaches, this module examines the role of culture in the construction of contemporary gender relations. Exploring a range of case studies, such as film, television, food and sport, it provides an interdisciplinary perspective on cultural texts, their audiences, markets and regulation. The module explores both theoretical and methodological issues and covers a range of theoretical approaches, including media studies, cultural studies, gender studies history, law and economics. By the end of the module students will have developed understanding of: ' a variety of feminist approaches to the analysis of cultural texts, their audiences, markets and regulation. ' the relationship between cultural texts and their socio-economic and political contexts and the importance of gender in analysing culture. Additionally students will be able to ' critically reflect on the place of gender in media research ' apply feminist research methodologies to the analysis of cultural texts and audiences more...	FTVFM064	20	Semester 2
Women and Film This module intends to explore and critically reflect upon the relationship between women and film whilst focusing on issues such as women's cinema as counter cinema; women's cinema as minor cinema; women filmmakers; international women's film festivals; the representation of women in film; female spectatorship, (fe)male gaze; sexuality; feminism and post-feminism in film; female subjectivity; female desire, feminist filmmaking. The module will focus on analysing contemporary films from a variety of national and transnational cinemas. more...	FTVFM060	20	Semester 2
Film Studies Dissertation This module involves the production of a 12,000-15,000 word piece of work, which focuses upon a suitable topic of your own choosing. You will be assigned a supervisor to advise you on your research and writing of the dissertation. more...	FTVFM60X	60	Semester 2
Studying Media This module is intended to provide an introduction to the key study skills in film, television and media studies for students unfamiliar with the British university system and its expectations of students. Focusing on the key issues and academic debates within media studies, it will provide students with a sense of the educational expectations that they will encounter during their other modules and help them to acclimatise themselves to the culture of British universities. This module is compulsory for students new to the British university system. more...	FTVFM029	20	Semester 1
Creativity and Development in Film and Television Production This practice-based module is designed to introduce students to key skills in film and television development and business. It will provide an understanding of the processes of creative script and project development, including film and TV business, the activities of the market and dealing with bodies responsible for commissioning films and television programmes, managing creative people, and writing pitches. This module is compulsory for students following the MA in Film, Television and Creative Practice. Priority for further places will be given to students taking the MA in Film Studies and scriptwriters on the MA in Creative Writing. more...	FTVFM058	20	Semester 2
Film and Television Production The module is designed to introduce students to key skills in film and television and video production. It will provide an understanding of the production process and thereby focuses less on technical training than on encouraging students to think about using audio visual media to produce creative solutions to practical problems. The module also encourages students to consider how to deliver work within the normal constraints of media production, i.e., students will have to think about working to a brief rather than simply imagining themselves as independent artists. This module is compulsory for students following the MA in Film, Television and Creative Practice. Priority for further places will be given to students taking the MA in Film Studies. more...	FTVFM041	20	Semester 1
Science Fiction: Film and Television Science Fiction films and television series have provided a significant focus for addressing social/cultural and political issues. This module looks at the historical development of the genre, with an emphasis on locating the films/television programs within an historical and cultural context. An array of films and series episodes from both the US and UK will be screened and various clips will also be discussed in seminar. Films/television programs covered in the module will include: Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902), Things to Come (1936), Forbidden Planet (1956), Quatermass 2 (1957), Lost in Space (1965-1968), Doctor Who (1963-1989), Altered States (1980), Threads (1984), Robocop (1987), Independence Day (1996), The Matrix (1999). more...	FTVFM043	20	Semester 1
Celebrity Culture The module will explore the phenomenon of celebrity and fame from its origins to the present day, moving across a range of different media, including film, television, print media and the internet. In the process, it will examine key areas in the study of celebrity, including historical analysis, the reading of celebrity `images', questions of ideology (e.g., gender, class), the political economy of celebrity, audience and celebrity, and the impact of new technologies. It will feature a range of case studies that will include celebrity in the 19th century, Classical Hollywood cinema, the coming of television, the celebrity gossip magazine and questions of gender, the birth of Reality TV, the growth of the celebrity scandal and the relationship between celebrity and the internet more...	FTVFM068	20	Semester 2
The Big Picture: Contemporary Hollywood Cinema What are Hollywood's biggest hits in recent decades, and what, if anything, do they have in common? What kinds of film does Hollywood invest in most heavily, and which target audiences are these films aimed at? What are the habits and expectations of cinema audiences, and what meanings and pleasures do hit movies offer to them? Who are the key decision makers in the industry, and which names have the biggest clout at the box office? How does the theatrical release of films in the US relate to their circulation in foreign markets and in other media (television, video, DVD)? These are some of the questions which this module addresses. more...	FTVFM015	20	Semester 1

LDC

Creative Writing Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	LDCCM03X	90	Semester 2
Adaptation and Interpretation Critical reading and creative writing meet in the activity of adapting a text in one medium for presentation in another. The module focuses on dramatic adaptation, establishing a foundation in basic theory and then focusing on readings or original works and screenings. Discussions probe the choices offered by original texts and explore the possibilities and limitations inherent in different dramatic forms. In the later sessions, students will have the opportunity to workshop an adaptation for a final project. more...	LDCCM012	20	Semester 2
Adaptation and Interpretation Critical reading and creative writing meet in the activity of adapting a text in one medium for presentation in another. The module focuses on dramatic adaptation, establishing a foundation in basic theory and then focusing on readings or original works and screenings. Discussions probe the choices offered by original texts and explore the possibilities and limitations inherent in different dramatic forms. In the later sessions, students will have the opportunity to workshop an adaptation for a final project. more...	LDCCM007	20	Semester 1
Drama Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	LDCDM03X	90	Semester 2
The Persistence of the Aesthetic This module addresses the relation between art and politics by examining the attempt to unmask the aesthetic as ideological. In order to do this, we will acquire a firm grasp of the meaning of 'the aesthetic' and of what it is often taken to conceal, 'ideology'. We will, therefore, begin by exploring what has been called the 'invention' of the aesthetic in modernity, paying particular attention to the emergence of the aesthetic as a category in the eighteenth century as part of debates concerning the public sphere, disinterestedness, and universality. Key figures here will include the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Schiller. We will then move on to consider the precise meaning of 'ideology' in its various forms in the work of Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, and Theodor Adorno. Our focus in particular will be on the way in which the aesthetic has been thought to relate to 'ideology' by these, and numerous other, thinkers from fields such as sociology, anthropology, literary criticism, and art history. But far from simply deploying the tools of ideological analysis as a means to expose the covert politics of the aesthetic as such, we will ask whether the aesthetic is as vulnerable to so-called ideology - critique as has sometime been claimed. We will thus evaluate recent attempts to renovate the aesthetic by figures such as Jacques Ranciere, Isobel Armstrong, J.M. Berstein and others. This module, therefore, will address concerns central to those interested in the history and theory of literary and art criticism, and also in cultural and educational policy. more...	LDCEM062	20	Semester 2
Theory and Practice of Fiction This module is designed to complement the prose fiction workshop but is open to students on related programmes. It is intended to provide students with creative and critical knowledge in a single experiential burst, by exploring as they are relevant to writing fiction such topics as time, place, dramatic structure, character and concinnity. The unit also gives consideration to professional issues confronting novelists, from writer's block to editing, contracts and dealing with the media. The module presents the writer as both artist and supplier of intellectual property to a market, while examining that and other tensions critically. Reading, writing and analysis happen alongside each other. Fictional, critical and professional texts are examined, writing exercises illuminating the issue at hand are undertaken. Students are also expected to make presentations on topics of their choice. Assessment by creative writing coursework with a critical commentary. more...	LDCCM024	20	Semester 2
Stylistics for Translators This module will examine style in texts, and how the analysis of style affects translation. We will look at various different approaches to the definition and understanding of style, concentrating on the stylistic analysis of literary (and some non-literary) texts of all types. In the final weeks of the semester students will present and discuss the translation of style in texts and languages of their choice more...	LDCEM033	20	Semester 1
English Literature Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	LDCEM03X	90	Semester 2
Research and Methodology Training Seminar	LDCEM020	10	Semester 2
Postmodernism in Performance This module interrogates the study of postmodernism in relation to theatre, performance and live art. Key theories relating to the emergence of the postmodern movement are studied alongside the work of practitioners. The module will examine some of the innovative work occurring in contemporary theatre and cultural practice, as well as study the influences upon contemporary artists from earlier modernist avant-garde work of Europe and the United States. These movements include Futurism, Dada, Constructivism and the 'neo-dada' Happenings and Fluxus movements in 1960s Europe and America and the study of contemporary postmodern performance groups and practitioners such as Forced Entertainment, The Wooster Group, Robert Wilson, SITI Company, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Need Company, and Le Page. more...	LDCDM012	20	Semester 2
Creative Writing: Scriptwriting: Process This module is compulsory for all Scriptwriting MA students and is reserved for students of the Scriptwriting programme. Dramaturgy and Workshop 1 are pre-requisites for this module. Students develop a short script for theatre/film/television/radio from initial idea through pitch/treatment/step outline/script drafts. In weekly workshop sessions, the stages of project development are tabled for tutorial and peer group critique. Assessment is by presentation of a portfolio of working documentation, script drafts and a short reflective essay. more...	LDCCM006	20	Semester 2
Text and Production: Scene Class The module is broken into two parts. One consists of a weekly three hour meeting in which we study various methods of directing via textual analysis. These include 'actioning', working with verse and language, Laban's effort analyses, status games and an introduction to Lecoq's physical methods. In these sessions we also discuss some of the major theories of what the theatre is or should be - those of Gordon Craig, Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht and Peter Brooks, in relation to many texts, including Shakespeare. The other part of the module is a series of weekly 'scene-classes' in which the MA students present the results of their directing undergraduate students in rehearsing scenes. more...	LDCDM001	20	Semester 1
Culture and Its Discontents From trauma theory and Holocaust Studies to critical human rights and refugee studies, thinking about culture's profound discontents motivates much of the most innovative work in the theoretical humanities today. This module focuses on two key theorists of modern experience: Sigmund Freud, for whom the unconscious registered the trauma of modern living, and the political philosopher Hannah Arendt, for whom the horrors of totalitarianism opened up holes of oblivion in the way we think and judge. Reading them together, we will examine the way Freud and Arendt open up a new space to think about the relation between the psyche and the political. Core reading will include: The Portable Hannah Arendt, ed. Peter Baehr (Penguin) The Freud Reader, ed. Adam Phillips (Penguin) The Holocaust: Theoretical Readings (Edinburgh UP) more...	LDCEM049	20	Semester 1
The Art of Short Fiction Short fiction is too often defined in terms of what it is not ' namely, a novel. Whether stories, novellas or experimental short fiction, short fiction is an art form in its own right. While acknowledging that there are no `rules' as to what makes a good short story, we will look at the expectations and technical challenges created by the form, and in so doing to sharpen our analytical and critical faculties. This is predominantly a practical, workshop-based course oriented at writing short fiction, although students will also be asked to form critical opinions and perspectives on published short stories, the technical aspects of writing in the form, and on themes and trends in short fiction more...	LDCCM017	20	Semester 1
Crossing Boundaries: Women Writers in Modern Europe This module will explore some of the issues and obstacles encountered by women writing in a range of European traditions during the "long twentieth century" - continuing into the 21st with the award of Nobel Prizes for Literature to the controversial Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek (2004 and the Romanian-German writer Herta M??ller (2009). Taking a broadly chronological approach, the focus will be primarily on the impact of the two "women's movements" of the twentieth century on perceptions of writing and subjectivity as they affect women writers in a range of European countries. Within this chronological context and under a number of themed headings, examples will be taken primarily from Western Europe, in particular the German-speaking, French and English literary traditions. Students are however encouraged to make connections with the work of other writers beyond those on the reading list and to make comparisons with the position and role of women's writing in other literatures with which they may be familiar. Seminar discussions will thus consider not merely geographical and physical boundaries but the wider social and textual frameworks within and against which, arguably, a distinctive women's voice (or voices) may be said to emerge. more...	LDCEM028	20	Semester 2
Process and Product in Translation This module is designed to allow students to produce translations in conditions that encourage and facilitate reflection on the process and product of translation. It encourages students to think experimentally, not only about the forms a finished translation might take, but also about the ways in which process might be incorporated into that translation. The module has a workshop format and culminates in a series of presentations by students of the projects on which they have chosen to work. A series of sessions, devoted to the discussion of problems, both theoretical and practical, connected with translation and the projects ahead, precede the presentations. more...	LDCEM034	20	Semester 2
The Actor in Space The extremely various theatres of late medieval and early modern England situate the figure of the actor in a great many different settings and configurations. The place of performance may be public, or owned by a patron or by the actors themselves; it may be candle-lit or open to the sky; it may be a communal space for action or the illusionistic location of the fiction; and that fictional world, in turn, may be unitary or else divisively assigned to angels and devils, kings and clowns, speakers and singers. It is possible to grasp this diversity as an historical narrative (from the medieval pageant to the professional stage, from the Elizabethan amphitheatre to the Restoration playhouse with movable scenery), but it was also, often, a synchronic range of possible spaces, each with its distinctive cultural affiliation, each corresponding to, and making visible, its distinctive conceptions of the human, the social and the sacred. The course will explore these spaces by looking not only or even mainly at the theatre history, but at the scripts that record and suggest their meanings. more...	LDCEM047	20	Semester 1
Research and Methodology Training Seminar The 10 credit module is compulsory. more...	LDCDM020	10	Semester 2
Critical Theories of the Western Self The course introduces students to the major shifts in philosophical thinking about the Western self from Descartes to the twentieth century. The course will provide students with a training in theoretical debate through the analysis and discussion of a selection of the important thinkers on this list: Descartes, Rousseau, Hegel, Kant, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Bakhtin, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Irigaray, Deleuze and Butler. Through acquaintance with different theoretical traditions, students will have the opportunity to reflect critically on the processes and implications of cultural change; and to relate their understanding of the self and philosophy to other fields such as literature. more...	LDCEM011	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing and Research Seminars This 10-credit module, will consist of the writing of a synopsis or summary of the Dissertation script. It will be due for submission at the same time as the Dissertation itself. The word limit will be 500 to 1000 words. more...	LDCCM008	10	Semester 2
Translation Workshop A series of workshops by practising translators, shared by the MA in Literary Translation and the MA in Applied Translation Studies. These will be on different aspects of translation, and will involve various genres. There is generally no preparation required for workshops, but students are asked to find out as much as possible in advance about the workshop-holder's background and work. There will usually be translation exercises and discussion in class. Some workshops are on literary topics, but some also deal with non-literary translation or other issues such as approaching a publisher. The workshop programme will be distributed at the start of the academic year. more...	LDCEM04Y	0	Year Period
Contemporary World Theatre Contemporary World Theatre examines how twentieth century theatre around the world has been affected by postcolonialism, globalization, immigration and interculturalism. Through an examination of postcolonial performance from former British colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India, and the West Indies, important theatrical movements in the Americas, new performance styles found in Russia and Eastern Europe, immigrant performance in the United States and Britain, as well as the new 'intercultural' performance styles of directors such as Lepage and Mnouchkine, this course will examine how gender, race and class become key issues in understanding the ramifications of these colliding cultures. more...	LDCDM002	20	Semester 2
Evaluating Nature This module aims to equip students with a historically informed understanding of the emergence of different theories and modes of evaluation, focusing in particular on the economic, aesthetic, and moral questions arising from the evaluation of nature in particular. Is it, for example, ethically defensible to value nature as a resource? Is a genuinely `ecological' or, indeed, `green' economics conceivable ' and, if so, what would that involve in practice? How sure are we that art in general and writing in particular are good ways to articulate the value of the natural? And is a genuinely `ecological' or `green' poetics conceivable? Addressing these questions will involve exploration both of the history of ideas and of contemporary understandings of natural capital, resource allocation, and moral evaluation. more...	LDCEM058	20	Semester 2
European Gothic: Fear and Horror As Trans-National Dialogue Scholars have since Mario Praz in the 1930s long conceived of the Gothic as a European phenomenon, exported and imported between Britain, France, and Germany, but there is surprisingly little attempt to unify this tradition or consider it as a whole beyond the empirical level. This course starts from the question: `What happens if you bring the Gothic Novel, the roman noir, and the Schauerroman together? The course will act as an introduction to the English canon of the Gothic; but we shall look at a range of texts, not as a tight, unified English genre, but as a set of cultural responses (and translations of responses) to the ages of Enlightenment and Revolution. The emphasis is not simply on linear development, but on cultural transmission and the dispersal of ideas between France, Germany and the Anglo-Saxon tradition. The texts have been chosen to reveal a set of conversations with each other and we shall re-read familiar (`central' or 'classic') texts in relation to such themes as the cultural geography of fear; superstition and scepticism and the role of the occult; sensibility and sexual taboo; the nature of the demonic; constructions of the other; the invention and splitting of the modern self; the Machine; the Uncanny; comedy and horror; and the use of self-conscious modes of narration. Note: this module is of interest to literary translators and creative writers. more...	LDCEM044	20	Semester 2
Creative Writing Workshop: Prose 2 This is the Prose Fiction workshop, the core of the Prose Fiction MA, and runs for 12 weeks in the autumn semester and 12 weeks in the spring semester. The sessions are three hours long and take place on Tuesday afternoons (2-5pm). Each week work (up to 5,000 words) from three students is discussed. This discussion is led by the tutor, however careful and informed contribution from the rest of the class is fundamental. Over the two semesters everyone will have around six opportunities to have their work discussed. Key and topical issues of theme and craft will be addressed and wider reading maybe discussed and suggested. Individual tutorials (of half an hour) are then held for those students who have been workshopped. more...	LDCCM002	20	Semester 2
Case Studies This seminar looks at ways in which specific authors/works/genres pass into other cultures through translation. We will look at three genres ' children's literature, drama, and crime fiction ' and for each one, we will analyse the genre, identify challenges in translating it, discuss strategies, and examine examples of relevant works, using close textual analysis to see how translators can tackle problems of linguistic, stylistic, and cultural difference. We will then practice translating texts from that genre. more...	LDCEM002	20	Semester 2
The Writing of Crime/thriller Fiction This module will provide students with critical and creative knowledge of modern crime/thriller fiction, and is designed to complement the Creative Writing MA programme, but is open to students across the MA. Crime/thriller fiction, the world's most popular literary genre, is particularly subject to ever evolving conventions, expectations, precedents and sub-genres. Understanding the presiding logistical and thematic issues is fundamental to both the creation of and critical response to crime/thriller fiction. The module will analyse the developments and characteristics of the modernisation of the genre, through a symptomatic approach to authors, from Dashiell Hammett to Jo Nesbo, from police procedurals to psychological thrillers. Issues of literary worth, escapism and social context particularly will be examined. Creative work will also concentrate on how to craft a convincing plot, creating believable characters, building suspense, generating voice and exploring new ways to tackle new crimes. Students will be required to make presentations on a particular author/style, and to produce original crime/thriller fiction. Assessment by creative writing - a short piece of fiction - with accompanying critical essay. more...	LDCCM013	20	Semester 1
Publishing - A Practical Approach This module aims to give students an introduction to the modern publishing industry and a practical survival guide to the different functions involved in the publication of a book. As well as learning about the structure and economics of the British book industry, the opportunities and challenges of digitalization, students will engage with the process whereby books are chosen for publication, review principles of text and jacket design, practise basic copyediting and proofreading skills and learn tips for running a marketing and publicity campaign, writing 'blurbs' and press releases. The course will also touch on copyright law, finance and distribution. Students from the module may join the core team producing the annual MA Creative Writing anthologies. more...	LDCCM016	20	Semester 2
Ludic Literature Play, or the ludic, is often listed as one of the main characteristics of postmodernist art, but what is meant by play is usually left no more clearly defined than what is meant by postmodernism. This course seeks to trace the evolution of leading postmodernist styles and themes, especially ludic ones, back to their origins in Borges and Nabokov. Using these enormously influential authors as a starting point, we will read a range of ludic authors, passing back and forth between languages, nations, and genres. Authors studied will include some though not all of: Calvino, Queneau, Perec, Barthes, Barthelme, Pynchon, Foster Wallace, Grass, Carter, Rushdie, Bolano, Muldoon, Simic, and Ashbery. We will examine these authors in relation to one another, to Borges and Nabokov, and to their major pre-postmodernist sources: Sterne, Mallarm??, Dostoevsky, Chesterton, Stevenson, Joyce, and Kafka. We will also be looking at visual art related to ludic literature, including Duchamp's readymades, Steinberg's cartoons, and Cornell's boxes. Themes we will explore will include aestheticism, doubt, vagueness, jokes, freedom and constraint, mixed styles, parody and pastiche. There will be an opportunity for students to play with the texts by re-writing them under the sorts of rules advanced by Queneau and Oulipo, Koch and Ashbery. more...	LDCEM016	20	Semester 2
Radical Dramaturgies This module will examine the rich field of writing within theatre which seeks to define new relationships with audiences and new notions of how texts might be written. Central to the module will be a consideration of how writing might respond to place, site, self, found text, the actor, music, film and multi-media approaches. Drawing on work and practises from a range of international contexts largely extant now in the field, students will explore a panoply of writing modes and encounter a range of study-texts. more...	LDCDM004	20	Semester 2
Living Modernism A CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA WRITING THE MODERN WORLD. The word modernism was applied only retrospectively to the texts written at the beginning of the twentieth century; and that retrospective naming has worked to define an ever-shifting field of cultural activity. This course aims to introduce students to `living modernism', a phrase that highlights the mutually informing relationship of contemporary writing and modernism. In the first 5 weeks, students will be asked to read James Joyce's Ulysses and Franz Kafka's The Trial. The course then considers the ways in which Joyce's and Kafka's writing continues to animate critical and creative knowledge. In weeks 6-12, critical and literary questions of law, justice, exile, and narrative voice will be posed out of modernism. The living legacy of modernism will be considered in different ways; as literary influence, (Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go as a Kafkaesque meditation on exile, for instance), as critical quotation and interpretation, (Jacques Derrida's claim, for example, that Kafka's `Before the Law' is a staging of justice and literary interpretation), and linguistic or thematic interaction (Lolita as Nabokov's Joycean writing of exile in America). There will be a particular focus on how Joyce and Kafka write law, justice and exile as global, rather than state-based, categories, and the importance of these transnational visions for their continuing influence. Authors explored will include James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Nabokov, J. M. Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jacques Derrida, Giorgio Agamben, Mladen Dolar, Denise Riley and W. G. Sebald. more...	LDCEM017	20	Semester 1
The Life of the Book CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA BIOGRAPHY AND CREATIVE NON-FICTION (RESERVED FOR STUDENTS ON ROUTE T1Q325101 - LIFE WRITING). This module will follow the arc of the life of a book from inception to reception. How do you choose a subject, determine a book's structure, find a voice and build character? What about the often daunting question of research? Once the book is written, how do you set about writing a proposal and finding a publisher? We will also consider questions surrounding copyright, editing and reviewing. The emphasis will be practical, with a significant workshop element. more...	LDCEM007	20	Semester 1
Translation Theory This module discusses key theoretical and descriptive pronouncements on translation by theorists and practising translators working within the Western tradition. The focus is predominantly on contemporary work, with some older commentary providing historical context. Students are encouraged to explore their own theoretical interests and present their findings in class. more...	LDCEM043	20	Semester 1
Writing Lives CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA BIOGRAPHY AND CREATIVE NON-FICTION. This module explores the many ways in which writers have grappled with getting `life' and `lives' down on paper. We will look at samples of writing from many different genres, including travel, nature, music and sports writing. We will also be looking at those returning figures ' the Hero, the Villain, the Madwoman. In the process we will discuss cultural myth, human empathy and identity and notions of celebrity. Students will be encouraged to find their own special subjects, to study comparative biography, and to look at the many new experimental approaches that make Biography such a flourishing phenomenon today. more...	LDCEM003	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry 1 Only students who are registered for the MA in Creading Writing: Poetry may enrol for this module. more...	LDCCM003	20	Semester 1
Novel History We are currently witnessing a renaissance in history writing. Sales of historical novels continue to rise steeply. Societies have formed, new prizes established. A number of eminent historians are turning from fact to fiction. What can the historical novel do in terms of reaching the past that more conventional historical accounts cannot do? Can it challenge long-told historical narratives, propose new ones or give us new vantage points? Novel History is a critical-creative MA module that crosses the boundaries between literature, art history, history and creative writing to explore the possibilities (and paradoxes) of historical fiction. Students will study the history of the historical novel and read critical and theoretical essays about the writing of history alongside examples of innovative or revisionist contemporary historical fiction. They will also explore ideas around 'object history' through a series of workshop sessions amongst the historical objects of UEA's extraordinary rich collection in the Sainsbury Centre. Students will present work in progress in the workshop format as they move towards a final piece of creative writing, a short story or radio script, screen or theatre script. Students will be given the option of structuring their final work around a single chosen object from the Sainsbury Centre collection. more...	LDCCM010	20	Semester 2
Describing Poetry CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA CREATIVE WRITING: POETRY. Poetry often describes its own verbal processes ' of rhythm, image and word choice ' while thinking about the way that writing is intertwined with the world that it describes. Such thinking has also been importantly continued in prose. This module offers a historical survey of some of the major critical texts in Western poetics, from Plato to Ezra Pound and after, to be read closely alongside a wide range of poetic self-reflections in verse. Students will be encouraged to contribute texts from their own reading for discussion. Short writing exercises in a range of critical styles will also be set in class, in preparation for the final coursework essay. We will examine in particular the metaphors that have been used to describe the formal techniques of poetry, as well as to admire its powers, criticise its failings, and advocate its pleasures. more...	LDCCM011	20	Semester 1
East Anglian Literature CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN TEXTUAL CULTURES. This module has as its focus ideas of place and regional cultures. It introduces key subjects relating to regional literature, religious geographies, visual and verbal relationships, attitudes to gender and family, landscape and alternative cultures. Approaches will involve genre study, interdisciplinary enquiry, and theoretical study. We are spoilt for choice in relation to texts and authors to select from the region, including: John Bale, Osbern Bokenham, Thomas Browne, Meir ben Eiljah, John Capgrave, Robert Greene, Gabriel Harvey, Margery Kempe, John Lydgate, John Metham, Julian of Norwich, the N-Town plays, the Pastons and John Skelton. There will be the opportunity to visit a number of archives, specialist libraries and material culture from the period, including a visit to Norwich Cathedral, which has an extensive 17th-century library with material from the 15th century onwards, Norfolk's heritage collection housed in The Forum's Millennium Library which holds documents from the 13th century onwards, and the Julian of Norwich Centre and Shrine. more...	LDCEM006	20	Semester 2
Literary Translation Research and Methodology Training Seminar All MALT students are enrolled on a Research Methods module. The assessment for this is a pass/fail viva in May or early June (date will be given in the course of the Autumn semester). This module is not taught separately, but consists of a number of generic sessions and also a number of specific MALT sessions within the seminars, such as 'Essay Writing', 'Reading as an Academic', 'Doing Glosses' and so on. more...	LDCEM06Y	10	Year Period
Reusing the Past: the Classical in the Medieval and Early Modern CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN TEXTUAL CULTURES. The complex and unstable movement from medieval to Early Modern culture is reflected in and effected through a fundamental revaluation of the classical legacy: in the development of new approaches to classical texts and of new uses to which their cultural authority might be put. This module explores this movement through the works of three late-fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century writers, Robert Henryson, Gavin Douglas, and John Bellenden, and their responses to the texts of Aesop, Virgil, Ovid and Livy. It tracks a movement from medieval adaptation to Early Modern translation, from moralising allegory to politically inflected intertextuality, exploring the rich variety of ways in which classical texts were made newly available and newly culturally meaningful. more...	LDCEM018	20	Semester 2
Dissertation - Literary Translation The dissertation is a compulsory requirement for all taught MA programmes. Work on the dissertation is begun at the end of the 2nd teaching semester for full-time students, or earlier for part-time students. Dissertations may take the form of either (i) a critical essay about an aspect of translation or (ii) a translation with critical discussion. The choice of research topic for the dissertation is made by the students in consultation with their course convenor. Supervision normally functions on the basis of one contact hour with the supervisor every three weeks throughout the summer. more...	LDCEM04X	90	Semester 2
Writing in the First Person CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA BIOGRAPHY AND CREATIVE NON-FICTION. This module looks at autobiography in the broadest sense, taking in memoir, nature writing, travel writing, reportage and essay. We'll be talking about the history and variety of first-person narratives, the ways writers reveal themselves in their words, how autobiography keeps to and departs from the facts, the importance of form and structure, and about non-fiction's relationship to novels and poems. Seminars will feature practical writing exercises as well as readings and discussions. more...	LDCEM012	20	Semester 2
'World Literature' to the 'Global Text' This module will explore the movement from the idea of the `world' or the `international' as a defining category for writers and artists of the twentieth century toward, from the late twentieth century onward, the notion of the `global'. `World literature' was an essential, if often neglected, directive of the humanist mission, and the `international' engendered oppositions ' such as, for instance, the cosmopolitan and the provincial - that governed the works of writers such as Tagore, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bishop, the filmmaker Satyajit Ray, and V S Naipaul, examples of whose work will be studied for this MA. But do those oppositions, and the universalist basis of `world literature', hold any more in the age of globalisation? How do writers and artists travel, and respond to the old experiences of place and exile, in the globalised world? Does globalisation transcend the provincial, or produce variations of it? What does `world' itself signify as a concept today ' is, for instance, the `world' in `world music' the same as the one in `world literature'? I'd like to reflect on these questions in the company of artists like the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, the novelist J M Coetzee, the English writer Geoff Dyer, the Indian poet Arun Kolatkar, critics like David Harvey, present-day experimentation in music, while introducing to the frame of the seminar my own explorations as a writer and musician. more...	LDCEM001	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing Workshop: Scriptwriting This module is compulsory for all Scriptwriting MA students and is reserved for students of the Scriptwriting programme. It is co-requisite with Scriptwriting: Dramaturgy (full-time students). Part-time students must complete Dramaturgy as a pre-requisite, in year 1. Workshop 1 builds upon the parallel study of dramaturgical theory and practice in the four major dramatic performance media. The module requires scriptwriters to incorporate the theory into their own creative practice in weekly creative development workshops. Writers will all complete a series of script planning and writing exercises: each week, two writers will bring their exercise to the workshop table for group discussion. more...	LDCCM005	20	Semester 1
Politics and Public Culture: Milton, Republicanism, News, Polemic, Britain, Europe, the Imagination CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN TEXTUAL CULTURES. The aim of this module will be to look at ways of reading literary works in their social, political and intellectual contexts, and to explore the role of the writer in early-modern culture. To do this we will focus on the works of John Milton ' the full range of his works, including poetry, prose and (in translation) Latin polemic. The contexts we will consider might include: aesthetics; the history and theory of republicanism; religious radicalism; the problem of `Britain'; news; the development of the printing trade and its relation to writing poetry and propaganda; Britain's place in Europe; the history of reading; the social spaces where literature operated; the rise of the `public sphere'. In addition to Milton's writings, we will look at the print and news culture of early-modern Britain, with some attention to the materiality of printed texts. We may also look at other writings and other modes of writing by Milton's contemporaries, including pamphleteering and journalism and works by Andrew Marvell, Marchamont Nedham, Lucy Hutchinson and John Dryden. more...	LDCEM005	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing: Scriptwriting: Dramaturgy This module is compulsory for all scriptwriting MA students, and is a co-requisite with Scriptwriting: Workshop 1 for full time students (part-time students must take Dramaturgy in the autumn of year 1, Workshop 1 in autumn of year 2, Scriptwriting: Process in spring of year 2). It may be taken as an option by non-Scriptwriting students, subject to a maximum enrolment of 16 students. Students should note that this is an advanced level study of dramatic theory in the four major performance media (theatre, film, television, radio); non-Scriptwriting students must have some prior experience of dramatic writing. more...	LDCCM009	20	Semester 1
Creative Writing Workshop: Poetry 2 Only students who are registered for Creative Writing: Poetry may enrol for this module. more...	LDCCM004	20	Semester 2
Creative-Critical Writing A CORE MODULE FOR STUDENTS ON THE MA WRITING THE MODERN WORLD. Too often, academic critical writing seems to bring pre-packaged language to bear on works whose whole essence and aim is to change the ways in which we see and describe our world. And too often such writing fails to acknowledge the ways in which it itself necessarily participates in the literary `creativity' it is also about. How, then, to write criticism? Criticism which responds inventively to the literature which it analyzes? Criticism which registers, in its own form, language, method and thinking the ways in which it has been transformed by the work(s) of art it encounters? Criticism which recognizes that it cannot rest on received concepts and categories? This module aims to explore those questions. Over the course of the semester will consider ' and experiment with ' a broad range of possible ways of practising creative-criticism, including the `essay' form, auto-commentary, aphorisms, ??criture f??minine, conceptual writing, criticism as performance, inventive `theoretical' writing, camp, and diaristic writing. The module covers creative-critics as different from one another as Anne Carson and Jacques Derrida, Geoff Dyer and H??l??ne Cixous, Maurice Blanchot and T. J. Clark, Theodor Adorno and Eve Sedgwick. more...	LDCEM008	20	Semester 2
Creative Writing Workshop: Prose 1 This is the Prose Fiction workshop, the core of the Prose Fiction MA, and runs for 12 weeks in the autumn semester and 12 weeks in the spring semester. The sessions are three hours long and take place on Tuesday afternoons (2-5pm). Each week work (up to 5,000 words) from three students is discussed. This discussion is led by the tutor, however careful and informed contribution from the rest of the class is fundamental. Over the two semesters everyone will have around six opportunities to have their work discussed. Key and topical issues of theme and craft will be addressed and wider reading maybe discussed and suggested. Individual tutorials (of half an hour) are then held for those students who have been workshopped. more...	LDCCM001	20	Semester 1
Fiction After Modernism `Fiction After Modernism' responds to the current reassessment of critical narratives about twentieth century fiction by restoring significance to a critically awkward phase of twentieth-century writing. Focusing roughly on the years between 1930 and 1980, we examine what it meant for mid-century writers to work in the wake of modernism. By thinking about mid-century fiction in terms of its own historical and aesthetic awkwardness, we will challenge the formalist distinction between experimental and realist fiction that has dominated the most influential work on the mid-century novel, and which has also stamped many post-war writers as irretrievably minor. In a similar spirit, we will explore how writers worked in the 'between' of modernism and postmodernism. Rather than produce a cohesive narrative about the period, we will examine how our writers engage with, and disturb, their own literary, historical and critical inheritances. This module is an opportunity to participate in an emerging critical conversation that is carving out new directions in literary study. Working through the period with special attention to previously marginalized (and in some cases forgotten) writers, alongside a selection of critical and theoretical texts, we will examine the ways our writers accede to, challenge, and disrupt our critical understanding of fiction after modernism. more...	LDCEM023	20	Semester 1

LCS

Dissertation Communication and Language Studies The dissertation is a compulsory requirement for all taught MA programmes. Work on the dissertation is begun at the end of the second teaching semester. The choice of research topic for the dissertation is made by the students in consultation with their course convenor and/or supervisor (students normally receive up to four hours of supervision in all over the period of supervision). more...	LCS-MD1X	50	Semester 2
Translation and Theory This module explores ways in which concepts and notions develop into theoretical approaches and translatorial practices but also how practice establishes theoretical positions. Each weekly seminar will focus on key concepts and their use in the existing bibliography on translation, while the practical tasks will give to students the opportunity to apply these concepts to their own translation work. more...	LCS-MA03	20	Semester 1
Dissertation MAATS The dissertation is a compulsory requirement for all taught MA programmes. Work on the dissertation is begun at the end of the second teaching semester. The choice of research topic for the dissertation is made by the students in consultation with their course convenor and/or supervisor (students normally receive up to four hours of supervision in all over the period of supervision). more...	LCS-MD2X	90	Semester 2
Intercultural Communication in Practice This module explores the issues fundamental to intercultural communication (IC) in practical contexts. The theoretical component of the module examines the different ways of thinking about effective communication in a variety of work-based environments. We will also relate theory to the practice of intercultural communication in contextualised workshops. During these workshops, invited practitioners will introduce students to how IC operates in specific organisations, e.g. in government agencies, in multilingual business management, etc. The module is relevant to those wishing to pursue careers in international management and relations, multilingual business and international development; it is also of interest to those who wish to become more effective communicators in other professions such as translation, interpreting, education and cultural mediation. more...	LCS-ML22	20	Semester 2
Linguistic Communication Among Cultures There is more to linguistic communication than just knowing the vocabulary and grammar of a language; speakers need to know the different ways of using the language they speak ' what to say, how to say it and when to say it. But language is also intimately involved in our notions of culture, our thought processes and, perhaps, even in our sense of reality. Indeed, the very act of linguistic communication itself both creates and sustains our expectations, beliefs and moral values about our world and lives. This module explores a number of issues relating to this reciprocal relationship between language and culture. Linguistics, characterised as the scientific study of language, tends to focus on the formal features of language structure, treating it as an autonomous object. There is more, however, to linguistic communication than just knowing the vocabulary and grammar of a language; speakers need to know the different ways of using the language they speak - what to say and how to say it. These assumptions vary from culture to culture as often shows up in the various forms of miscommunication that occur when we talk with speakers from different linguistic backgrounds. From a broader perspective language is intimately involved in our notions of culture - imagine, for example, expressing, discussing or learning about religious or political beliefs without language - our thought processes and, perhaps, even in our sense of reality. Indeed, for some, the notions of language and culture are so inseparable that they are referred to collectively as languaculture. more...	LCS-ML26	20	Semester 2
Intercultural Communication - Understanding Differences in A Global World This module is an introduction to some of the fundamental concepts associated with theories of intercultural communication. Since norms of behaviour are culturally defined and varied, the beliefs and values which underlie a culture's worldview will be examined from a variety of perspectives. Indicative topics are expected to include how culture is defined; models of explanation of cultural difference (such as the theories of Hofstede and Tropenaars); notions of identity (personal, group, national) and 'otherisation'; stereotypes and prejudice; verbal and non-verbal communication; miscommunication and intercultural conflict; acculturation and culture shock, etc. The module is relevant to students from a variety of backgrounds and with varied interests and will provide useful background for the module 'Intercultural Communication in Practice'. more...	LCS-ML25	20	Semester 1
Translation Work Experience This module is aimed at MA Translation students with no (or little) previous translation work experience, and students who have experience of professional translation but would like the opportunity to review their practices by reflecting on, and critically documenting, the processes involved. It is based on work on authentic translation assignments negotiated with commercial clients and is very practical: it will promote hands-on sensitisation to aspects of professional commercial translation, to problems involved in translating to specifications, producing and presenting a product of professional standard, to techniques of translation and to the use of reference materials and support resources. It will enable you to apply your analytical and linguistic skills, and to develop a range of key practical skills, including research skills, project and time management, reflective and review skills. more...	LCS-MA02	20	Semester 2
Research Methods The module is designed to familiarise postgraduate students with research resources and basic aspects of research methodology (e.g. access to, and use of, sources and resources, collection, analysis and presentation of materials and data). It is taught over two semesters: the first focuses on seminar-related activities, the second on dissertation-related work. It is assessed by an oral exam on a pass/ fail basis after the end of the second semester. The module is obligatory for all LCS full-time postgraduate students on taught MA programmes and open only to them. more...	LCS-MR1Y	10	Year Period
Research Methods Part II The module is the second part of a course designed to familiarise postgraduate students with research resources and basic aspects of research methodology (e.g. access to, and use of, sources and resources, collection, analysis and presentation of materials and data) and focuses on work for the dissertation. It is taught in the second semester of the first or second year of study and assessed by an oral examination on a pass/fail basis after the end of the second semester. The module is obligatory for all LCS part-time students on MA taught programmes and open only to them. Pre-requisite: LCS-MR01. more...	LCS-MR02	5	Semester 2
English, Communication, Culture The module is intended to refine linguistic and academic competences (oral and or written communication, control of academic registers), and to explore how English operates in a variety of cultural contexts (including the media, critical debate). Skills covered include seminar and presentation skills, note-taking, academic writing, self-directed study and research skills, with application to the theme of communication and language and materials specifically relevant to MA students. An important aim of the module is to familiarise students with the conventions of English academic life and the environment of the university. more...	LCS-MC01	20	Semester 1
Dissertation Language and Intercultural Communication The dissertation is a compulsory requirement for all taught MA programmes. Work on the dissertation is begun at the end of the second teaching semester. The choice of research topic for the dissertation is made by the students in consultation with their course convenor and/or supervisor (students normally receive up to four hours of supervision in all over the period of supervision). more...	LCS-MD3X	90	Semester 2
Translation and Cultural Representation Across Arts and Media The module will focus on two distinct types of interlingual mediation ' screen translation and museum translation ' to explore issues of linguistic and cultural representation in cultural products, and their implications for public perceptions of media and cultural otherness. It will consider and compare features and constraints of language transfer across these two contexts, and assess their capacity to promote cross-cultural sensitization. The module will involve a hands-on practical component with either a subtitling practice workshop OR a museology in practice workshop (TBC). more...	LCS-MA10	20	Semester 2
Language Issues in A Global Multilingual Context This module focuses on language-related issues associated with the globalisation of communication and the media. It considers a range of materials - texts and their translation(s), multilingual sources of information (e.g. global news, consumer information, websites), products of audiovisual translation (e.g. subtitling, dubbing, voice over), IT mediated or processed texts, etc - to explore issues involved in the transposition and dissemination of (spoken and written) text into other media and other languages across different spheres of activity (e.g. media, politics, culture). Receptive knowledge of at least one language other than the mother tongue required. more...	LCS-MC02	20	Semester 2
The Power of Discourse: Representation and Interaction Language occurs in specific socio-cultural settings, among specific social actors and for a variety of purposes. In turn particular uses of language have the power to shape social encounters and relationships and to help construct and maintain specific ideologies and perspectives. Discourse analysis aims to uncover the ways in which language in use is tied to its socio-cultural context. This approach is thus at heart of the analysis of human interaction in society. This module provides the students with analytical tools that can be fruitfully applied to the study of a variety of communicative modes (written texts, spoken interaction, visual or other non verbal modes) as employed in a variety of fields (e.g. media, advertising, politics, education, business, institutional settings, creative writing) and for a variety of purposes (persuading, entertaining, informing). Students will be able to explore the significance and effectiveness of specific communicative strategies and how they may vary according to cultural context and expectations. The module is, therefore, not only suited to postgraduate students focusing on issues of linguistic communication but also to students interested in aspect of linguistic transferability (translation, adaptation, localization). There are plenty of hands-on practice and discussion. more...	LCS-ML13	20	Semester 1
Technological Tools for Translators The aim of this module is to provide an introduction for students of literary and non-literary translation to computer-based tools, technologies and methodologies used by translators, and to examine the strengths and weaknesses of such tools. more...	LCS-MT12	20	Semester 2
Translation in Context This module explores the issues fundamental to translation as process and product in practical contexts, examines theories of equivalence and textual structure in different language-cultures, and applies theory to specialised practice (e.g. commercial, legal, technical, political). more...	LCS-MA01	20	Semester 1
Forensic Linguistics and Translation This module is focused on theoretical and practical aspects of the interplay between language and other language-driven activities such as translation and memory in special circumstances of witnessing, experiencing or judging crime and providing expert linguistic testimony and language services such as translating and interpreting. It contextualises the consequences of this relationship within an interactive environment, namely forensic, psycholinguistic and cross-cultural contexts of language use. Another dimension of the course is an emphatic cross-linguistic approach, whereby we assume the latest linguistic typological perspective and discuss the effects of language differences on the kind of information habitually provided in or omitted from reports in one language and translation. more...	LCS-MA08	20	Semester 2
Conflict in Intercultural Communication The module introduces students to the study of intercultural conflict, through case studies of miscommunication at the levels of international political terminology, pragmatic strategies, the public representation of cross-cultural conflicts and of migration/multicultural conflicts. The module enables students to apply analytical methods to conflicts in intercultural communication on the basis of applied linguistics (contrastive semantics, pragmatics and sociolinguistics) and cultural studies. By the end of the course students will have an understanding of the linguistic dimensions of conflicts (and their mediation) in intercultural communication. Formative work includes oral and written presentations. more...	LCS-ML23	20	Semester 1
Dissertation Forensic Linguistics The dissertation is a compulsory requirement for all taught MA programmes. Work on the dissertation is begun at the end of the second teaching semester. The choice of research topic for the dissertation is made by the students in consultation with their course convenor and/or supervisor (students normally receive up to four hours of supervision in all over the period of supervision). more...	LCS-MD4X	90	Semester 2
Dissertation Conflicts in Intercultural Communication The dissertation is a compulsory requirement for all taught MA programmes. Work on the dissertation is begun at the end of the second teaching semester. The choice of research topic for the dissertation is made by the students in consultation with their course convenor and/or supervisor (students normally receive up to four hours of supervision in all over the period of supervision). more...	LCS-MD5X	90	Semester 2
Research Methods Part I This module is the first part of a course designed to familiarise postgraduate students with research resources and basic aspects of research methodology (e.g. access to, and use of, sources and resources, collection, analysis and presentation of materials and data) and focuses on seminar-related activities. It is taught in the first semester of the first year of study. The module is compulsory for all LCS part-time students on MA Taught programmes and open only to them. Co-Requisite: LCS-MR02. more...	LCS-MR01	5	Semester 1

PHI-

Supervised Study Module Four This module provides for supervised study on the same model as Philosophy Supervised Study 1, for students taking two such modules in the Spring semester. Except in the case of Part-Time students, this module can only be taken concurrently with Philosophy Supervised Study Unit 3. This module may also be taken in the form of language skills for original research (e.g. Ancient Greek, German) in which case language exercises and/or translation tasks may replace some or all of the essay work. Training in logic may also take this form. more...	PHI-MA04	20	Semester 2
Supervised Study Module Three This module provides for supervised study on the same model as Philosophy Supervised Study unit 1, and is available as the first such module to be taken in the Spring semester of the programme. more...	PHI-MA02	20	Semester 2
Supervised Study Module Two This module provides for supervised study on the same model as Philosophy Supervised Study 1, for students taking two such modules in the Spring semester. Except in the case of Part-Time students, this module can only be taken concurrently with Philosophy Supervised Study module 1. This module may also be taken in the form of language skills for original research (e.g. Ancient Greek, German) in which case language exercises and/or translation tasks may replace some or all of the essay work. Training in logic may also take this form. more...	PHI-MA03	20	Semester 1
Supervised Study Module One The module is designed to train the student in research techniques in philosophy and to develop advanced knowledge and understanding in some clearly defined area of the discipline which may or may not have been studied before, eg. at BA level. The student is assigned to work with a tutor with research expertise in the chosen area. The topics covered, and the manner in which they are covered, will be tailored to the student's prior experience in the field. Typically, three essay questions, with bibliographical research, will be set for work during the semester. more...	PHI-MA01	20	Semester 1
Topics in Political Philosophy This module will be devoted to the interpretation and discussion of important, advanced texts in modern political philosophy, in particular texts by John Rawls, perhaps the most significant political philosopher of the late twentieth century. Rawlsian political philosophy of liberalism will be tested with regard to its soundness in relation to equality, community/society, and ecology. Consideration will be given to looking at what political philosophy might viably challenge or replace liberalism, which tends to be the 'dominant paradigm' in political theory and practice today. Students will also have an opportunity to apply abstract philosophical ideas to current political controversies. more...	PHI-M008	20	Semester 2
Philosophy Dissertation (90 Credits) For students taking the MA in Social Philosophy. Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	PHI-M10X	90	Semester 2
Philosophy Postgraduate Workshop The weekly workshop enables students to present their own work in short presentations and to contribute to discussions on each other's work. Each student must produce a presentation and meaningfully contribute to the meetings in order to pass the module. Presentations can be designed to explore work in progress or to help polish work for final submission, inclusion in the thesis or publication. more...	PHI-M09Y	10	Year Period
Philosophy of Biology Recent decades have seen far-reaching and controversial advances in the biological sceinces. These developments raise important philosophical questions which are the subject of one of the liveliest and fastest growing philosophical sub-disciplines, the philosophy of biology. In this module, we will begin by examining some of the concepts and methods that distinguish the biological from the physical sciences. What is the nature of a gene, an organism, a species? What is the role of functional explanation in biology? We will then investigate some more general problems that biology raises within the philosophy of science. Can biology be reduced to physics? What is it for a biological theory, such as the theory of evolution, to be testable? Finally, we will turn to the implications of biology for broader philosphical questions about human nature and morality. Does evolutionary theory show that we are selfish beings? Does genetics prove that morality is an illusion? Students on the M Level version will attend advanced level seminars and their coursework will be marked to a higher standard. The module is offered biennially in conjunction in conjunction with PHI-2A74/3A74. more...	PHI-M026	20	Semester 2
Introduction to Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies This year-long module is designed to support students on the MA/MSc in Environmental Sciences and Humanities by providing the necessary context for reflecting on interdisciplinary approaches to environmental studies. It encompasses a number of key steps in the degree, covering pre-arrival preparation, an intensive induction week, reflection on interdisciplinary work throughout the year, and preparation for the dissertation. more...	PHI-M07Y	20	Year Period
Language and Mind The module will explore the philosophy of Noam Chomsky, the leading linguist of the last century. The module will be taught via a small tutorial group that will explore a central theme in the development of Chomsky's position each week. Topics will include: the refutation of behaviourism, the computational basis of language, the creativity of linguistic performance, internalism vs externalism, the concept of human nature. As well as the tutorial, students are encouraged to attend the lectures for the undergraduate module, Language in Mind, that will cover some of the same issues. more...	PHI-M023	20	Semester 1
Philosophy and Literature Seminar The main aim of this course is to explore philosophical themes which arise naturally in the reading of literature, and literary issues which arise naturally in the study of philosophy. Literary texts may well include a selection from: Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Arnold, Conrad and Beckett. Philosophical texts may well include a selection from: Plato, Augustine, Montaigne, Descartes, Goethe, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. Two important themes for discussion will be the rise of physical science and its impact on philosophy and literature; and how different conceptions of philosophy and literature affect the way in which they are written (or not written). Assessment will be by two coursework essays. more...	PHI-M028	20	Semester 2
Philosophy Dissertation (80 Credits) This module is compulsory for all students taking the course MA/MSc Environmental Sciences and Humanities. Students will be required to produce a 10,000-15,000 word dissertation over the Summer period. The dissertation may deal with any topic covered by the remit of the course as a whole. The title and scope of the dissertation will be determined by the student together with his or her supervisor. A detailed research proposal will be submitted to the proposed supervisor in early April and must be approved by the Course Director. Each student will receive 6 hours of formal supervision during the course of the module. The supervisor will normally be one of the instructors on the course, unless a more suitable member of staff is identified and agrees to act as supervisor. The topic of the dissertation and faculty location of the supervisor will determine whether the student ultimately receives an MA or MSc degree. Normally a student who is supervised by a member of staff in ENV will receive an MSc, otherwise the student will receive an MA. Co-supervision between schools is encouraged. In such a case the type of degree will be determined by the primary supervisor. The dissertation will be marked by one member of the Science faculty and one member of the Arts and Humanities faculty. more...	PHI-M20X	80	Semester 2
Methodology and Epistemology of Philosophy The module provides commencing graduate students with the methodological foundations for independent philosophical research. Through practical exercises complementing theoretical discussion and philosophical case studies, the module examines nature, structure, and genesis of key problems and theories from different areas of philosophy; on this basis, it discusses the scope, strengths, and weaknesses of both well-established and innovative philosophical methodologies as well as key questions about the nature of philosophy. Methods covered include different forms of conceptual and linguistic analysis, ways of explaining and assessing philosophical intuitions, naturalist approaches, and competing hermeneutic approaches to the interpretation of philosophical texts from different periods and traditions. Meta-philosophical questions addressed include: What are the proper aims and purposes of philosophy (theoretical vs. elucidatory vs. therapeutic conceptions)? In what ways is philosophy similar to, and different from various sciences? In what ways can methods and insights from other disciplines (sciences, literature, and the arts) be put to use for philosophical purposes? The module is taught through a weekly lecture and seminar (total 3 hours/week). Topics of the two 3000-word essays are individually agreed. This module is intended primarily for students on the MRes in Philosophy and the MA in Philosophy and Literature. Students on other MA/MSc programmes can participate with the consent of the module organiser, who will expect substantive prior exposure to philosophy (ca. 6 undergraduate modules in philosophy). more...	PHI-M019	20	Semester 1
Certainty and Uncertainty in Environmental Science and Policy This module is concerned with questions about certainty and uncertainty in environmental science and about the role of environmental science for political decision-making. The module investigates epistemological questions about the possibility of gaining scientific insight into the sources and solutions of environmental problems; and it examines the relationship of such epistemic concerns to ethical and political questions about how to act in the face of environmental problems. more...	PHI-M015	20	Semester 1
Classical Philosophy Workshop The module takes the form of a research-led, workshop-style, seminar based on an area of Classical Philosophy in which the module convener has current research interests. It will include detailed attention to selected texts and issues. The topic will be chosen by the lecturer. Recent topics have included (a) Mind and Perception, with detailed attention to Aristotle's "De Anima"; and (b) God creation and design, with detailed attention to Plato's Timaeus and texts in Aristotle and Plotinus (c) Fate and freewill with texts from the Presocratics to Augustine. This module is linked to the advanced undergraduate module, Classical Philosophy Special Subject. more...	PHI-M018	20	Semester 2
Philosophy of Science As any intellectual enterprise, natural science poses fascinating and deep problems. Think e.g. of mechanics: in order to describe observable motion it appeals to such unobservable entities as forces, and in order to talk about real bodies it refers to ideal entities like points endowed with a mass. These facts lead to challenging questions: what is the role of unobservable entities within a scientific theory? Why do we need to resort to ideal hypotheses in order to study the real world? Is there a fundamental divide between theoretical science and experimental science? We will explore these issues by looking at scientific practice from a philosophical standpoint. This module is self-contained and presupposes no previous knowledge of physics or other sciences. Students on the M Level version will attend advanced level seminars and their coursework will be marked to a higher standard. The module is offered biennially in conjunction with PHI-2A14/3A14. more...	PHI-M024	20	Semester 2
Philosophy of Literature Seminar The topics of this module will be chosen from amongst the following: the definition and purpose of literature; the nature of literary language, fiction, fictional characters, narrative, genre, literary criticism and interpretation; the relevance of author's intention, the role of the reader, and the relationship between literature which is read and that which is heard and seen; aesthetic evaluation, taste, subjectivity and objectivity; whether literature can convey truth and knowledge, and the relationship between aesthetic judgement and ethics. Students submit two essays of 2,500 words each. more...	PHI-M021	20	Semester 1

PSI

Analysing Media Discourses This module examines the relationship between language, images and social meaning. Media products from film and advertising to newspaper articles and even music are examined as `texts' that shape and are shaped by the socio-political reality. After discussing some of the main theories of textual analysis like semiotics, psychoanalysis and discourse analysis, we will adopt a hands on approach in order to demonstrate how the visual and linguistic techniques can advance our understanding of the processes of representation and communication of meaning. more...	PSIPM015	20	Semester 1
Media, Culture and Society Dissertation For students taking the MA in Media, Culture and Society. Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	PSIPM40X	60	Semester 2
Dissertation (Mres) For students taking the MRes degrees in Public Policy and Public Management and International Public Policy and Public Management. Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	PSI-M30X	60	Semester 2
Public Management: Theories and Change This module enables students to develop advanced understanding of the main theories, models and concepts used in the study of public management, the main debates in the field, and substantive knowledge of developments in public management in a variety of settings. Students who successfully complete this module will be able to demonstrate: a critical understanding of the main theoretical approaches used in the study of public management and organisational behaviour; familiarity with the main debates in the scholarly literature on public management; substantive knowledge of the theory and practice of the new public management; a critical understanding of public management reform in the United Kingdom and elsewhere; and familiarity with debates concerning the operation and impact of international organisations, including the EU, on public management at the national level. more...	PSIPM021	20	Semester 1
International Organisations and Public Policy The module aims to enable students to develop an understanding of the role of international organisations and their impact on public policy and public management at the domestic and international levels. Students will discuss critically the theories, models and concepts used in the analysis of international cooperation, competing perspectives in international politics and demonstrate the role they play in public policy and public management. The UN, NATO, IMF, WTO, World Bank and EU will be examined and why sovereign states decide to establish these and other international organisations. Their role in security, trade, finance, gender and environmental policy will be considered and the factors which determine their design and evolution. The extent to which their operation reflects underlying power and interest will be evaluated and the extent to which they have democratic legitimacy. more...	PSIIM006	20	Semester 2
Public Policy: Theory and Analysis This module enables students to develop advanced understanding of the main theories, models and concepts used in the study of public policy, the main debates in the field, and substantive knowledge of public policy in a variety of settings. Students successfully completing the module will be able to demonstrate: - critical understanding of the main theoretical approaches used in the study of public policy - familiarity with the main debates in the scholarly literature on public policy - advanced knowledge of public policy and policy processes in a variety of national settings - familiarity with the main theories and debates relating to the operation and impact of international organisations, including the European Union, on domestic policy and policy-making processes. more...	PSIPM023	20	Semester 1
The European Union in International Affairs The module focuses on European Political Cooperation now and into the future, particularly Europe's role as an international actor. Issues include the EU and international conflicts such as the Gulf War, the Middle East and former Yugoslavia, the EU's position as one of three major economic world powers, the EU and Third World development, new considerations in European security, global environmental and energy concerns. Convergence or divergence in European political consensus is examined through these issues in an attempt to draw useful insights for the future of European Integration. more...	PSIIM010	20	Semester 2
International History of the Asia-Pacific Region This module looks at the history of the region, including the involvement of the superpowers in the politics of the cold war in Asia. Conflict in the region as well as the rise and fall of the regional powers are reviewed. The development of multipolarity and the importance of the Asia-Pacific region in the post-cold war world is also covered. The aftermath of the Second World War, the onset of the Cold War, conflict in Korea and Vietnam, the changing relationship between the US, USSR and China are covered, as is the development of Southeast Asia in the modern world. We also assess the major issues contemporary to the region. more...	PSIIM007	20	Semester 1
The Foreign Relations of China and Japan in the Modern World The module looks at the history of China and Japan from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. The attempts at modernisation, conflict between the two nations, their relationships with the Asian region and the United States are covered. Their contrasting attempts to develop in the postwar period are investigated. We also assess their current policies and the issues of importance to China and Japan in the twenty first century, and assess whether they can move beyond the legacy of this difficult history. more...	PSIIM026	20	Semester 2
Political Economy of the Environment In this module, students will critically engage with mainstream political and economic assessments of environmental degradation and climate change by adopting a political economy approach. In coming to terms with these environmental threats, the module tries to reawaken a broader type of ethical, natural and social theorisation that defined an earlier political economy. This is not a module on environmental or resource economics, nor are students expected to have an economics background. Rather, this module tries to problematise social production as something much more than a series of market relations. It tries to develop a broader socio-cultural understanding of production that `de-naturalises' the way we view and exploit the natural world. more...	PSIPM022	20	Semester 2
Politics and Mass Media Working from the assumption that the mass media are an integral part of modern political life, this module examines the way in which politics is represented in the mass media and reviews critically the argument about 'bias'. It also explores the arguments around the ownership and control of mass media, the increasing use of the mass media by political parties and the changing relationship between citizens and politics engendered by new communication technologies. more...	PSIPM012	20	Semester 2
Issues in Media and Cultural Politics This module explores key issues within media and cultural politics. The module is divided into separate blocks and spread over two semesters. Each block deals with different aspects of media and cultural politics, including identity and power, communication and culture. more...	PSIPM03Y	20	Year Period
Theories of Society and Politics This module introduces students to the fundamentals of modern social and political thought by means of in-depth study of key texts by leading thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth century. An emphasis is placed on classical social theory and liberal political theory as well as more recent departures from those traditions. Students will have an opportunity to read and discuss major works of social theory by Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu as well as works of political theory by J S Mill, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Iris Marion Young. During the module students will also have the chance to reflect on fundamental questions about the methodologies employed by social and political theorists and on problems associated with claims to knowledge and objective truth in these fields. more...	PSIPM003	20	Semester 1
History of Political Thought: Social Contract Theory This module examines in depth selected works of political thinkers who are seminal to the Western tradition of political thought, including Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. Their work will also be compared thematically, with a focus on ideas such as the social contract, political obligation, property, individual rights and freedom. The approach is analytical rather than historical and contextualist. The module's focus on the study and interpretation of key texts enables students to develop skills of textual analysis and critique. more...	PSIPM005	20	Semester 1
Theory and Practice of Policy Making in Britain This module will look at theories of policy making and relate them to recent developments in the policy process in Britain, using a case studies approach. The unit will consider some theories of decision making, such as the rational actor model, disjointed incrementalism, policy networks, bureaucratic politics. It will also examine broader issues of the relationship of power and economic forces to the decision making process. Finally, it will examine such issues as agenda setting, the importance of policy discourse and the role of ideas and belief systems in the policy making process. more...	PSIPM018	20	Semester 2
Middle East Politics This module introduces students to the government and politics of one of the most interesting and frequently misunderstood regions in world politics ' the Middle East. The module examines the evolution of the modern Middle Eastern political system over the past century. Students will acquire the skills to analyse key issues in the politics of the region, including topical events such as the preponderance of ethno-sectarian violence and the rise of Islamist movements. Other key questions include the lack of democracy in the region and the creation of rentier economies in the Gulf. more...	PSIIM030	20	Semester 2
MA in International Relations Examination This is a generic exam for students registered on the MA in International Relations based around the core unit, International Relations Theory. more...	PSIIM200	20	Semester 2
Review Paper (Mres) A research review paper of 6,000-9,000 words on a subject of your choice. more...	PSIPM04Y	20	Year Period
Multiculturalism This module looks at the responses in political theory to the rise of multicultural societies in Europe and North America since the end of World War II. The aim is to introduce students to a range of contemporary theoretical perspectives on multiculturalism and to facilitate critical assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of competing approaches. Theorists under examination will include: Parekh, Kymlicka, Taylor and Modood as well as major liberal alternative views; Barry, Rawls and Raz. The module will combine theoretical study with analysis of practical issues/case studies surrounding multiculturalism. Among the issues to be considered are the following: models of integration, group rights, institutional racism, Islamophobia, and the Rushdie affair. The module will also consider divergent policies adopted within European states (eg, France and Germany) and give attention to the attempts to operationalise multiculturalism in the UK in particular via the Parekh Report. more...	PSIPM026	20	Semester 2
Politics and Public Affairs This module enables students to develop an advanced understanding of the theory and practice of public affairs, interest intermediation, and the strategies used by interest, advocacy groups and others to influence the political process. As well as covering the main debates in the academic literature, it draws directly on the experience of practitioners and offers unique insights into this under-studied area of politics. more...	PSIPM034	20	Semester 2
Regulation This module provides a foundation in the theory and practice of economic regulation, incorporating economic, business, legal and political science perspectives. The module is a research-led programme based on the research undertaken in the ESRC Centre for Competition Policy and assumes no previous studies of economics. more...	PSIPM028	20	Semester 2
Practical Media The Practical Media module is taught at the EPIC (former Anglia) TV studios in Norwich. This is a state-of-the-art working TV studio (e.g making shows for BBC1). Students are given an introduction to all aspects of broadcast journalism, including camera and studio work, scripting, editing (using Apple's Final Cut Pro) and sound. Students produce short videos in small teams before creating this into a TV show (magazine format) in the main studio. The course is taught by leading experts in their field. Ian Masters presented BBC Look East for many years before moving into management including Director of BBC South. He was also Director of Broadcasting at the Thompson Foundation and has travelled all around the world training journalists. Mark Wells was a BBC journalist and producer for many years, before becoming a Director at Televirtual (making TV shows such as Knightmare). He is currently Director of the EPIC TV studios. Further information is available: www.ueamedia.wordpress.com, www.epic-tv.org. more...	PSIPM020	20	Semester 2
American Foreign Policy This module will use case studies of Southeast Asia, Central America and the Middle East to explore the reasons for American interventions and to assess their success or failure. It will offer an historical understanding of the assumptions and practices which lie behind contemporary US foreign policy-making. The module will introduce students to the institutions and processes involved in the making of American foreigh policy. more...	PSIIM032	20	Semester 2
Psi Dissertation By Practice Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. The dissertation by practice allows students to demonstrate their ability to carry out a work of broadcastable journalism. more...	PSI-M60X	40	Semester 2
New Media and Society For better or worse, new digital technologies are hyped at having revolutionised society. This module will provide students with an introduction to the ways in which the internet and other digital technologies are (and are not) affecting society from theoretical and empirical perspectives, and how society shapes technology. Topics covered include: the evolution of the internet; the "network society"; regulating new media; the radical internet and terrorism; social networking, blogs and interactivity; culture and identity in the digital age; and how the internet affects politics and the media. more...	PSIPM007	20	Semester 1
Better Worlds? Utopias and Dystopias Would an ideal society have no more crime? Who would be wealthy or powerful? Would politics be outlawed? Do utopians try to impose their views on the rest of humankind? Do the flaws in human nature justify the pessimism of dystopian writers? This unit compares selected utopian and dystopian texts produced during the last six centuries. Themes will include property, social control, gender, morality and politics. Another dimension of the course is to consider the purpose of utopian thinking and the historical role of utopian ideas in social theory and social reform. more...	PSIPM002	20	Semester 2
European Union: Power, Politics and Policy This module studies the integration process in Europe. It introduces the evolution of political and economic co-operation. The main political actors and their roles are identified and the workings of the European Union as a polity assessed in the light of relevant theoretical discourses and interpretations. more...	PSIIM003	20	Semester 1
Online Journalism This module provides students a grounding in core journalism skills, with a special application to new and emerging media. Topics covered include: new forms of journalism, news sources and rich content production. Students will write and produce content for an online news platform. more...	PSIPM027	20	Semester 1
War Games: Diplomacy and Strategy in International Relations This module introduces students to some of the major issues and ideas concerning diplomacy and military strategy in International Relations. The module comprises fortnightly lectures, two screening sessions, and weekly seminars involving lengthy scenario exercises. Students will learn about the theoretical and practical challenges concerning military relations between states, including concepts such as `the security dilemma', `future uncertainty', `self help', `balancing', `deterrence', `imperial overstretch', and `humanitarian intervention'. The successful completion of this module will lead to a more nuanced understanding of war and peace in international politics. more...	PSIIM034	20	Semester 2
Media and Society This module is intended to provide all students studying media related postgraduate degrees with a broad, current and inter-disciplinary understanding of the media today. The guiding philosophy informing this module is the belief that in order properly to understand the media, whether as a lawyer, economist, development studies professional, media studies specialist or political scientist, it is essential to have a wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary understanding of the modern media. What we shall be doing over the year therefore is looking at the structure of the media industry today in the UK and globally. We will consider, from several different academic perspectives, how media content is constructed, what factors and influences go to shape content and how content may be controlled and even censored. We will also look at the media industry, examining how it is currently organised and managed, what factors influence its current organisation and consider how it might develop. We will also examine how media affects people and society and consider also the assumptions that are made about the impact of the media. Finally, we will seek to draw together key aspects of modern media. more...	PSIPM09Y	40	Year Period
Studying Media This module is intended to provide an introduction to the key study skills in media and cultural studies. It will be particularly useful for students unfamiliar with the British university system and its expectations. Students will apply theoretical and methodological approaches to contemporary media texts and discuss recent scholarship on changes in the global media and cultural landscape. In addition to introducing key study skills and debates in the discipline, the workshop sessions will provide a supportive environment for critical reflection and intercultural communication. MEDIA, CULTURE AND SOCIETY STUDENTS WITH A NON-UK FIRST DEGREE ARE REQUIRED TO TAKE THIS MODULE UNLESS A WAIVER IS OBTAINED FROM THE COURSE DIRECTOR. THIS MODULE IS AVAILABLE ONLY TO STUDENTS TAKING THE MA IN MEDIA, CULTURE AND SOCIETY AND THE MA IN MEDIA AND CULTURAL POLITICS. more...	PSIPM017	20	Semester 1
International Security This module examines the study of security in the international system, through its roots in Cold War strategic studies to the development of the more broadly focused field of security studies today. The module critically analyses contemporary security issues and provides a sound theoretical base for considering practical issues of security, including new wars, intervention and terrorism. Themes are explored from theoretical perspectives and include security and the nation state, war and peace, new wars, alliances, democratic peace, securitisation, human security, the arms industry, religion and security and terrorism. more...	PSIIM020	20	Semester 2
Methods of Social Enquiry The module offers a basic training in research methods; it is aimed at students of politics, international relations and media and cultural politics. It has a qualitative and quantitative component and students are expected to complete both parts of the module. Students will be encouraged to reflect not only on the methods they use, but their methodological assumptions, as well as what it means to be part of a research community. Students will learn to evaluate methods from a number of differing philosophical perspectives. Practically they will also be supported in the devising of a research proposal, oral presentations and the analysis of datasets. more...	PSIPM019	40	Semester 1
Broadcast Journalism This 40 credit module gives students a wide and detailed grounding in all aspects of television journalism and news production. Core topics include editing, camera work, sound and interviewing. Students produce a magazine-style TV show that is built around the video reports that they shoot and edit themselves. Students work both in the studio and on location. more...	PSIPM038	40	Semester 2
MA in International Relations & European Studies Examination This is a generic exam for students registered on the MA in International Relations and European Studies based around the compulsory modules, International Relations Theory and European Union: Power, Politics and Policy. more...	PSIIM202	20	Semester 2
International Relations Theory This module will give students an essential grounding in International Relations theory, that is, the different ways we understand and predict international politics. The module is structured around the positivist/post-positivist divide and starts with classical realism and neo-realism, and liberalism and neo-liberalism. It then explores constructivism before turning to more critical theories like post-colonialism, feminism and gender studies, and Marxism. By the end of the module you will design your own IR theory. The module will be taught predominantly using lectures and seminars but will make use, where appropriate, of film and documentaries in order to explore different theoretical schools, both thematically and empirically. more...	PSIIM011	20	Semester 1
Democratic Theory This module draws on normative political theory and contemporary political science to consider how the concept of democracy has changed since it originated in ancient Greece and looks at the critiques of democracy advanced by critics and opponents especially in the 20th century. The ideas and values underpinning democracy will be interrogated and some recent solutions for today's 'democratic deficit' including electronic democracy and cosmopolitan democracy will be evaluated. more...	PSIPM010	20	Semester 2
Public Choice Public choice theory applies economic models to explain political phenomena. This module, jointly taught by lecturers from philosophy, politics and economics, studies the concepts of market failure and political failure, problems of collective action, rational choice models of democracy and bureaucracy, social choice theory, the motivation of actors in the political process, and the evolution of conventions and norms. The political context is the move from a welfare state to a market society. The emphasis is on the critical appraisal of alternative approaches to public choice and policy issues. more...	PSIPM014	20	Semester 2
Psi Dissertation For all MA students registered in PSI except those on the MA, Media, Society and Culture. Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	PSI-M50X	40	Semester 2
"Media, Culture and Society Dissertation" For students taking the MA in Media, Culture and Society. Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	PSIPM20X	80	Semester 2
Politics and Popular Culture This module explores the ways in which popular culture and politics are linked. It works from the assumption that popular culture 'matters', and the key question is how it matters. Hence it examines the different ways in which, and the different theories through which, popular culture is interpreted as expressing or constituting national or sexual identity, propaganda or political insight, means of resistance or of compliance. It also considers the political economy of popular culture (especially the role of the state) and the political uses of popular culture (especially in political communication). It ends by considering the debates about the political influence of popular culture and about the 'value' of popular culture. more...	PSIPM009	20	Semester 1
Journalism: Practice and Ethics The module will demystify the closed world of the professional journalist and enable students to understand what gets into the news (and what does not), and why. It will help students develop practical skills and techniques and the knowledge of how to apply them in a professional, ethical context. Weekly practical exercises will teach them to produce good, clean, readable copy. All of this will greatly enhance the students' employability within the media industry. more...	PSIPM031	20	Semester 1
Practical Media The Practical Media module is taught at the EPIC (former Anglia) TV studios in Norwich. This is a state-of-the-art working TV studio (e.g making shows for BBC1). Students are given an introduction to all aspects of broadcast journalism, including camera and studio work, scripting, editing (using Apple's Final Cut Pro) and sound. Students produce short videos in small teams before creating this into a TV show (magazine format) in the main studio. The course is taught by leading experts in their field. Ian Masters presented BBC Look East for many years before moving into management including Director of BBC South. He was also Director of Broadcasting at the Thompson Foundation and has travelled all around the world training journalists. Mark Wells was a BBC journalist and producer for many years, before becoming a Director at Televirtual (making TV shows such as Knightmare). He is currently Director of the EPIC TV studios. Further information is available: www.ueamedia.wordpress.com, www.epic-tv.org. more...	PSIPM029	20	Semester 1
Psi Dissertation For all MA students registered on the MA in Media, Society and Culture. Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	PSI-M70X	60	Semester 2
International Organisations: Conflict and Development This module introduces to students the basic concepts of integration/disintegration, globalisation, regionalism and the purpose of the existence of and inter-relationship between international regional Organisations. It then goes on to examine the structure and functions of several major international organisations such as the United Nations, NATO, the EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, MERCOSUR, the AU, etc, and their role in international conflict and economic development with specific case studies. A brief coverage of International Financial Institutions such as IMF, World Bank, the WTO and the G8 will complement the main areas of study above. The style of the module consists of a series of lectures/seminars, class presentations, video showings and workshops. Although this is a mostly empirically based module, students will be expected to apply International Relations and Development theories which they will be studying alongside, in their other modules, as appropriate. more...	PSIIM009	20	Semester 1
Russian Foreign Policy The module considers how far Russian foreign policy has changed since the end of the Cold War. It studies the internal and external determinants of foreign policy, looks at key policy issues and examines relations between Russia and other states and regions. more...	PSIIM008	20	Semester 2
World Politics Since 1945 This module is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the cold war and the second the post-cold war period. The module uses a series of case studies, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the break-up of Yugoslavia and the war on terror to highlight broader issues regarding the changing international political system. Diplomatic political history is the predominant discipline used on this module, but theoretical approaches are also adopted to help students understand the nature of the cold war and post-cold war systems. more...	PSIIM015	20	Semester 1

AMSAM

The Dirty South: Reading Southern Cultures In William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, Shreve McCannon asks his Harvard roomate, Mississippian Quentin Compson, to "Tell about the South": "What's it like there. What do they do there. Why do they live there. Why do they live at all." In this module, we will explore the contrasting ways that those questions have been answered - and, indeed, still continue to be answered - by Southerners and others. Reading widely in Southern literature, we will witness the emergence of a distinct Southern literary identity in the years before the Civil War; consider the effect of slavery on the development of Southern letters; encounter, through Reconstruction and beyond, the effects of defeat, liberation and memory; meet the flowering of the Southern Renaissance; and trace the development of Southern writing through the Civil Rights Era and beyond, up to the present day. But we will also consider a variety of other Southern cultures - music, particularly, from country to hip-hop, but also film and television - and think about the ongoing representations of the South by outsiders. And throughout, we will question the shifting meaning of "the South", and consider its persistent significance in the twenty-first century. more...	AMSAM038	20	Semester 2
The 20th Century Novel This module emphasizes close reading, and exposure to some of the masterpieces of 20th century American prose fiction, over theoretical paradigms or a great deal of critical reading. Each week we will discuss a significant 20th century American novel (and author) in depth, coming to grips with their primary themes, structures, and techniques. However, many of our books have a solid body of scholarship associated with them with which you should also certainly expect to familiarize yourself, and each week's reading will include a required scholarly essay, which will be selected by your classmates for their presentation. more...	AMSAM017	20	Semester 1
Theories of American Culture This Core Autumn module introduces students to key theories in American Studies. As American Studies is an interdisciplinary field, we require all MA students in our School, whether focusing upon American History, American Literature, Film and American Studies, or American Studies, to familiarize themselves with foundational concepts in the field. The reading list will vary, but will generally have a week of introduction followed by three weeks on literary and textual theory, three weeks on historiography, and three weeks on visual culture and film theory. The aim of the module is to ensure that all students are comfortable with the basic theoretical tools necessary to advanced study in American cultural studies of all varieties. more...	AMSAM009	20	Semester 1
Research and Methodology Training Seminar This module is run over two semesters. The Autumn and Spring semester element of the training requires attendance and active engagement at the School research seminars which are run on a weekly basis. In addition, during the Spring semester students will take a half-module concerned with preparation for writing their dissertations over the Summer. Students will present their dissertation proposal at the last of the School's research seminars in the Spring Semester. Assessment will be based on a reflective report, written at the end of the autumn semester, concerning the research seminars students have attended. The spring semester will be assessed through presentation and submission of the dissertation proposal. more...	AMSAM02Y	10	Year Period
Reading American Women's Lives: Her-Story in the Long Nineteenth Century The module will be structured around eight biographies of different women spanning the Revolutionary and early National period through to the late nineteenth century. The biographies under discussion will include the revolutionary Jane Adams, midwife Martha Ballard, mill girl Eunice Connolly, true women turned plantation mistress Sarah Hicks Williams, women's right activist and abolitionist Sojourner Truth, the two 'first ladies' of the Civil War era Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Davis reflecting on their experiences in the historical and cultural context in which they lived. The seminars will reflect on the historical conditions that shaped these women's lives and consider the ways in which they negotiated the dominant ideals of the era. The concepts of race, class, region, and age will be considered alongside gender as primary factors that structured these women's experiences, in addition to considering factors such as spousal relationships, the growing ideal of romantic love, the sentimentalisation of women's roles in domestic fiction and wider society, and the developing structures of familial relationships. Biographical materials will be supplemented by historical scholarship and visual media including portraits, pictures, and film. more...	AMSAM042	20	Semester 2
Queering America This is a module that engages with queer theory and its inherent complexities in order to read American Studies `across the grain,' to explore the silences and those silenced in accepted readings of America. The module will both scrutinize and utilize the polyphony of theoretical discourses that constitute queer theory's most often (deliberate) discordant approach so as to open-up the liminal spaces in America ' those cities of night to evoke John Rechy's novel on such liminality. The module is not simply an examination of homosexuality in America, but an examination of alterity in its many different forms, and how this alterity conceptualises America in ways that problematize our immediate understanding of the nation. more...	AMSAM033	20	Semester 1
Slave Life in the Antebellum South While popular representations of New World slavery range from the dehumanized slave body to the romanticisation of enslaved life, scholarly work over the last few decades has sharpened our understanding of what it meant to be an enslaved man, woman and child in the context of Atlantic slavery. This module concerns the lived experiences of the enslaved in the slaveholding south. It is structured around the cultural histories of the lives and will consider how concepts such as race, class, gender, and sexuality interacted and were articulated in this particular historical context. Concepts of power and resistance will also be central to the discussion, as both enslaver and enslaved negotiated the limits of control in their own lives and those of others. The module will employ a variety of source materials including slave narratives, folklore tales, work-songs, and fictional representations of slavery in order to try and fully reveal the complexities of enslaved life. more...	AMSAM011	20	Semester 1
Civil Rights and American Politics This module offers an in-depth exploration of the history of the Civil Rights movement in the years after World War II. It delves into the rich and ever growing historiography of the subject to take in, among other things, the southern freedom movement and Martin Luther King, Jr; the life and times of Malcolm X; Black Power politics and culture; the political controversies surrounding Lyndon B. Johnson's attempt to mobilize the federal government behind the cause of black equality; the 'long, hot summers' of urban riots, 1964-1968; and the still contested legacy of this most turbulent period of American history. more...	AMSAM029	20	Semester 1
American Literature Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	AMSAM04X	90	Semester 2
American Studies Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	AMSAM03X	90	Semester 2
The Imperial Origins of the US and Canada The Imperial Origins of the United States and Canada begins with an examination of the condition of North America in 1492, and proceeds to discuss in the next three sessions to analyse the impact of trade, missionary work, European settlement, warfare, slavery and imperial rivalry in three broad geographic regions: 1) The Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic coasts of North America; 2) The St. Lawrence valley, New England and the Canadian Maritime regions; and 3) New Netherland, New Sweden and their successor colonies, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Having laid this foundation, the module continues chronologically, examining the Spanish, French, and British Empires in North America side-by-side, through the period of the American Revolution and on to the War of 1812. Over the long run, the British Empire spawned two huge polities in North America, and the module will close by examining its distinctive legacies on the two sides of the U.S. - Canadian border. more...	AMSAM044	20	Semester 2
American History Dissertation Students are required to write a dissertation of a length as specified in their MA Course Guide on a topic approved by the Course Director or other authorised person. more...	AMSAM06X	90	Semester 2
Body Spaces Central to post-war American avant-garde aesthetics and poetics is an investigation of the constructedness of the space we inhabit and of the bodies we occupy. By close and detailed analysis of a range of experimental American texts - painting and especially, poetry - from 1950 to the present day, this module explores the ways in which ideas of the postmodern in America can be seen to 'work' through such politicised constructions of the body as gender, sexuality and subjectivity. Running alongside its reading of poetic and artistic texts, the module will also consider the ways in which theories and theorists of the postmodern reflect the concern of America's experimental arts with an aesthetics of 'process' rather than of 'product'. It thereby questions the extent to which a poetics of the postmodern challenges the cultural space that America has inhabited in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. more...	AMSAM043	20	Semester 1
The Black Atlantic This module will consider the flow and proliferation of black culture into and within the Americas, through the medium of the middle passage and the `Black Atlantic'. This module offers a comparative perspective on American culture: the experiences of African slaves and their subsequent freedom, physical and ' for some ' also political, will be traced in the contemporary fiction and poetry of the Caribbean and the United States. Given the overwhelming importance of Africa to contemporary Caribbean and African American writing and culture, this unit will begin and end with a focus on West African perceptions of the slave trade. more...	AMSAM018	20	Semester 2
Good Good Girls and Good Bad Boys? American Fictions of Innocence Oscar Wilde wrote that 'The youth of America is their oldest tradition; it has been going on now for three hundred years'. IIs this true? If so, why? This module will seek to account for the preoccupation with youth in America by focusing particularly on the concept of 'innocence', and by examining how various models of innocence are invoked and questioned in American literary texts. Drawing on a wide array of fictional and theoretical works, we will consider the following questions: What is at stake in America's investment in innocence? Major cultural events - such as the Vietnam War and 9/11, for example - are often described as representing a 'loss of innocence' in American culture. What power interests and ideologies are maintained by repeatedly describing America as 'innocent'? How is this investment in innocence revised in different historical moments? How is it challenged? With particular reference to fictions of growing up in America, how is innocence (and loss of innocence) depicted differently for male and female protagonists? more...	AMSAM022	20	Semester 2

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Whilst the University will make every effort to offer the modules listed, changes may sometimes be made arising from the annual monitoring, review and update of modules and regular (five-yearly) review of course programmes. Where this activity leads to significant (but not minor) changes to programmes and their constituent modules, there will normally be prior consultation of students and others. It is also possible that the University may not be able to offer a module for reasons outside of its control, such as the illness of a member of staff or sabbatical leave. Where this is the case, the University will endeavour to inform students.

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