| "SPACE, TIME & REALITY AMONG THE GREEKS - ADVANCED THEMES" | PHI-3A59 | 30 |
| 2500 years ago Parmenides invented metaphysics by arguing that there is one thing that never changes. Plato responded with a theory of Forms, stable realities quite unlike the world of appearances. But later in his life he attacked that theory. Why? And did Aristotle have a better answer to how reality relates to the things in this world? This module explores some of the most influential texts in the field. In addition Level 3 students move beyond the basics to do an advanced project on Aristotle, or a topic in Stoic or Epicurean metaphysics. This module is offered biennially. |
| "SPACE, TIME AND REALITY AMONG THE GREEKS" | PHI-2A39 | 20 |
| 2500 years ago Parmenides invented metaphysics by arguing that there is one thing that never changes. Plato responded with a theory of Forms, stable realities quite unlike the world of appearances. But later in his life he attacked that theory. Why? And did Aristotle have a better answer to how reality relates to other things in this world? This module explores some of the most influential texts in the field and provides a sound foundation in central themes from classical philosophy. This module is offered biennially. |
| 17TH-CENTURY WRITING: RENAISSANCE, REVOLUTION, RESTORATION | LDCE2Y13 | 20 |
| This course explores 17th Century writing in diverse forms, familiar and unfamiliar: the masque, poetry, prose fiction, but also political prose and the antecedents of what we now call 'journalism'. We will consider the place of these works in society and in their intellectual and cultural contexts. |
| ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION | PHI-3A66 | 30 |
| Advanced Theories of Knowledge covers the same topics as Theories of Knowledge, but differs from the latter in two respects. First, it requires coursework instead of an examination. All students must also give a seminar presentation. Secondly, the Advanced version demands more sophisticated work, so both the coursework and presentation are marked at a higher standard (hence the Level 3 rating). Students on the Level 2 version and the Advanced Level 3 version attend the same lectures, but Advanced students have separate seminars, and also have some tutorial contact in relation to their written work. This module will be offered biennially. |
| ADVANCED PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION | PHI-3A18 | 30 |
| Advanced Philosophy of Religion covers the same topics as Philosophy of Religion but differs in two respects. First it requires coursework as well as the 2 hour exam taken by students on the Level 2 version, hence the 30 credit rating. Secondly, the Advanced version demands more sophisticated work marked at a higher standard, hence the Level 3 rating. Students on the Level 2 and the Advanced Level 3 version attend the same lectures, but Advanced students have separate seminars, and also have some tutorial contact in relation to their written work. This module is offered biennially. |
| ADVANCED PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE | PHI-3A78 | 30 |
| 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. It is offered biennially. |
| ADVANCED STUDIES IN NIETZSCHE AND POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY | PHI-3A46 | 30 |
| Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) radically challenged traditional ideas of what philosophising involves and has had an enormous influence on subsequent thinkers. This module will explore some of Nietzsche's key writings, situating them in the context of Post-Kantian philosophy. Some or all of the following themes will be explored: appearance and reality, genealogy, truth, naturalism, nihilism, aesthetics and the critique of morality and religion. Students on this advanced version will not sit an exam but will submit a piece of coursework and an advanced project. This module is offered biennially. |
| ADVANCED STUDIES IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND ITS CRITICS | PHI-3A44 | 30 |
| Advanced Studies in the Enlightenment and Its Critics covers the same topics as PHI-2A44. However it requires more work than the latter (hence the 30 credit rating), and it also requires more sophisticated work (hence the Level 3 rating). Students on the Level 2 and Level 3 modules attend the same lectures, but Level 3 students have separate seminars and some tutorial contact in relation to their written work. The module is offered biennially. |
| ADVANCED THEMES IN EARLY ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY AND WITTGENSTEIN | PHI-3A76 | 30 |
| This module explores the same ground of Wittgenstein���s early work as the level 2 version, but at a more advanced level. Students on both modules attend the same lectures but Advanced students attend their own seminars and are required to meet higher standards. Unlike the level 2 version, there is no assessment by examination: students will be required to submit coursework and an advanced level project. The module is biennial, and alternates with Wittgenstein: Later Writings. |
| ADVANCED THEMES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY | PHI-3A31 | 30 |
| This module covers the same topics as Level 2 Philosophy of History, but differs from that unit in two respects: it has an advanced reading list, and requires more sophisticated work which is marked at a higher standard. Hence the Level 3 and 30 credit rating. Students on the Advanced module attend the same lectures, but have separate seminars and possible tutorials relating to their written work. Students will produce two pieces of work: a 2000-word essay (worth 33%), and a 4000-word project (worth 67%). This module is offered biennially. |
| ADVANCED THEMES IN THE RATIONALISTS | PHI-3A29 | 30 |
| This module covers the same topics as Level 2 The Rationalists, but differs from that module in two respects: it has an advanced reading list, and requires more sophisticated work which is marked at a higher standard. Hence the Level 3 and 30 credit rating. Students on the Advanced module attend the same lectures, but have separate seminars and possible tutorials relating to their written work. Students will produce two large-scale pieces of coursework. This module is offered biennially. |
| AUSTEN AND THE BRONTES: READING THE ROMANCE | LDCE2X28 | 20 |
| This module will consider three texts by Austen and the Brontes. A wide variety of literary and historical contexts will be discussed: feminisms, colonialism, impact of war, the social status of the woman writer, representations of governesses, madness and mad women, rakes, foreigners and strangers, minds and bodies, heroes and heroines. We investigate the ways that the lives of the authors of these novels have been told and read as romances. Opportunities will be available to work on film versions. Work on any text by these authors is welcomed in class, coursework and in the examination. |
| BIOGRAPHY | LDCE3X46 | 30 |
| How do writers attempt to capture 'life' in all its various forms? What, if any, are the different requirements in writing the life of a famous (or not so famous) person and that of a city or landscape? What about the 'life' of travel or food and how do you approach writing about the natural world? These are just some of the questions that this module sets out to address. We will be reading a wide variety of texts, from the 'traditional' biography to some of the more experimental examples of creative non-fiction. From Samuel Johnson to essays in The New Yorker, all human (and non-human) life will be there! Students may choose between writing their own piece of Biography or creative Non-Fiction as their final project or submitting a critical essay. |
| BIOGRAPHY | LDCE3X48 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X46: WRITING LIFE: BIOGRAPHY AND CREATIVE NON-FICTION AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| CHAUCER | LDCE3Y05 | 30 |
| This module explores Chaucer's major writings in their historical, cultural and literary contexts. The module will introduce Chaucer's writing in a range of genres and will examine his works' representation and exploration of society, identity, chivalry, politics, religion and gender, and will also consider the medieval reception of Chaucer's writing. Previous experience of medieval literature will be useful but is not required. |
| CHILDREN'S LITERATURE | LDCE3X67 | 30 |
| This module offers students the chance to learn about children's literature and its development and also to try to write a piece of children's literature themselves. It starts with the history of children's literature, looking at its use as a pedagogical tool, moving through fairy tales, Lewis Carroll's Alice books and their influence on the field, and examining other authors such as Charles Kingsley, Roald Dahl, Judy Blume and Lemony Snicket. By studying the development of children's literature, this module also analyses the development of the concept of childhood in Western society. |
| CHILDREN'S LITERATURE | LDCE3X69 | 20 |
| THIS IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LITE3X67 CHILDREN'S LITERATURE AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. This module offers students the chance to learn about children's literature and its development and also to try to write a piece of children's literature themselves. It starts with the history of children's literature, looking at its use as a pedagogical tool, moving through fairy tales, Lewis Carroll's Alice books and their influence on the field, and examining other authors such as Charles Kingsley, Roald Dahl, Judy Blume and Lemony Snicket. By studying the development of children's literature, this module also analyses the development of the concept of childhood in Western society. |
| CLASSICAL PHILOSOPHY SPECIAL SUBJECT | PHI-3A68 | 30 |
| The module explores a selected area of Classical Philosophy with detailed attention to selected texts and issues. The topic will be chosen by the lecturer from the following: (a) Mind & Perception; (b) Reality; (c) Image and Illusion. Syllabus for (a): Plato, 'Republic', 'Phaedrus'; Aristotle, 'De Anima'. Syllabus for (b): Plato, 'Cratylus', 'Sophist'; Augustine, 'Confessions' I; Aristotle, 'Categories'. Syllabus for (c): Primary/secondary qualities in Democritus; Plato, 'Republic'10, 'Sophist'; Epicurean perception theory. Other suitable experience may be accepted in lieu of the pre-requisites, after consultation with the module organiser. The module is offered annually. |
| CONTEMPORARY WRITING | LDCE2Z34 | 20 |
| This module aims to take an open snapshot of different modes of writing in the recent British scene, not a post-war history of the novel. Together with the question of exactly what it means to be contemporary, we shall concentrate on a small number of thematic and/or formal features, looking in particular at more adventurous examples of recent literature. |
| CRITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE | LDCE2X15 | 20 |
| This module will explore changing responses to the central questions of poetics. What kinds of truth, if any, do poetry and fictional writing tell? What is the nature of the imagination or the role of invention? How does fictional writing relate to philosophy, religion, rhetoric or science? This module will approach these questions through a combination of historical, theoretical and practical approaches. |
| CULTURAL THEORY AND ANALYSIS | LDCE2X17 | 20 |
| This module introduces some major critiques of modern culture and encourages their critical assessment and application by students. It is organised historically and moves from Matthew Arnold's influential, Victorian, normative understanding of culture to twentieth-century approaches to mass culture, modernity and postmodernism in the work of critics who include Adorno, Horkeimer and Michel Foucault. The critical thinking about culture that is developed in this module should strengthen interdisciplinary ability. |
| DRAMA AND LITERATURE: THE QUESTION OF GENRE | LDCE3X06 | 30 |
| This seminar will explore the boundaries between drama and other genres (kinds, art-forms, media) in an attempt to investigate a number of interrelated theoretical questions. We shall explore these issues via various types of activity - practical criticism, critiques of literary theory, performance analysis, dramatising prose narrative. The set texts are works of literature which do not quite fit generically - particularly plays that seem to be in some sense 'epic', or novels in some sense 'theatrical', ranging from Shakespeare in the 17th century through to Gay and Fielding in the 18th and Dostoyevsky and Chekhov in the 19th. |
| EARLY ANALYTICAL PHILOSOPHY AND WITTGENSTEIN | PHI-2A76 | 20 |
| Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the most influential philosophers in the 20th century. This module focuses on his early philosophy, especially as articulated in his 'Tractatus', and its background in the thought of Frege and Russell. Central topics discussed are the 'Tractatus' conception of logic and language as well as the nature of philosophical problems and philosophical inquiry, including ethics. Students will benefit most from this module if they are already taken one or both of the following: Philosophy of Mind, Logic and Language. This module is offered biennially. |
| EARLY ENGLISH DRAMA | LDCE3Y81 | 30 |
| This module focuses on the medieval and early sixteenth century period, exploring conceptions and deployments of drama. Comparative work of different forms of drama, the drama and other artistic media, and the drama and social attitudes will be encouraged. You will explore whether drama successfully produces civic unity; how audiences are addressed and constructed; the theatricality of how the Biblical past is imagined, the significance of staging, place, and gesture; the social and political functions of drama, the representation of women; and protests against the drama from various quarters. Our period ends just as the suburban professional theatre was establishing itself in London in a form that was fundamentally influenced by these much earlier dramatic activities. We shall explore how spectacle and ceremony enabled pre-Reformation communities to celebrate their existence and assert an often contested or otherwise problematic sense of their cultural identity. |
| EARLY ENGLISH DRAMA | LDCE3Y83 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3Y81: EARLY ENGLISH DRAMA AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WRITING | LDCE2Y11 | 20 |
| This lecture-seminar module provides an intensive introduction to British writing from the Glorious Revolution (1688) to 1780 considering such writers as Defoe, Swift, Pope, Richardson, Fielding and Sterne, and exploring the "rise of the novel", the development of literary periodicals and newspapers, and the relationship of neo-classical poetry to the development of the English landscape garden. The course considers literary writing in relation to the development of mercantilism and such new capitalist institutions as the stock market, the idea of the individual as entering a social contract with others to form society, and the changing status of women and the family. |
| ERASMUS EXCHANGE: AUTUMN SEMESTER | LDCE2A01 | 60 |
| LDC students going abroad under the ERASMUS exchange scheme for the Autumn semester must enrol for this module. Students going abroad under the ERASMUS exchange scheme to Dublin will need in addition to enrol for module LDCE2A02. Further details of the ERASMUS scheme are available from the Study Abroad Office. |
| ERASMUS EXCHANGE: SPRING SEMESTER | LDCE2A02 | 60 |
| LDC students going abroad under the ERASMUS exchange scheme for the Spring semester must enrol for this module. Students going abroad under the ERASMUS exchange scheme to Dublin will need in addition to enrol for module LDCE2A01. Further details on the ERASMUS scheme are available from the Study Abroad Office. |
| EUROPEAN LITERATURE: ENCOUNTERS WITH 'OTHERNESS' | LDCE2X24 | 20 |
| This module explores critical and aesthetic issues raised by general and comparative literature, issues of 'influence', reception, intertextuality, translation, formal and generic comparabilities, national identity and cultural borrowing. Theoretical questions will be examined through specific examples and case studies, ranging across different periods and geographies; however the focus is likely to be on the modern period. Works studied may include texts by eg Kafka, Sebald, Calvino, Celan. |
| FIN DE SIECLE: FANTASIES OF DECADENCE AND DEGENERATION | LDCE3X50 | 30 |
| Max Nordau's 1892 Degeneration, attacking fin de siecle decadence, draws together fears of cultural decline and corrupting artistic practice through pseudo-Darwinian thinking about devolution. Yet Nordau's urgent and apocalyptic claims about 'diseased' art draw an ambivalent response from contemporary writers, such as those associated with the aestheticism and decadence of The Yellow Book. It is within the fantastic, however, that Nordau is most directly confronted and social norms most explicitly deformed by art. Wilde's swift move from pedestal to pederast may remove a key figure, but texts such as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Novel of the White Powder; Dracula; Wells' science fiction dystopias and, more recently, Moore and Campbell's From Hell, rehearse, react to, or reflect upon such concerns. These writings share a central tension: are the effects of decadence and degeneration offering pessimistic prophesy or optimistic alternatives? This module would complement nineteenth-century options and offer a perspective on the Modernist module. For students also taking the Gothic it would be related, although usefully focusing on the closing years of the nineteenth century with a different emphasis. |
| FIN DE SIECLE: FANTASIES OF DECADENCE AND DEGENERATION | LDCE3X52 | 20 |
| THIS IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LITE3X50 FIN DE SIECLE: FANTASIES OF DECADENCE AND DEGENERATION, AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. Max Nordau's 1892 Degeneration, attacking fin de siecle decadence, draws together fears of cultural decline and corrupting artistic practice through pseudo-Darwinian thinking about devolution. Yet Nordau's urgent and apocalyptic claims about 'diseased' art draw an ambivalent response from contemporary writers, such as those associated with the aestheticism and decadence of The Yellow Book. It is within the fantastic, however, that Nordau is most directly confronted and social norms most explicitly deformed by art. Wilde's swift move from pedestal to pederast may remove a key figure, but texts such as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; The Novel of the White Powder; Dracula; Wells' science fiction dystopias and, more recently, Moore and Campbell's "From Hell", rehearse, react to, or reflect upon such concerns. These writings share a central tension: are the effects of decadence and degeneration offering pessimistic prophesy or optimistic alternatives? This module would complement nineteenth-century options and offer a perspective on the Modernist module. For students also taking the Gothic it would be related, although usefully focusing on the closing years of the nineteenth century with a different emphasis. |
| FROM PUSHKIN TO CHEKHOV: NINETEENTH-CENTURY RUSSIAN FICTION | LDCE2Z33 | 20 |
| This unit offers students the opportunity to study some of the great works of nineteenth century Russian fiction by authors such as Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Russian writers were convinced that their country's literature had been too dependent on European models and they set out consciously to create a distinctly 'Russian' tradition. What did this involve and why subsequently were the works of authors like Dostoevsky and Chekhov received so rapturously when they became available in English translations at the beginning of the twentieth century? We will also examine this writing in its social, historical and political context, which raises questions regarding the significance of gender, censorship and empire. |
| GOODBYE TO BERLIN? LITERATURE & VISUAL CULTURE IN WEIMAR GERMANY | LDCE2Z40 | 20 |
| This module aims to explore some of the exciting developments in verbal and visual culture of the Weimar Republic between the First and Second World Wars, e.g. experimental theatre, Weimar cinema, cabaret, visual arts, the Bauhaus, etc. Texts considered will include writings by Brecht et al. Thomas and Heinrich Mann, and less familiar authors as well as key films by e.g. Pabst (Threepenny Opera), Lang (Metropolis), von Sternberg (Blue Angel) and others. A particular focus is likely to be representations of gender on page, stage and screen. Active seminar participation is expected. NB: A knowledge of German, while useful, is not a prerequisite; translations are available. |
| HENRY JAMES: QUESTIONS OF ART, LIFE AND THEORY | LDCE3Z32 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LITE3Z42 HENRY JAMES: QUESTIONS OF ART, LIFE AND THEORY AND IS AVAILABLE ONLY TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS. |
| HENRY JAMES: QUESTIONS OF ART, LIFE AND THEORY | LDCE3Z42 | 30 |
| In this module students engage with the range of Henry James's writing and also the reproduction of his life and work in contemporary culture. This module aims not simply to add to understanding of James but also to explore the issues that his work raises in relation to the art and history of fiction, philosophy and cultural reproduction. It is suitable not only for literature students who want to study this writer who spans realism and modernism, and short stories, literary criticism and fiction, but also for creative writing students and literature and philosophy students. It can be taken by students who have studied modules in nineteenth-century writing or modernism. Reserved for students on course(s): Q300U1, Q300U2, Q200U1, Q201U1, Q3W8U1, QT37U1, QV31U1, W400U1, WQ43U1, VQ53U1, TQ73U1. |
| JOHN MILTON'S PARADISE LOST | LDCE3Y70 | 30 |
| Paradise Lost is perhaps the finest poem in the language. Its ambition is breathtaking: it begins before time, ends with time, spans the whole of the created universe, and yet focuses on a single, human relationship, on betrayal, recrimination and reconciliation. It is an attempt to explain the co-existence of evil and an omnipotent good God, a response to defeated political aspirations, and an attempt to create a republican poetics. In the module we will read the poem intensively, and seek to understand it in its historical context. Was there a republican aesthetic? How did writers respond to the collapse of radical political ideals and (comparative) religious toleration when 1660 brought the restoration of Charles II? How have literary historians participated in the occlusion of Britain's republican traditions? While there are no pre- or co-requisites, some knowledge of seventeenth-century literature or history, especially through LITE2Y13 Seventeenth-Century Writing, would be an advantage. |
| KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION | PHI-2A66 | 20 |
| The module provides a problem-focused introduction to epistemology. It explores how some simple and compelling arguments led to the view that whenever we perceive (see or hear, etc.) anything we (also) perceive ���ideas��� or ���perceptions��� in our minds, how this lastingly influential view led to some mind-boggling paradoxes that question the possibility of knowledge, and how the struggle with that view and its consequences led to the major philosophical theories of perception and to attempts to properly understand the concept of ���knowledge��� and related notions like ���justification���. The module is assessed primarily by examination, but students must also give a seminar presentation. This module will be offered biennially. |
| LANGUAGE AND REALITY | PHI-2A55 | 20 |
| Twentieth century philosophy is characterised by a preoccupation with language. This attention involved a great deal of reflection on language itself and also on the possibility that traditional philosophical problems might be resolved or dissolved by thinking about the language in which the problems are posed. The period also witnessed great upheavals, with the rise and fall of logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy, the development of formal theories of meaning, and the eventual resurgence of pragmaticism and metaphysics. The module will explore these major themes through consideration of the work of major thinkers from the last fifty years, including Quine, Davidson, Putnam, and Kripke. This is a compulsory module for all students taking V500 Philosophy, and is available as an option for all other Philosophy students. |
| LANGUAGE IN MIND | PHI-3A41 | 30 |
| What is language? Following on from the work of Noam Chomsky, many linguists, philosophers and psychologists answer: an innate faculty of mind. This module will explore the arguments for and against this position. Topics to be covered include: innateness, the idea that the mind is a computer, the possibility of ape linguistic competence, and the relation between syntax and meaning. The module will close by considering what significance Chomsky���s work might have for our conception of human nature, both morally and theoretically. This module is offered annually. |
| LITERATURE AND DECONSTRUCTION | LDCE3X87 | 30 |
| In an interview with Derek Attridge, Jacques Derrida describes literature as ���this strange institution which allows one to say everything���. This module explores the writings of Derrida and related thinkers alongside a range of literary texts, including works by Keats, Shakespeare and Joyce. Through a combination of lectures and seminars, we will think about the strangenesses of literature, look at the ways in which it is an ���institution��� and consider the kinds of freedom ��� of speech, writing and thinking ��� it permits. Our aim throughout will be to establish the possibilities for literary criticism opened up by deconstruction. The module is open to everyone, but may be of particular interest to those who studied critical theory in the second year. |
| LITERATURE AND DECONSTRUCTION | LDCE3X89 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X87: LITERATURE AND DECONSTRUCTION AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| LITERATURE AND HUMAN RIGHTS | LDCE3X54 | 30 |
| Reading key philosophical, political, legal and literary texts, this module will track the emergence of human rights as a cultural idea from their conception in the eighteenth century, through to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and beyond in the period after World War Two. The module will address the following questions: What type of human being was presupposed by the declarations of rights? How did the novel help form perceptions about rights and human sympathy? In what ways did the UDHR re-imagine concepts of human rights after the Holocaust? How were these changes reflected in new forms of post-war writing, such as post-colonial and late modernist writing? How can we think about the relation between rights and literature today? This module will suit students who have enjoyed the challenges of philosophy and literary theory. It should also appeal to those who are interested in thinking seriously about the relationship between literature and its ‘real world’ applications and significance. |
| LITERATURE AND HUMAN RIGHTS | LDCE3X56 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X54: LITERATURE AND HUMAN RIGHTS AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY | LDCE3X45 | 30 |
| This module explores the relations between literature and philosophy and differing understandings of the self, love and ethics through close reading of philosophical and literary texts. It is organised chronologically and moves from the classical writing of Plato to modern literature. The module designed for final year students who are studying Literature and Philosophy. It is also open only to students in Literature who have taken modules in Philosophy in years one and two; or by special concession at the discretion of the module organiser to other students who have substantial experience in both Honours level Literature and Honours level Philosophy. |
| LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY | LDCE3X61 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LITE3X45 LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. This module explores the relations between literature and philosophy and differing understandings of the self, love and ethics through close reading of philosophical and literary texts. It is organised chronologically and moves from the classical writing of Plato to modern literature. The module designed for final year students who are studying Literature and Philosophy. It is also open only to students in Literature who have taken modules in Philosophy in years one and two; or by special concession at the discretion of the module organiser to other students who have substantial experience in both Honours level Literature and Honours level Philosophy. |
| LITERATURE AND VISUAL CULTURE II: AT THE FIN DE SIECLE | LDCE2Z24 | 20 |
| This interdisciplinary module investigates the interweaving of literature, painting and photography in Europe in the latter part of the nineteenth century, with a particular focus on France. It looks at the characteristic thematic preoccupations, styles and perceptual psychologies which drive Naturalism, Impressionism, Symbolism, Aestheticism and Decadence as modernist modes. We will be examining developments in the handling of narrative and poetry as well as experiments in theatre against the background of photography's emulation of painting, and painting's struggle to free itself from the academic. Writers to be studied include Baudelaire, Zola, Moore, Maupassant, Wilde, Yeats, Maeterlinck and Mirbeau alongside a selection of poets, painters and photographers of the period. Assessment is by means of a written image analysis and a longer individually designed project, both of which are supported by individual tutorials. |
| LITERATURE DISSERTATION: POST-1789 (AUT) | LDCE3X15 | 30 |
| This module is an advanced-level module, for final year students only. It provides students with the opportunity to write an 8000-word dissertation on literature of the period from 1830 to the present day (excluding American literature). The dissertation topic must be agreed by a supervisor, and both topic and supervisor approved by the unit organiser by the end of the previous semester. |
| LITERATURE DISSERTATION: POST-1789 (AUT) | LDCE3X31 | 20 |
| This module is a 20-credit version of LITE3X15 LITERATURE DISSERTATION: POST-1830 (AUT) and is available ONLY to non-HUM and Visiting Students. |
| LITERATURE DISSERTATION: POST-1789 (SPR) | LDCE3X18 | 30 |
| This module is an advanced-level module, for final year students only. It provides students with the opportunity to write an 8000-word dissertation on literature of the period from 1830 to the present day (excluding American literature). The dissertation topic must be agreed by a supervisor, and both topic and supervisor approved by the module organiser by the end of the previous semester. |
| LITERATURE DISSERTATION: POST-1789 (SPR) | LDCE3X30 | 20 |
| This module is a 20-credit version of LITE3X18 LITERATURE DISSERTATION: POST-1830 (SPR) and is available ONLY to non-HUM and Visiting Students. |
| LITERATURE DISSERTATION: PRE-1789 (AUT) | LDCE3Y77 | 30 |
| This module is an advanced-level unit, for final year students only. It provides students with the opportunity to write an 8000-word dissertation on literature of the period up to 1830 (excluding American literature). The dissertation topic must be agreed by a supervisor, and both topic and supervisor approved by the module organiser by the end of the previous semester. |
| LITERATURE DISSERTATION: PRE-1789 (AUT) | LDCE3Y79 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3Y77: LITERATURE DISSERTATION: PRE-1830 (AUT) AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| LITERATURE DISSERTATION: PRE-1789 (SPR) | LDCE3Y78 | 30 |
| This module is an advanced-level module, for final year students only. It provides students with the opportunity to write an 8000-word dissertation on literature of the period up to 1830 (excluding American literature). The dissertation topic must be agreed by a supervisor, and both topic and supervisor approved by the module organiser by the end of the previous semester. |
| LITERATURE DISSERTATION: PRE-1789 (SPR) | LDCE3Y80 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3Y78: LITERATURE DISSERTATION: PRE-1830 (SPR) AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| LITERATURE STUDIES SEMESTER ABROAD: AUSTRALIA (SPRING) | LDCE2A04 | 60 |
| A semester spent at an Australian university taking an approved course of study. Restricted to students on Q300U1, Q3W8U1, QV31U1, WW84, WQ43, W400 |
| MADNESS, MEDICINE, SCIENCE AND WOMEN'S WRITING IN THE REGENCY | LDCE3X75 | 30 |
| This module will study late 18th-century and early 19th-century writings in the context of scientific and medical innovation. We consider whether it may be appropriate to view the work of novelists such as Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen and Mary Shelley as a response to, and even a protest against these newly (or, more correctly, nearly) professionalised, male-dominated worlds. These women writers often concern themselves with the 'consumers' as well as the providers of the services offered by these professions; this module considers why that might be and how this kind of contextualisation might impact upon our readings of their work. |
| MADNESS, MEDICINE, SCIENCE AND WOMEN'S WRITING IN THE REGENCY | LDCE3X77 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LITE3X75 MADNESS, MEDICINE, SCIENCE AND WOMEN'S WRITING IN THE REGENCY AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. This module will study late 18th century and early 19th century writings in the context of scientific and medical innovation. We consider whether it may be appropriate to view the work of novelists such as Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen and Mary Shelley as a response to, and even a protest against these newly (or, more correctly, nearly) professionalised, male-dominated worlds. These women writers often concern themselves with the 'consumers' as well as the providers of the services offered by these professions; this module considers why that might be and how this kind of contextualisation might impact upon our readings of their work. |
| MEDIEVAL ARTHURIAN TRADITIONS | LDCE3Y82 | 30 |
| From Welsh folklore to Monty Python, the tales of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have excited and intrigued generations. Why? To answer this question we explore the development of the legend from its twelfth-century Celtic roots through to a number of twentieth-century film adaptations. How the legend has been translated across form, genres, cultures and ages will be studied, including examples from Middle English Arthurian Texts, translations of the Welsh Mabinogion, of Monmouth's Latin chronicle and French romance texts. This module will enable students familiar with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to enhance their awareness of the wider Arthurian traditions within which this text belongs, but is also suitable for students who are encountering medieval literature for the first time. |
| MEDIEVAL ARTHURIAN TRADITIONS | LDCE3Y84 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3Y82: MEDIEVAL ARTHURIAN TRADITIONS AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| MEDIEVAL WRITING | LDCE2Y15 | 20 |
| This module is designed to provide an introduction to the study of medieval English language and literature. In a series of lectures and seminars students will work through a small but representative selection of medieval texts, including lyrics, romance, drama and prose, in order to develop a working knowledge of the language - Middle English - and an appreciation of different forms and genres found in medieval writing. Medieval texts and contexts will be used as a means of familiarising students with medieval language, and form the basis for further units in medieval writing that may be taken within the School. |
| MIND, BODY AND LITERATURE | LDCE3X09 | 30 |
| The sense of loss in a Hardy poem, the parallel universe of a science fiction story, the sombre world of a Scandinavian crime novel: all have in common that they make the reader think, feel and possibly act. Drawing on an understanding of literature as writing which both engages and affects us, we look at a variety of literary texts (e.g, by Blake, Hardy, Lawrence, Hughes) and consider what they have in common with the everyday (clocks, teddy-bears, congregation ceremonies) and the bizarre (zombies, unicorns, ghosts). We consider how we understand text worlds, how metaphor relates to the body, whether real emotions can arise from fictional texts. Participants should have an open mind, a desire to understand literary theories, and a readiness to think outside the box. |
| MIND, BODY AND LITERATURE | LDCE3X11 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X09: MIND, BODY AND LITERATURE AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| MODERNISM | LDCE2Z15 | 20 |
| The purpose of this module is to study the literature of the early decades of the twentieth century - very roughly 1900-1930 - in particular the work of those authors who attempted to break with received norms of literary style and content. The module is organised as a series of thematic explorations - poetic experiment, memory and desire, myth and innovation, and so on - and thus does not follow a chronological structure. The sequence of guiding lectures focuses its deliberations on a set of specific texts, with their contexts, and these are taken up for discussion in the accompanying seminars. 'Modernism' is this constructed gradually over the semester as a mosaic of closely related issues, each one reflecting on the others. As well as providing an overview of defining textual features, in prose and poetry, the module is concerned also with the interrelation of text and context, offering a range of ways of conceiving of modernist literature as both of, and self-consciously ahead of, its historical moment. |
| MORAL PHILOSOPHY - THE BASICS | PHI-2A25 | 20 |
| What is morality? What is it to be a moral agent and to engage in moral deliberation? What is it to justify moral judgments and is there such a thing as a justification of moral practices themselves? What does it mean to be or try to become a good person? In this module we take a look at various theories about the nature of morality as well as examine critically the idea that what one needs to understand the phenomenon of morality or to engage successfully in moral thinking is a moral theory. This module is offered biennially. |
| MORAL PHILOSOPHY WITH ADDITIONAL META-ETHICS | PHI-3A25 | 30 |
| What is morality? What is it to be a moral agent and to engage in moral deliberation? What is it to justify moral judgments and is there such a thing as a justification of moral practices themselves? What does it mean to be or try to become a good person? In this module we take a look at various theories about the nature of morality as well as examine critically the idea that what one needs to understand the phenomenon of morality or to engage successfully in moral thinking is a moral theory. Students on this Level 3 version pursue a more advanced project in meta-ethics for their extended essay. This module is offered biennially. |
| NERVOUS NARRATIVES | LDCE3X83 | 30 |
| ‘We all say it’s nerves, and none of us knows what it means’, says a character in Wilkie Collins’ 1860 novel, The Woman in White. Our aim is to think about how a discourse of the ‘nerves’ – the ‘nervous temperament’ and nervous illness – can be both so pervasive culturally and so slippery in its meaning. This interdisciplinary module takes you from the late 17th century, when the concept of ‘neurologie’ first emerged, to the 21st century, linking literary, medical and philosophical writing to explore the representation of the ‘nerves’. The historical range of the module is not meant to imply a transhistorical understanding of nervous illness or temperament, but rather will enable us to analyse the historically specific nature of the nervous body and what it is made to mean, culturally, within different contexts. In this way, we will be working with issues as diverse as religious ‘enthusiasm’, hysteria and hypochondria, sensibility, sensation, fear of modernity, manliness and effeminacy, shell-shock, PTSD and the concepts of the healthy or fragile body of the nation. Spanning time and genre, the literary texts studied will take us from the earliest, Jonathan Swift’s satire, A Tale of a Tub (1704) up to the contemporary: Siri Hustvedt’s novel, What I Loved (2003) and her analytical memoir, The Shaking Woman, Or, A History of My Nerves (2010). |
| NERVOUS NARRATIVES | LDCE3X85 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X83: NERVOUS NARRATIVES AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| NIETZSCHE AND POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY | PHI-2A46 | 20 |
| Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) radically challenged traditional ideas of what philosophising involves and has had an enormous influence on subsequent thinkers. This module will explore some of Nietzsche's key writings, situating them in the context of Post-Kantian philosophy. Some or all of the following themes will be explored: appearance and reality, genealogy, truth, naturalism, nihilism, aesthetics and the critique of morality and religion. This module is offered biennially. |
| NINETEENTH-CENTURY WRITING | LDCE2Z30 | 20 |
| This module focuses on the novel and society in the nineteenth century, reading Scott, Austen, the Bront��s, Dickens, Gaskell, Eliot, James and Conrad and considering how the writing responds to the material conditions of production - authorial biography, publishing economics, literary genres, contemporary politics, the subjection of women, the rise of the middle class and economic changes such as the growth of the city, the railway booms, Chartism and industrial relations and the development of the British empire. |
| PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION MODULE | PHI-3A21 | 30 |
| This module is open only to students who have achieved an overall second-year mark of 60% or above. When enrolling you must include a second choice on your enrolment form, so that if your marks are below 60% you can transfer smoothly to another module. Before enrolling, you MUST also complete a special application form available from the Philosophy Office, room 3.68. The module enables Philosophy majors and joint majors to pursue a topic of their own choosing under the individual supervision of a member of faculty. It is assessed as a project on the basis of an extended essay of about 10,000 words. There is no specific timetable slot for the module, arrangements for tutorial meetings being made between the individual tutor and student. |
| PHILOSOPHY DISSERTATION MODULE | PHI-3A24 | 30 |
| This module is open only to students who have achieved an overall second-year mark of 60% or above. When enrolling you must include a second choice on your enrolment form, so that if your marks are below 60% you can transfer smoothly to another module. Before enrolling, you MUST also complete a special application form available from the Philosophy Office, room 3.68. The module enables Philosophy majors and joint majors to pursue a topic of their own choosing under the individual supervision of a member of faculty. It is assessed as a project on the basis of an extended essay of about 10,000 words. There is no specific timetable slot for the module, arrangements for tutorial meetings being made between the individual tutor and student. |
| PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY | PHI-2A31 | 20 |
| What is history? Is it reasonable to apply moral criteria to the historical process? Can or even must we conceive of history as progress? Are there laws in history? From the 18th century enlightenment to Marxist historical materialism, strong claims have been made in response to these questions. They have come under severe attack from the later 19th century on to the present. The module will examine the arguments and concepts employed in this debate. It is suitable as a first honours module in Philosophy. This module is offered biennially. |
| PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION | PHI-2A18 | 20 |
| The module focuses on the claims of theistic religion. It seeks to clarify the concept of God and to examine the standard arguments for and against the existence of God. This module is offered biennially. |
| PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE | PHI-2A78 | 20 |
| 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. It is offered biennially. |
| PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE | PHI-3A23 | 20 |
| This unit examines different approaches to understanding the social world, tracing their philosophical presuppositions and their implications for the study of economics and politics. It focuses on two contrasts: between the positivist and the hermeneutic approaches, and between individualistic and holistic styles of explanation. This unit is compulsory for PPE students, but can also be taken by students on other courses. There is also a 30 credit version of this unit (PHI-3A09) "available for non-PPE students". |
| PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE | PHI-3A57 | 30 |
| This module examines different approaches to understanding the social world, tracing their philosophical presuppositions and their implications for the study of economics and politics. It focuses on two contrasts: between the positivist and the hermeneutic approaches, and between individualistic and holistic styles of explanation. This module is a 30 credit version of PHI-3A23 and is not suitable for PPE students. |
| POETRY AFTER MODERNISM | LDCE3Z60 | 30 |
| This module will survey a wide range of post-war British poetry actively engaged with the Modernist tradition of Eliot, Pound and others. Reading critical texts alongside poems, it will introduce students to lesser-known writers, such as the Welsh poet Lynette Roberts and the Scottish poet W.S. Graham, as well as considering well-known English poets such as Philip Larkin and Ted Hughes from a Modernist perspective. Recognising the influence of contemporary American verse on experimental poets such as J.H. Prynne and Paul Muldoon will also be an important theme. A chronological syllabus will take students from 1945 up to the present day, and there will be a chance to write creatively as well as critically as part of the assessment. Students wishing to take this module must have taken LDCE2Z15 Modernism. |
| POETRY AFTER MODERNISM | LDCE3Z62 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3Z60: POETRY AFTER MODERNISM AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| POETRY OF THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY | LDCE3X71 | 30 |
| The poetry of the nineteenth century is often thought of as being caught between the two stools of Romanticism and Modernism. This module examines the development of poetry from Romanticism to Modernism, and asks in particular whether the poetry of the nineteenth century can claim our attention in its own right, rather than as a late avatar of Romanticism or as a foretaste of the excitements of Modernism. The focus of the module, then, is on close critical engagement with a large range of nineteenth century poetry and poetics, including the work of poet-critic Matthew Arnold, poet-priest Gerard M. Hopkins, and of other writers from Christina Rossetti to Algernon Charles Swinburne. Due notice will also be taken of nineteenth-century continental and American poetry. |
| POETRY OF THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY | LDCE3X73 | 20 |
| THIS IS A 20 CREDIT VERSION OF LDCEX371: POETRY OF THE LONG NINETEENTH CENTURY AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| PUBLISHING (AUT) | LDCE2X05 | 20 |
| The module will be theoretical as well as practical including discussions around the design and editing of a text and what constitutes an editorial policy. Students will be taught how to set up, run and market their own publications (a magazine/book/fanzine) as well as to justify their editorial, marketing and business strategies. This course will be assessed by a portfolio and a piece of coursework. Training on Desktop publishing packages Pagemaker and Photoshop will be provided as part of the course. |
| PUBLISHING (SPR) | LDCE2X06 | 20 |
| The module will be theoretical as well as practical including discussions around the design and editing of a text and what constitutes an editorial policy. Students will be taught how to set up, run and market their own publications (a magazine/book/fanzine) as well as to justify their editorial, marketing and business strategies. This course will be assessed by a portfolio and a piece of coursework. Training on Desktop publishing packages Pagemaker and Photoshop will be provided as part of the course. |
| QUEER LITERATURE AND THEORY | LDCE3X58 | 30 |
| This module offers students the chance to learn about LGBTQ literature and its development in English-speaking countries, as well as approaches to queer theory. Authors studied will include Oscar Wilde, James Baldwin, Alison Bechdel, Armistead Maupin, Charlotte Mendelson, and Sarah Waters, as well as young adult novels by David La Rochelle, Alex Sanchez, Nancy Garden, Julie Anne Peters, and David Levithan. Using queer theory will also allow us to analyse literature from the perspective of gender and sexuality, and authors looked at will include Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, and Teresa de Lauretis. Understanding how lgbtq characters are featured in literature also helps us to see how queer people are understood in a given society in general. |
| QUEER LITERATURE AND THEORY | LDCE3X60 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X58: QUEER LITERATURE AND THEORY AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/ EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| REGENCY WOMEN WRITERS | LDCE3X80 | 30 |
| This module situates the work of various women writers of the Regency period in literary and historical contexts. The main texts under discussion are by Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Maria Edgeworth. The unit considers themes which - although not exclusive to women's writing at this time - occur strikingly frequently in the work of Regency women. These themes include sanity, madness and ideas about the mind, and literary devices such as the love-mad woman. Health, ill-health and the development of medicine are central to these fictions and the course, and we also discuss the figure of the doctor, the quack and the 'psychiatrist' in these texts. We look at writings by Regency women travellers whose destinations ranged from Italy to Bath, Sweden and Revolutionary France. |
| REGENCY WOMEN WRITERS | LDCE3X82 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSI0N OF LDCE3X80: REGENCY WOMEN WRITERS AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| REVENGE TRAGEDY: ANCIENT AND MODERN | LDCE3Y86 | 30 |
| This seminar explores the different ways in which the concept of revenge has been conceived and represented in a range of dramatic texts. The module covers three distinct groups of primary materials: classical tragedy (in translation) including Aeschylus's Oresteia; early modern revenge tragedy including works by Shakespeare, Tourneur and Kyd; and modern cinematic explorations of the revenge formula including Get Carter, Old Boy and Tarantino's Kill Bill movies. Topics discussed include the relationship between classical and Christian attitudes to revenge, contemporary strictures upon private vengeance, the representation of justice through the ages, the limitations of the revenge tragedy formula. |
| REVENGE TRAGEDY: ANCIENT AND MODERN | LDCE3Y88 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3Y86: REVENGE TRAGEDY: ANCIENT AND MODERN AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| ROMANTICISM 1780-1840 | LDCE2X26 | 20 |
| Romantic Literature is often thought of as poetry, primarily work by Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats and Bryon. But the signs and forms of Romantic sensibility can also be found in a much broader constituency of writing practice: the novel, letter writing, the essay, political and aesthetic theory, and writing of all kinds taken as social commentary. This module is taught through a combination of lectures and seminars. |
| SATIRE | LDCE3X62 | 30 |
| ���Satire is problematic, open ended, essayistic, ambiguous in relation to history, uncertain in its political effects, resistant to final closure, more inclined to ask questions than provide answers, ambivalent about the pleasures it offers��� (Dustin Griffin). The aim of this module is to investigate the problematic territory of satire. Using examples from modern and contemporary fiction and journalism alongside early modern and classical satire, we will formulate a critical and conceptual map, which will in turn allow us to discuss some of the problems of satire (those of genre, of gender, of politics, of morality, of history), and to explore some of the paradoxes of its strategies and functions (freedom versus limits; subversion versus conformity; transformation versus stasis). Writers under discussion will include Juvenal, Horace, Swift and Pope; John Dryden, Aphra Behn, and Lady Mary Wortley Montague; Evelyn Waugh, Stella Gibbons, and Jonathan Coe. |
| SATIRE | LDCE3X64 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X62: SATIRE AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| SEMESTER ABROAD - AUTUMN | PHI-2A21 | 60 |
| The School of Philosophy has various ERASMUS arrangements with European Universities where it is possible to spend a semester abroad. For more information on this please contact the ERASMUS Director, Dr O Kuusela. |
| SEMESTER ABROAD - SPRING | PHI-2A24 | 60 |
| The School of Philosophy has various ERASMUS arrangements with European Universities where it is possible to spend a semester abroad. For more information on this please contact the ERASMUS Director, Dr O. Kuusela. |
| SHAKESPEARE | LDCE2Y04 | 20 |
| The aim of this lecture-seminar module is to help you become a better reader of Shakespearean drama. He was writing between about 1590 and about 1610; obviously his plays speak to us over a great cultural distance, and we can find fresh ways of reading them by exploring the theatrical, generic and historical frameworks in which they were written and staged. The lectures, then, will introduce a range of contexts, and the seminars will seek to turn them to account in the reading of the dramatic texts themselves. |
| SHAKESPEARE: SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE | LDCE3Y36 | 30 |
| Platonist epistemology permeated Elizabethan culture: the aim of this module is to explore the relationship of Shakespeare's topic of the world as a stage to Neoplatonic conceptions of perception, politics, poetry and love. |
| SHAKESPEARE: SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE | LDCE3Y40 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LITE3Y36, SHAKESPEARE: SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND NOVEL 1818-2000 | LDCE3Z03 | 20 |
| This module is a 20-credit version of LITE3Z09 THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND NOVEL: 1818-2000 and is available ONLY to non-HUM and Visiting Students. |
| THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND NOVEL 1818-2000 | LDCE3Z09 | 30 |
| This module will examine the classic nineteenth-century 'Condition of 'England' novel alongside mid-to-late twentieth-century representations of England (and myths of national identity). Attention will be given to post-colonial writing as a significant part of the question: What is it to be English (or British)? |
| THE ENLIGHTENMENT AND ITS CRITICS | PHI-2A44 | 20 |
| The 18th century saw a radical change take place in European culture. A new value was placed upon knowledge, new views of the ways in which society should be run were formed, new attitudes towards religion occurred, new theories of art and culture arose. This module looks at these changes and the effects they had upon epistemology, political philosophy and aesthetics. Enlightenment figures studied include Diderot, d���Alembert, Voltaire, David and Condorcet in France, Kant in Germany, Hume in Scotland. As a counterpoint to this we study some of the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, both an Enlightenment figure and yet perhaps its greatest critic. This module is offered biennially. |
| THE GOTHIC | LDCE3X41 | 30 |
| This module seeks to cover some 'canonical' texts of the Gothic Novel (1764-1820) in Walpole, Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, and to consider some later developments of the gothic mode in later 19th and 20th centuries: Poe, Le Fanu, Stevenson, MR James, Elizabeth Bowen, David Storey and Angela Carter. The course also seeks to introduce students to some of the theoretical and historical arguments around the contested nature of the term 'gothic', the Uncanny, the subversiveness or otherwise of this kind of writing, and its relation to the novel genre. |
| THE GOTHIC | LDCE3X51 | 20 |
| This module is a 20-credit version of LITE3X41 THE GOTHIC and is available ONLY to non-HUM and visiting students. |
| THE LITERATURE OF WORLD WAR ONE | LDCE3Z10 | 30 |
| The module will examine representations of World War One. As a Level 3 unit, the focus will be inter-disciplinary. Literary materials will be contextualised using historical and other sources. Use will also be made of memoirs, letters, diaries, and photographs. Students will be encouraged to conduct research using the internet and other facilities. |
| THE RATIONALISTS | PHI-2A29 | 20 |
| The great rationalist philosophers Descartes (1596-1650), Spinoza (1632-77) and Leibniz (1646-1716) were preoccupied by the same themes: substance, God and the relationship between mind and body. All of them were in the vanguard of the new scientific culture of the XVII century, but all were also concerned to reconcile science with religion. We shall explore the different paths taken by the three thinkers from a shared starting point, rooted in reason and commitment to method. This module is offered biennially. |
| THE RATIONALISTS (CW) | PHI-2A29C | 20 |
| This is a CW only variant of PHI-2A29 and is only available for students taking a semester abroad. |
| THEATRES OF REVOLT: NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN DRAMA | LDCE2X07 | 20 |
| Beginning with Ibsen and Strindberg, this module examines the development of modern forms of drama during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, addressing modern concerns - self and society, gender, sexuality, social and class conflicts, creation and destruction, the unconscious - and deploying experimental types of theatre by Chekhov, Maeterlinck, Wilde, Hauptmann, Buchner and Wedekind, as well as the two seminal Scandinavians. We will be looking at versions of Naturalism, Symbolism and Expressionism as modernist modes in drama and suggesting ways in which these shape and anticipate later developments. There will be opportunities to view some of the plays on film. Assessment is by means of seminar participation, one piece of textual analysis and one longer essay. Drama students may include a performance element as part of the assessment. |
| THREE WOMEN WRITERS | LDCE2Z38 | 20 |
| The writings of Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf intersect with discourses of 'new women' and gender as well as feminism, and social and cultural history. This second level seminar develops historicist and generic understanding as well as exploring women's identity through these authors' writings which move between realism and modernism. Special attention to just one writer is possible in the final essay. Particular attention will be given to some of Virginia Woolf's lesser known writing. Exclusive to students on Literature and Creative Writing programmes and all joint programmes with Literature. |
| THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS: NONSENSE AND MODERN WRITING | LDCE3X01 | 30 |
| It's widely recognised that modernist literature is characterised by a revolution of the word. Less widely recognised, and little explored, is the relationship between modernist linguistic experimentalism and literary nonsense, as practised by Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and others. This course will begin with these well-known nonsense writers and explore their roots in earlier nonsense, including Shakespeare's, before going on to examine some of the adventures in language of major modernist and postmodernist writers. Authors studied are likely to include late Joyce, early Auden, Stein, Stevens, Cummings, Crane, Nabokov, Koch, Muldoon, Ashbery. The course will also set these avant-garde writers in the unfamiliar context of the mainstream fantasy writers who also come out of Carroll and the nonsense tradition, most likely Tolkien and Peake, whose imaginary worlds are based on their own invented languages. This is not a course on children's literature, but on some very challenging modern literature, though it should appeal to those who take a childish pleasure in wordplay and fantasy, and equally to those intrigued by philosophical issues around language. It would follow on very well from the second-year Modernism module. |
| THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS: NONSENSE AND MODERN WRITING | LDCE3X03 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X01: THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS: NONSENSE AND MODERN WRITING AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| TRAUMATURGIES: READING AND WRITING TRAUMA ACROSS CONTEXTS | LDCE3X91 | 30 |
| Trauma haunts the writing of the twentieth century. Slavery, war, patriarchy, terrorism, genocide, colonialism, modernity, technology and post-modernity: these legacies demand to be written and read, and engender a writing singular to their traumas. Yet the writing of these wounds, and the critical work that reads it, raises fundamental questions about whether trauma can ever be represented or understood. Spreading beyond their contexts, these questions effect their own traumas, cracking open our assumptions about what it is possible to read, to write, and indeed to think. Working roughly from the turn of the twentieth century to the present, this module reads a selection of theoretical, literary and critical texts that aim to write and read trauma across cultural, historical, personal and public contexts. |
| TRAUMATURGIES: READING AND WRITING TRAUMA ACROSS CONTEXTS | LDCE3X93 | 20 |
| THIS MODULE IS A 20-CREDIT VERSION OF LDCE3X91: TRAUMATURGIES: READING AND WRITING TRAUMA ACROSS CONTEXTS AND IS AVAILABLE TO VISITING/EXCHANGE STUDENTS ONLY. |
| ULYSSES | LDCE3Z50 | 30 |
| This module will provide students with the opportunity to read one of the most famous, yet notoriously unread, novels of the twentieth century. The module has a number of aims. First, it will give students the time and opportunity to try to read and understand James Joyce's Ulysses. Secondly, the module will introduce students to some of the formal innovations typical of modernist writing through the close analysis of techniques such as interior monologue and mythic analogy. Thirdly, it will allow students to read a wide range of responses to Ulysses, both among Joyce's contemporaries, and in the history of twentieth century criticism. Fourthly, the module will situate the text historically, with a particular focus on the way that the text's obscenity affected its reception and circulation in the 1920s and 1930s. |
| ULYSSES | LDCE3Z52 | 20 |
| This module is a 20-credit version of LITE3Z50 ULYSSES and is available to Visiting / Exchange students only. |
| VIRGIL'S CLASSIC EPIC | LDCE3Y18 | 30 |
| This module will explore the centrality of Virgil's Aeneid to Medieval and Renaissance culture. It will examine developing attitudes to the Classical literary legacy and accommodation and reinvention of Virgil's epic poem within new religious, political and literary contexts. The course will begin with exploration of Virgil's poem on its own terms before turning to reworkings of the 'Aeneid' by Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, Douglas and Marlowe, the Renaissance invention of a 13th Book to 'complete' Virgil's poem, and the recasting of classical epic within the very different conventions of medieval and Renaissance romance. Previous experience of classical or medieval literature is not required. |
| VIRGIL'S CLASSIC EPIC | LDCE3Y32 | 20 |
| This module is a 20-credit version of LITE3Y18 VIRGIL'S CLASSIC EPIC and is available ONLY to non-HUM and Visiting Students. |
| WAR LIVES: WRITING BRITAIN IN WORLD WAR II | LDCE2X34 | 20 |
| World War II brought the horror of war home to the British. War invaded the country in new ways: it reshaped Britain's landscapes, radically altered the social practices of everyday life, and shattered people's very sense of what it meant to live. As one writer remarked, the war "worked at a thinning of the membrane between the 'this' and the 'that'. War life, for many, was hallucinatory, and the struggle to write the war, and its peculiar relation to Britain's home-front, invades the writing of the 1940s in strange and unpredictable ways. This module examines both fiction (short stories and novels) and non-fiction (essays and letters) by writers such as Elizabeth Bowen, A. L. Barker, Angus Wilson, Henry Green and Patrick Hamilton, as well as critical work on the literature of the period, to examine how writing in and about Britain during the Second World War struggled to account for the uncertainties and instabilities of war lives. |
| WORLD LITERATURE: READING GLOBALLY | LDCE2X29 | 20 |
| The term 'world literature', coined by Goethe as a means for promoting universal understanding, and then taken up by Marx and Engels as a symbol of modernity, has today become not only a booming area of academic research, but also a publishing phenomenon. This module introduces literature from around the globe, specifically texts that have had and continue to have an impact on an international readership and that frequently demand a self-consciously different mode of reading, one that recognises otherness while simultaneously finding points of commonality. Primary texts will include the ancient Babylonian epic Gilgamesh, the classical Japanese Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, The 1001 Nights, the King James Version of the Bible, as well as more contemporary works by authors such as Bei Dao, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, Tayeb Salih and Yoko Tawada. To contextualise our diverse readings, a range of critical and theoretical explorations of what it means to read (or to write) beyond the borders of a national literature will also be studied. The vital role of translation, understood in both the linguistic and cultural sense, in creating the world literature text will further ground much of the discussion. |
According to Socrates the most serious question for humanity is: How are we to live? This question, amongst others, is one that philosophy tries to answer. It asks: What is justice? How can our minds know the world? What is truth? Can we prove anything about God? How do we tell good reasoning from bad? Philosophy considers these questions in a systematic attempt to make sense of human life and the world in which it is lived. But there are other ways of trying to make sense of human life and the questions it raises. One of the most important of these is to be found in literature. Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice can be interpreted as a reflection on Socrates’ question; Shakespeare’s play The Tempest raises questions about the gap between the mind and the world, and whether there is such a thing as natural justice; and Eliot’s poem Four Quartets is a meditation on the concealed nature of God. Again and again, artists and philosophers consider the same questions in different ways. This is what makes the combination of English literature and philosophy so fruitful.
‘What makes a stuffed shark a work of art?'