In this module you will survey the history of English Literature between William Blake and the present day. Mainly using Volume 2 of The Norton Anthology of English Literature you will study period, genre and form through a range of texts including: the novel; the short story; the essay and manifesto; poetry; drama; letters and graphic art.
View the full module definitionEstablish foundational skills and understanding that you'll need throughout your degree. This module will equip you with the tools to explore core themes of acting, not just during your learning journey at ARU, but also in your professional career beyond. The module is a practical investigation of the dynamic tensions between individual freedom and collective discipline, self and character, spontaneity and planning, practice and reflection. In order to succeed in this competitive industry, you'll need dedication and self-discipline. We'll focus on learning by doing, alternating with periods of reflection, alongside self-directed study, which will include selected reading about acting, individual research, rehearsing practical tasks for classes and maintaining a log of activities and progress. The module introduces you to the tools you need to prepare a role, for both training projects and professional life. The module will promote an open-minded and experimental approach to learning activities. You'll be encouraged to be brave and take artistic risks within a supportive environment in which genuine experimentation feels safe.
Researching, understanding and articulating the contemporary world of performance, its iconic practitioners, performances and cultural debates, is an essential part of your development as a professional artist in relation to your specialist discipline. In this module, you'll begin to place your performance practice in its cultural context. You'll research and explore important productions, genres, performance theories and practitioners related to your specialist discipline and evaluate their impact on culture and society. You'll also look at influential practice from related performance disciplines, in order to understand how your practice relates to wider performance culture and history. A shared lecture programme that considers production case studies from Acting, Drama and Musical Theatre will support your studio practice, by developing your knowledge of the contexts in which a range of performance disciplines can be understood. During the module, you'll choose a production case study from within your specialist discipline and conduct research to discover its director's intentions, performance detail, dramatic effect, and cultural impact. You'll learn how to locate a production within wider contemporary cultural debates, and how to organise your research evidence effectively as a preparation for academic writing, in line with ARU academic protocols. Finally, you'll use your research evidence to produce a short, written Production Analysis, or equivalent critical output negotiated with your tutor.
On this module you will survey the history of literature in English between the Old English period and the end of the eighteenth century, using volumes A-C of The Norton Anthology of English Literature as your key text. The juxtaposition of pieces by well-known authors (who may include, for example, Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton) with less familiar texts is intended to encourage reflection upon what constitutes the ‘canon’ and the discipline of literary study more broadly. At the same time, you will be introduced to an exciting range of social, cultural and political theories that can be used to further the analysis of literary texts. These include psychoanalysis, Marxism, structuralism, feminism, postcolonialism and queer theory. You will put these theories into practice by applying them to the set literary texts during seminars. You will also exercise your theoretical knowledge beyond the classroom, by applying theory to your critical review of a historical artefact in a local museum.
View the full module definitionIn this module, you'll engage in a full development and rehearsal process to create a studio-based, collaborative, live performance. You'll work with a source text, a play script or Libretto and a musical score, engaging with the dramatic practices that are relevant to the selected work. You'll contribute to the numerous staging ideas that the production will need, and work positively towards creative solutions with your peers and director. So that you can perform more effectively, you'll research the world of the text, including its genre and performance conventions. You'll be cast in one or more performance roles in the chosen text, which may be assigned by audition. You can also take on production tasks that are essential to live performance, with the support of professional technical staff. These roles include lighting and sound design, sourcing props, costumes and set, choreography or video projection. You may elect to work as a stage manager coordinating the whole performance, alongside a role on stage. Musical theatre rehearsals will encompass ensemble singing and one-to-one vocal coaching, as well as acting and directed script work. You should demonstrate reliability as a member of a company by full attendance, punctual arrival at rehearsals and high levels of concentration within sessions. You'll develop discipline and learn rehearsal etiquette and self-awareness to cultivate an environment of trust and professionalism.
Entering higher education is exciting; but it can also be a daunting experience. At ARU, we want all our students to make the most of the opportunities higher education provides, reach your potential, become lifelong learners and find fulfilling careers. However, we appreciate that the shift from secondary education, or a return to formal education is, in itself, quite a journey. This module is designed to ease that transition. You'll be enrolled on it as soon as you receive an offer from ARU so you can begin to learn about university life before your course starts. Through Into ARU, you'll explore a virtual land modelled around ARU values: Courage, Innovation, Community, Integrity, Responsibility, and Ambition. This innovative module is designed as a game, where you collect knowledge and complete mini tasks. You'll proceed at your own pace, though we you to have completed your Into ARU exploration by week 6. If for any reason you're unable to complete by that date, we'll signpost to existing services so that we can be confident that you are supported.
View the full module definitionThis module will explore, through lectures and rehearsals, the traditions, history, and variety of performances in Festive Theatre. Tutor-led lectures will focus on the history and sociopolitical importance of Festive Theatre, and these will then give way to directed rehearsal room sessions where the student cast will rehearse and mount a full scale production for a public audience using a variety of performance techniques to create an exciting show, which for many families is the first or only time they visit the theatre.
View the full module definitionIn this module, you will be introduced to various strategies of adaptation and to the afterlives of a range of nineteenth-century literary texts. We will look at sequels and prequels to nineteenth-century novels and will also analyse the move from page to screen, web series, and other forms. The module is likely to cover the afterlives and adaptations of the work of writers including Jane Austen, the Brontës, and Charles Dickens. Throughout, you will develop a comprehensive knowledge of the texts studied in relation to their original context, as well as the context in which they have been adapted.
View the full module definitionThis project-based module will give you direct experience of working as a performer and facilitator within the local community. This will increase your awareness of employability contexts, develop your ability to work with and for vulnerable groups, and hone a wide range of transferable skills. Working as an applied theatre company, you'll be set a brief to design and deliver a performance project for an outside organisation, such as a local charity, museum, sheltered housing unit, school or health care provider. Practical workshops and seminar style teaching will introduce you to the given context, the ethical and practical challenges related to it, and a range of performance styles and methodologies appropriate to successfully meeting the project brief. You'll then engage in a collaborative process to devise and deliver a performance off-site. This module will offer you direct engagement with the local arts community, such as children’s theatre companies at the Junction, primary or secondary schools, or local charities. The preparation of your project will develop your awareness of the ethical, practical and creative issues that must be considered when making performance for specific target audiences and in off-site locations. You'll explore the diverse career opportunities within this field, while gaining real-world experience in community theatre.
View the full module definitionRuskin Modules are designed to prepare our students for a complex, challenging and changing future. These interdisciplinary modules provide the opportunity to further broaden your perspectives, develop your intellectual flexibility and creativity. You will work with others from different disciplines to enable you to reflect critically on the limitations of a single discipline to solve wider societal concerns. You will be supported to create meaningful connections across disciplines to apply new knowledge to tackle complex problems and key challenges. Ruskin Modules are designed to grow your confidence, seek and maximise opportunities to realise your potential to give you a distinctive edge and enhance your success in the workplace.
This module is designed to advance your technical and creative abilities across acting, drama, and musical theatre. Through a workshop-based approach, you'll engage in contemporary specialist skills such as stage combat, physical theatre, puppetry, and mask work. These skills will challenge you to expand your creative boundaries and adaptability in both solo and ensemble settings. You'll develop physicality, refine your technical precision, and explore the application of these techniques in a range of performance contexts. The module aims to prepare you for professional standards, emphasising discipline, collaboration, and the practical application of contemporary techniques essential for today’s industry.
View the full module definitionIn this module you will study the development of science fiction as a genre, concentrating on major texts from the postwar period. You are expected to acquire an understanding of the history of science fiction and an awareness of debates around its origins, as well as a critical understanding of the problems of defining it in relation to other forms of literature. The emphasis is on science fiction as a literature of ideas, and you will have the opportunity to explore and compare examples of several key science fiction tropes. These would typically include alien invasion, posthuman identity, utopias and dystopias, alternate history, time travel and post-apocalyptic science fiction. You would also be invited to consider changes in the representation of issues such as race, class and gender in science fiction. The main focus will be on science fiction as a literary form; however there will be opportunities to consider science fiction in other media – film, comics, TV and computer games – as well as engage with aspects of the history of science fiction publishing, such as book cover design and marketing.
View the full module definitionThe arts are applied in diverse ways and diverse settings to support human flourishing. Arts therapies (dramatherapy, music therapy and art therapy) sit at one end of a continuum which includes community music, applied theatre and theatre in education through to the use of the arts for performance. Arts therapies in the UK are regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. Art Therapy, Dramatherapy and Music Therapy are protected titles. Post-graduate training in these disciplines leads to registration with the HCPC. This module will give you an introduction to the arts therapies. You'll gain an understanding of how arts therapies are used in practice, across different settings and with people with diverse needs across the lifespan. There will be an overview of the pathway to training and career possibilities for qualified arts therapists. The module will introduce you to a range of tools, activities and approaches that are suitable for use by non-registered musicians, theatre practitioners and artists in health, education, wellbeing and community settings.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll continue to develop your contextual understanding, research and writing abilities by exploring the cultural impact of your specialist discipline in the world of contemporary performance. Practice in Context will deepen your knowledge of performance in its cultural context, by way of a combined study of important practitioners, productions and performance theory from a range of disciplines. A shared lecture programme that includes Acting, Drama and Musical Theatre will help you connect your practice to key political and philosophical ideas in culture and society, such as ideology, power, gender, race, and the performing body. You'll also explore broader theories of cultural performance that can support your studio practice, by developing your knowledge of performance contexts such as ritual, festival and protest. This module will prepare you for Level 6 Major Project, by consolidating your ability to gather and organise your research evidence, analyse your specialist practice effectively through a relevant case study and produce an effective piece of academic writing or equivalent critical output, in line with ARU academic protocols.
View the full module definitionThis module aims to develop your skill in acting for the camera for applications on screen. You'll consider the potential of online platforms for performance work, the implications of a remote audience and consider the principles that separate mediated acting from live stage performance. You'll also learn studio etiquette and the variety of production roles that support acting for camera in both television and film. You'll work as actors in collaboration with fellow students, either from the performance courses or the BA (Hons) Film and TV Production degree, developing your collaborative and networking skills. You'll work on original scripts and may have opportunities to workshop the material in order to develop the strongest possible scenes. You'll then work as actors with peers as directors, camera operators, floor managers and editors. You'll develop your understanding of story arcs and characterisation in your script and prepare your performance. You'll work as a team of actors to realise the project, mirroring the professional experience of actors working in television to prepare you for your future career.
View the full module definitionThis module introduces the techniques and conventions of dramatic writing, with an emphasis on writing for stage performance. The skills and knowledge required to create effective performance texts are studied through a combination of reading, critical analysis of diverse examples from the genre, practical writing exercises and readings of your own work in progress. We'll explore elements of dramatic writing such as monologue, dialogue, narrative, character and physical and vocal connection, and you'll learn the conventions of presentation for dramatic texts. Through reading and discussion, you'll be introduced to a range of dramatic styles and structures and to different modes of theatre. We'll explore dramatic form and ensemble work through practical writing and performance exercises. You'll study the dynamics between writing and performance as you draft and re-draft your own short dramatic texts. Later sessions focus on workshop treatment of sustained pieces of dramatic writing that you are preparing to submit for your assessment at the end of the module. We'll read and partially stage extracts, confronting the challenges of audience and staging.
View the full module definitionIntroduction to Directing encourages you to develop key skills involved in leading and directing theatrical projects and performances. You'll engage with different directorial and creative leadership approaches through workshops, seminar discussions and practical experimentation. Skills in directing and leadership will be developed with reference to different forms of text and performance. These will be used as the basis to explore a range of directorial approaches and to demonstrate the ways in which appropriate strategies may be tailored to the demands of various rehearsal methodologies. In addition, you'll practically explore the planning and leading of workshops and rehearsals within a small group. You will show professionalism and discipline throughout this module, qualities that are especially important when working in collaboration with other students in a leadership role.
View the full module definitionThis module is designed to accommodate specialist training under professional supervision in a defined area of live or recorded production. The type of work undertaken will be driven by the staffing requirements of a particular theatre or studio placement. Indicative areas of work may include developing technical skills in lighting, sound, video/audio or other specialist software, set and props design, stage/production management, costume, hair/make-up, company management or marketing. You'll work under the supervision of professional staff to understand the demands of each role and to gain practical skills specific to your defined aspect of theatre production. This is a module dependent on experiential learning and you must demonstrate a professional attitude to co-operation with the theatre staff under whose supervision you will work. You will be expected to be flexible in adapting to the jobs assigned to you and be willing to work during the particular hours that may be necessary in your role. Your hours will increase during production weeks as they do in the theatre industry. You must demonstrate your professionalism as a responsible, reliable and competent member of the production team at this time.
View the full module definitionThis module will introduce you to the field of contemporary performance theory and practice in relation to Shakespeare. You'll study a range of 20th and 21st century critical and directorial interpretations of plays by Shakespeare in the theatre and on film, exploring issues like power, sexuality, gender, justice, morality, religion and war. You’ll look at how critics, directors and actors generate meanings from Shakespeare's plays, drawing on details from primary texts, secondary criticism and examples of contemporary creative responses to the plays. For your assessment, you'll select a sequence from one of Shakespeare's plays to stage as an ensemble performance, supported by practical workshops. This performance may include interdisciplinary work involving music, song and a variety of performing styles. You'll also attend seminars that will guide the development of your project proposal, and group tutorials to help you set up your group project. In preparation for the ensemble performance, you'll submit a 1,500-word analysis of how your chosen play has been interpreted in contemporary criticism, and examine a range of creative responses to it in the theatre and on film.
View the full module definitionOn this module you'll study an exciting period of literary history, the Renaissance, from the different perspectives of cross-cultural encounters and their impact on English imaginative writing of the period. This research-based module gives you the opportunity to explore, in-depth, the early modern literary fascination with travel and other cultures, debates around colonialism, terrestrial and extra-terrestrial ‘other worlds’, theories of creation and knowledge of nature, and relations between humans and animals. You'll explore these issues in weekly seminars, investigating the relationship between the set texts and their literary, cultural and historical contexts, including politics, race, religion, scientific knowledge, gender and the environment. Upon successful completion of the module, you'll have a greater understanding of poetic, prose and dramatic texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well the cultural, historical and literary contexts in which they were written and performed.
View the full module definitionKnowledge of a foreign language can be a major asset both in your academic and professional life. The Anglia Language Programme offers you the opportunity to study a foreign language as part of your course.
This module aims to consolidate your skills as theatre makers through the curation, programming, marketing and delivery of a festival of performance. You will synthesise and apply the processes of production explored throughout your degree, collaborating with your peers and staff and taking a high level of responsibility and independence in preparing the work created and shown. At the start of the module, you will reflect on your individual learning journey and career aspirations through the creation of professional portfolio materials to support your input to the festival. This will involve advancing your skills in creating professional CVs, show reels, online profiles and critical reflection of their suitability for your chosen career pathway. You will then identify an appropriate role for yourself as part of the festival team and will take responsibility for associated tasks, including the curation or polishing of existing work and working as an ensemble member in the creation new work for presentation at the festival. This will involve a production process, supervised by a member of staff. In the second period of the module, you will develop, rehearse, design, market and realise a piece of performance, which might be based on a published play text or musical theatre book, an adaptation from other source materials or an original devised piece. These works will form the core of the festival and inform the curation of other events, such as workshops, community performance and/or work presented by other students. The festival will be public facing and designed for an external audience. At this stage, you must show self-discipline, professionalism and full commitment to additional rehearsal and production sessions as the festival approaches.
View the full module definitionThe Undergraduate Major Project represents the culmination of study in the music and performing arts courses and allows students to engage in a substantial piece of individual research and/or creative work, focused on a topic relevant to their specific course. The project topic will be assessed for suitability to ensure sufficient academic challenge and satisfactory supervision by an academic member of staff. The chosen topic will require the student to identify/formulate problems and issues, conduct literature reviews, evaluate information, investigate and adopt suitable development methodologies, determine solutions, develop hardware, software and/or media artefacts as appropriate, develop a performance, process data, critically appraise and present their finding using a variety of media. Regular meetings with the project supervisor should take place, so that the project is closely monitored and steered in the right direction. You will be expected to display, in both your preparatory and your finished work, an advanced understanding of the methods, techniques, materials and processes available to your chosen media.
View the full module definitionThe individual Dissertation/Major Project module allows you to engage in a substantial piece of individual research and/or product development work, focused on a topic relevant to your specific discipline. The dissertation topic will be assessed for suitability to ensure sufficient academic challenge and satisfactory supervision by an academic member of staff. Your chosen topic will allow you to develop your identity as a researcher, critical-thinker, creative agent, and enhance your confidence and adaptability.
View the full module definitionYou will consider a range of plays from the period 1580 to 1642 in the light of issues of stage spectacle and representation in a variety of forms, including identity, sexuality, violence, and death. You will experience one of the greatest periods of dramatic writing that English literature has known, which has subsequently continued on the English stage under the UK’s great acting companies, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre. Primary texts will be taken from Shakespeare and his chief contemporaries, including a changing range of authors chosen from Thomas Kyd, George Chapman, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, John Marston, Thomas Middleton, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, John Webster, John Ford, Richard Brome, and James Shirley. You should check the reading list each year to determine specific plays. You will become familiar with relevant theory and criticism of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. In seminars you will be attentive to issues of performance, which can include active learning through play-reading and walking through a scene, or in independent learning through attending relevant performances or viewing film adaptations.
View the full module definitionOn this module you'll have the opportunity to specialise in an exciting period of literary history – the English Renaissance – and to pursue a thematic interest: the early modern literary fascination with magic. ‘Renaissance Magic’ explores the intersections between imaginative literature, science, religion and the occult, through the close study of various literary forms (from journal entries and essays, to epic poetry and drama) both canonical (including the works of Shakespeare, Jonson and Spenser) and more marginal (including seventeenth-century women’s writing, and anonymous alchemical poetry.) You'll be introduced to various aspects of magic/occult culture of the early modern period: attitudes toward angelology and demonology; the learned figure of the ‘Renaissance magus’; alchemy; the fascination with and persecution of witches; and early science fiction. The variety of different texts is designed to challenge perceptions of the ‘canon’, and to broaden views of what constituted ‘literature’ in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
View the full module definitionOn this module you'll focus on significant developments in contemporary theatre through detailed analysis and exploration of site-specific and immersive practices. You'll be asked to consider place and space as theoretical concepts and explore the influence of performance space on audience reception and on your own creative practices. You'll engage with a range of theoretical perspectives from theatre historians, performance scholars, philosophers and cultural geographers, and with a range of performance practices such as site-specific, promenade, immersive, digital and applied theatre. You'll take part in seminar discussions and reading group sessions, and a number of practice based workshops, off-site visits and theatre trips. These activities will allow you to develop a sophisticated understanding of the contemporary theatre context that you'll be entering after graduation, and working towards the assessment will allow you to imagine your own creative input to that context. You'll be asked to develop and thoroughly research your own idea for a new site-specific or immersive theatre performance. This will be assessed through an oral presentation in which you'll ‘pitch’ your creative idea, demonstrating its originality, thoughtful relationship to place, creative use of space and practical viability. This will allow you to be ambitious and work on a larger budget/scale production than you would usually be able to at this stage in your career. It will also develop a range of highly important transferable skills, such as presenting, budgeting, researching, exploring creative partnerships and fitting your work into the contemporary scene.
View the full module definitionThis module will develop your skills producing short dramatic works adapted for video. The videos produced may form part of your showreel after completing your degree. You will explore the preparation of video material for a variety of new media and accordingly develop basic video production skills. Regular video playback will allow for critical reflection on the work produced and highlight where improvements may be made in performances or choice of shots.
View the full module definitionThis module introduces you to a range of C20th and C21st literary representations of exile. To be in exile is to be banished from one’s home, to be displaced and/or estranged from one’s country, family, community, and even one’s self. Exile takes many forms: it can be literal or metaphorical; it can be enforced or self-imposed. Through close readings of novels, graphic novels, poetry, autobiography, and short stories, many of which were written by authors in exile, you will explore various forms of exile writing and consider various conditions and contexts of exile, including politics, race, sexuality, gender and disability. At the start of the module, you will be introduced to a range of theories of exile; you will explore these theories each week in relation to the selected literary texts and related themes of memory, home, identity, community, nostalgia, self, and language.
View the full module definitionOn this module, you'll study historical and contemporary works of crime and detective fiction in English. Texts will include classics of the genre, particularly from the ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction, being further attuned to how the genre accommodates female writers and writers of colour. Your key considerations will be the development of the genre across time, while being inclusive of new developments and contexts, especially gender, race, and national identity, and how these concerns are crafted by in the novel form. Your understanding of the representation of trauma, victim and police perspectives, and wider contexts of identity will be showcased in the final assessment.
View the full module definitionThis module explores the importance and significance of computer-mediated communication, digital media and contemporary communication methods. It explores how new technologies have changed the way we communicate with others. You'll be introduced to a wide range of theories and theoretical and analytical frameworks. As well as critical sociolinguistics and critical discourse analysis, this will also include more pragmatic approaches to the study of digital communication. You'll understand how these approaches could be meaningfully used to analyse real and authentic digital texts. The key employability skill developed in this module is the development of digital communication skills, which are of contemporary relevance and popularity
View the full module definitionWe live in a world dominated by media. Our first port of call when we want to know something is to Google it. Landmark books have shaped and influenced wide-ranging historical and contemporary issues such as the French Revolution, feminism and Black Lives Matter. Social media has played a central role in presidential elections, as well as been linked to a decline in people’s mental health. In this module you'll learn about the past, present and future of media and its role in society. Media is very broadly defined here to include the publishing industry, the internet, social media, TV, radio and many more. Each week, we will focus on one particular form of media and consider its history, before moving on to analyse its role in today’s society and its future. To do this, we will use a wide range of case studies relating to elections, referendums, conspiracies, celebrity culture, censorship, and many more. You'll develop a keen awareness of the importance of media from this and have a sound understanding of how the industries look today. This will put you one step ahead of many candidates on the job market as digital proficiency and understanding media is vital to many positions and businesses.
View the full module definitionThis module‘s focus will move chronologically but also thematically from 1880 to 2000. We'll open by examining late nineteenth-century concerns with the ‘new woman’, the male homosexual, and newly defined sexualities. We'll then move on to consider first-wave feminism, and the First World War in relation to issues of gender. A subsequent focus on the interwar period will cover the emergence of the ‘flapper’, anxieties about male effeminacy, male body building and the development of miscegenation fears – all fuelled by the ever-growing popular press. The effects of gender-differentiated (un)employment in this period will be analysed as well as the development of birth control, taking the work of Marie Stopes as a central focus. We'll examine the trial of The Well of Loneliness and the slow emergence of the idea of the lesbian. We'll investigate women’s role during the Second World War, including drawing on the reportage of Mass-Observation. For the post-war years, we'll consider relations between, and reaction to, British women and African-Caribbean men. The 1950s’ Wolfenden Report offers an opening to the discussion of male homosexuality and prostitution in this period and beyond. The so-called swinging ‘60s and sexual ‘permissiveness’ will be followed by an examination of the rise of the Women’s Liberation Movement and Gay Liberation in the 1970s. We'll look, too, at how feminism developed on from the 1970s up until the turn of the century. This overview of the history of gender and sexuality in modern Britain in the period 1880-2000 will allow you to appreciate how sexuality needs to be understood as socially constructed and regulated, as well as always historically specific. The module will also enable you to appreciate the shifts in the ways in which men and women have conceived of their appropriate ‘roles’, paying attention to differences of class, race, ethnicity, geographical location, sexuality and age. Analysis of certain primary sources will enrich this understanding. The module is taught through lectures and seminars, and is assessed by an oral history essay and the report of an in-class presentation.
View the full module definitionIn this module, you'll take as a starting point the need to be critical about literature written for young audiences, including early years and YA fiction. You'll read children’s literature primarily as literature, instead of as a contributing factor towards childhood development. Children’s books have been controversial since their inception. Your special focus on this module will be to investigate a historical sweep of controversial books, including banned ones, and the reasons behind their censorship. We'll explore primary texts from the ‘Golden Age’ of children’s literature in the nineteenth- and early-twentieth centuries and form more contemporary works. You'll engage with changing historical constructs of childhood and the generic fluidity of children’s and fantasy literature.
View the full module definitionThis module will encourage you to examine and explore teaching and leading participatory workshops in drama and the performing arts. You'll gain practical experience and skills that can be applied as a practicing professional in educational, professional and community contexts. The module will also equip you with theoretical and methodological knowledge relevant to a workshop leader and enable you to practice and develop confidence in delivering effective and well-prepared sessions. Topic areas may include philosophies of education, the sociological and psychological elements of arts pedagogy and the variety of contexts for drama and performing arts workshop education. You'll be expected to reflect on the responsibilities of leadership in creative contexts and develop enhanced skills for future employability. You'll develop skills in independent learning, research and communication of process and product throughout the module. Your assessment will comprise live workshop facilitation, in which you'll lead aspects of a prepared workshop (approximately 15 minutes) and a 1,000-word critical refection that evaluates and contextualises your workshop facilitation. As part of the module, you might be invited to identify a work placement as a workshop facilitator. This can be undertaken either in ‘sandwich’ mode during the semester or in a ‘block’ during the Easter vacation. The nature of your involvement in the placement should contribute to your ongoing reflection as well as your final, assessed workshop facilitation.
View the full module definitionOn this module you'll explore a range of contemporary performance and live art practices that are challenging, often controversial and sometimes disturbing. You'll examine how the body can be explicitly staged in performance art and the ways in which it can be a vehicle for expressing identity positions that are marginalised within dominant western culture. As such, you'll encounter contemporary performance practices that articulate racial, gender, transgender, queer, disabled and refugee identity positions. You'll consider the ethical implications of this practice, its relationship to its audience and its effectiveness as a strategy of resistance to mainstream stereotypes. Content may include the extremism of live art by Franko B, Ron Athey, Kira O’Reilly and Marina Abramovic; activist interventions by Richard Dedemonici and Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping; representations of race in Brett Bailey’s Exhibit B; queer identities in Split Britches’ Belle Reprieve; transgender performance by Heather Cassils and the representation of disability in dance works by Bill Shannon. In seminars, you'll explore the relationships between performance, the body and identity through a combination of videos, web material, reviews, interviews and critical essays from major theorists in the field. Your assessment will comprise a 3,000-word essay, with advance formative assessment by tutorial appointments to discuss your plans, arguments and case-studies. The practitioners that you'll study may deploy shock-tactics in the delivery of their work - you'll be expected to be intellectually curious, ask questions about this work and be open to new ideas, practices and processes.
View the full module definitionKnowledge of a foreign language can be a major asset both in your academic and professional life. The Anglia Language Programme offers you the opportunity to study a foreign language as part of your course.