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 definitionThe module will introduce you to techniques for developing and sustaining creative writing and show you how to practice these techniques in your own short fiction, poetry and dramatic writing. There will be an emphasis on analysing imaginative texts to understand what makes them effective for different audiences and on practical writing exercises. Your practical work will address the processes, content, structure and formal features of imaginative writing genres. You will be given guidance on making use of journals and notebooks, on reading widely to inform creative writing practice and on engaging in constructive criticism. As the module progresses, you will explore the special techniques and conventions of writing short fiction, poetry and dramatic writing. Using critical skills developed through wide reading and from workshop analysis, you will re-draft your own work and produce a critical commentary evaluating the creative processes that you have pursued, analysing specific techniques used in your portfolio of imaginative writing, and identifying areas for future development.
View the full module definitionThe module is designed to equip you with the skill base to make an entry level submission to the industry, both in schemes for new writers and relevant competitions. You'll be expected to develop your own original idea for a short film, to this end it is vital that you acquire a real understanding of the form. The first half of the course will be spent analysing a range of short films and to understand how story ideas are generated and developed into a workable template. You'll then progress onto developing your own original idea in second half of the course.
View the full module definitionThis module demystifies the publishing industry and the author promotion activities of the literary world. It covers the process of being published, the different roles in publishing and types of publishing, cultural trends, and how books reach readers in a digital media environment. You'll learn about national and international publishing from small presses and independents to imprints and the ‘Big Five’. Through practical publishing exercises, you'll gain useful transferable skills such as developing ideas into engaging book concepts, editing your own work, and writing concisely.
View the full module definitionOn 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 definitionEntering 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.
In this module you’ll learn the tools of effective short fiction writing, beginning with the literary short story and moving on to explore short fiction for younger readers and some areas of genre fiction. You will understand the scope and the conventions of short fiction in English through analysis of a diverse range of classic and contemporary examples. You’ll look at the creative process from the collection of ideas at the notebook stage to the production and editing of a finished narrative, and you will engage in this process by maintaining a reading journal and writer's notebook where responses to literature that is read, and created, are recorded.
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 definitionOn this module you will study how nineteenth-century literary texts respond to environmental change. You will trace the literary responses to global and mass industrialisation and to climate events such as the year without summer in 1816, following on from the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815. Moving through texts in roughly chronological order, you will consider emerging understandings of nature and the environment in Romantic and Victorian texts before turning to fin de siècle apocalyptic writings. Through the module, you will learn to evaluate the field of ecocriticism and to integrate approaches and lenses as you assess the significance of reading nineteenth-century poetry, fiction, prose, and life-writing in a time of climate emergency.
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 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.
In this module you will be introduced to the art of creative non-fiction. You'll explore the art of the essay as it has developed in the English Language and explore the concept of what creative non-fiction is. Using the key text, and additional collections, you'll explore issues of style, research, and personal expression as we investigate various genres of creative non-fiction writing including travel and food writing, writing about history, and science writing for lay audiences. You will practice applying fiction-writing skills such as characterisation, point of view choices, description, and plotting to non-fiction narratives. In class, you will participate in workshopping your ideas and drafts. We will further discuss platforms, contexts, and readerships in the current market.
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 definitionThe module aims to develop your skills in web-based journalism and online media production using a range of online media formats. Through a series of topic led discussions, reading, class exercises and small project briefs you will examine the language and practice of new/digital media and reflect on its uses. Online Journalism is presented as a distinct practice involving the use of a variety of writing styles from multimedia content to interactive and social media. The module includes examples from factual and non-factual content and addresses a range of topics including fake/false news, blogging, vlogging, the rise of the image driven web, implications of media sharing, online communities, citizen journalism, personal online profile management, digital storytelling, working with images, building a freelance career.
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.
In this module you’ll gain the technical skills required in the writing of poetry by facilitating a flexible use of traditional forms and rhythms. You’ll look at contemporary and modern poetry and explore important developments in technique and learn to appreciate the benefits of close reading to open up possibilities for language use. Seminar workshops focus on reading poetry and on creative exercises, aimed at helping to develop sophisticated approaches to the relationship between form and content.
View the full module definitionIn this module you'll look at a range of texts written in the last 10 years, examining formal and thematic issues and the relationships between them. You'll consider narrative experimentation and the recycling of old stories and forms; the representation of and return to history; posthumanism and the limits of the human; globalisation and technology. The module will invite you to consider the power and role of literature in contemporary society and the impact of literary prize culture on publishing and publicity. It will encourage you to reflect upon literary developments that have led to 21st-century writing and thus the texts’ relationship to those studied on other modules on the degree. Since there is inevitably an absence of established critical texts on the contemporary works studied, you'll consider alternative sources of critical opinion (academic journals, the internet, broadsheet and broadcast journalism), existing relevant theoretical material and the ways in which new novels demand and shape new criticism. Each seminar will begin with one or more student presentations incorporating close reading, a thematic focus and critical issue. The presentations will be followed by close reading and discussion of related texts in the seminar group. These activities will allow you to develop your analytical skills as well as your abilities in communicating the research and analysis that you will apply to the literatures under discussion. Working with other students in class you will develop your social capital and critical skills in whole and small group discussions. You will develop your sense of identity as a critical and adaptable thinker, problem-solver, researcher and creative agent as you apply theoretical material to the primary literatures under discussion.
View the full module definitionThis module is compulsory for all students studying Writing as a single subject and optional for those taking Writing in combination with another subject. you will be expected to work independently, with guidance from an approved adviser or mentor, to produce a longer piece of writing or coherent set of shorter pieces. This may be in any genre, including imaginative writing, creative non-fiction or professional writing, provided that a suitable consultant can be found to support the project. Approval may also be given for a major editorial project, for example leadership of the university writers magazine. Three seminar sessions will support you through the main stages of your project, enabling you to review strategies and content. A maximum of 4 hours individual consultation time is available to each student in addition to the seminars. Arrangements for consultation meetings are the responsibility of the individual student. Work towards the final project consists of four overlapping stages: reading and research (including consideration of audience) resulting in project proposal; drafting (with further reading and research as necessary); editing, re-drafting and more specific audience engagement; reflection and critical evaluation. Your work towards these stages will be reviewed in the seminar sessions. You will need to produce a proposal accompanied by extracts from your reading journal at an early stage in the project. You will submit this directly to your individual supervisor, and it will not be formally assessed.
The 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 English Literature. The dissertation 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 you 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, process data, critically appraise and present their findings using a variety of media. All of these activities will allow you to develop your identity as a researcher, critical-thinker, creative agent, and enhance your confidence and adaptability. You will realise the broader cultural capital of the module by making clear links between managing a Major Project and real-world project management as you conceive of, design, plan, manage and produce your Major Project. The focus of this module is independent learning. However, supervisions will take place so that your dissertation/project is closely monitored and steered in the right direction. In total, you will receive 6 hours of individual supervision with your supervisor. Supervisions may take place by phone, email, Skype or other media, and include the supervisor’s reading time for any draft work submitted. Supervisions will allow you to develop social capital by working closely alongside a member of teaching staff and receiving - and giving - constructive feedback. They will also offer you opportunities for feedback on your work and ideas, allowing you to adapt to the challenges of the module and develop strategies for planning and completing your assessment. Your assessment will normally include a substantial self-devised written element.
This module will introduce you to the work of Elizabeth Gaskell and the Brontë sisters and to literary and cinematic adaptations of their fiction. You will begin by reading Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë alongside Lucasta Miller’s The Brontë Myth and by assessing the way in which the ‘Brontë myth’ has been sustained by different generations of readers. We will also look in detail at the diverse literary outputs of Gaskell and the Brontës. Through this, there will be a focus on the ways in which the four writers engage with their cultural contexts. In addition to thinking about the issues involved in debates about religion, education, social change, gender and familial and romantic relationships, you will be asked to consider the novels through the lens of disability theory and to assess their treatment of Imperialism and Empire. The final part of the module will involve an introduction to theories of adaptation and to rewritings and cinematic adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South.
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 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 definitionYou should take this Employability module if you have had employment, want employment, need a CV, or have ever wondered how to connect what you do at university with what you have done in the workplace. If you have been on an international exchange, you can use that experience for this module too. English literature connects with every aspect of human activity, including the workplace. In addition to being a subject that provides you with a great range of transferable skills, it also engages in deepening a person’s social and cultural capital. Literature is about every part of the human experience and this makes it one of the most valuable degrees to possess - it help shapes your identity, as a broad range of ideas are examined through a thousand years of English Literature. Literature necessary engages with the world of paid work and this module helps you examine those links as well as gain credit for any work that you do. The CV and covering letter you will create can be used, and reused, after your degree, adapting to the needs of the jobs you apply for. This module requires you to complete 35 hours of work in any field, full or part time, by the end of your degree. The 35 hours worked do not have to be consecutive and might be excerpts from periods with various employers. Students with more limited CVs are encouraged to aim for work experience in areas that will aid disenfranchised people or are at prominent companies. Doing well in this module will be achieved through ambition; evidence of analysis in your work journal and having a tight and interesting covering letter and CV. This is potentially the most useful module that you will take as it will help you earn money and to apply for employment after university.
The Romantic period heralded not only the beginnings of the Modern world, but it also looked towards futures and ideals that humans have not yet obtained: slavery still exists, and yet it was banned in this period; Britain passed the first animal rights legislation in Law, but species are still disappearing and the human relationship with other animals remains uneasy. This was a period in which old ways were sometimes driven out and everything seemed up for grabs. Even time was altered. In revolutionary France the old 24-hour clock disappeared, making way for a new decimal clock with 100 minutes in the hour, 10 hours in the day, 10 days in the week and three weeks in the month. This module will help you to engage in fresh critical thinking about ideas that you might never have imagined as well as your position within society. Ideals examined include: Human perfectibility; Veganism; Animal Rights; Women’s rights; Children’s rights; Slavery; Human stratification; Disenfranchisement; the Natural Environment; the purpose of life; jealousy; the Imagination.
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 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 definitionStarting with an exploration of the various modes within which film journalism functions, you'll explore the world of professional film journalism, enabling you to create original features for a variety of readerships in a range of media. Seminars are structured around an exercise designed to illustrate - with the aid of examples from the professional context - how to work with editors; planning and structuring interviews; developing, drafting and revising reviews and features; tailoring output according to a professional brief and/or a specific audience type; and developing a personal style. You will understand the practicalities of professional journalism in print and other media, with examples drawn from mainstream and specialist sources, at national, regional and local level.
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 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.
In this module you'll develop knowledge and skills necessary for the understanding and creation of fictional worlds, the basis for a range of creative writing, editing, teaching, and reviewing undertakings. The module will focus in one trimester on the creation of a fictional past through historical fiction, and in the other on the creation of wholly invented worlds through speculative fiction and explore the links between the two in terms of research, ethics, plausibility, consistency, imagination, and verisimilitude. You will delve into the similarities between the techniques, aims, audiences, and outcomes of historical fiction, often described as a ‘realist’ genre, and ‘non-realist’ speculative fiction. Historical Fiction: in this segment of the module, you'll study the skills and techniques needed to create successful historical fiction for a range of media (prose, tv, film, radio, games, etc.). You will be asked to consider the ethical issues which arise while trying to create a fictional 'historical past', beginning with a consideration of the adage that the present reinterprets history for its own purposes, and consider the degree to which depiction via the novel, film, games, and other comparatively recent platforms is in itself an intervention in the past. You'll experiment with different techniques for conjuring the past with reference to setting, voice, and character as well as food, manners and mores. You will be asked to consider the needs of different audiences and different platforms, such as the demands of a staged play or the differences between the scope of a short story and a novel. Further, you will explore crossover historical fiction and how its conventions can work together with those of genres such as crime and fantasy. You will be expected to engage in primary and secondary research for your work and to reflect on how you incorporate such research into your writing. Speculative fiction: in this segment of the module, you'll be introduced to the craft of writing speculative fiction, focusing on fantasy, science fiction, and horror. You'll explore what it means to write within a genre, whether the lines between genres are clear cut or blurred, and reflect upon what this means specifically for the writer of speculative fiction. You will be introduced to the specific skills needed by a writer of speculative fiction: such as how to build convincing worlds; how to invent convincing histories, literatures, and societies; how to avoid cliché in the writing and creation of unreal places; and how writers of speculative fiction map, explore, populate, and imagine fully their unreal worlds.
View the full module definitionThis module will explore the various essentials of being a working writer. We will look at different kinds of income available to working writers, including stipends attached to residencies, revenue from publishing and self-publishing, freelance writing and editing opportunities, and funding from arts charities. You'll learn how to develop an online presence through web design and use of social media, including how to use online tools to build a network of writers, artists, and industry professionals. With these resources in mind, we will also discuss festivals, conventions, and other literary events. You will build toward a portfolio of curated and new work that you can use to present yourself.
View the full module definitionThis module introduces you to the process of writing a novel. You'll approach the project from idea conception and then progress to the development of elements including plot, main character/protagonist, conflict, setting, and other narrative choices. Class meetings will be split between discussion of these elements and directed writing sprints, giving you the opportunity to work individually in a writing-community setting. In addition to writing in class, you will also strengthen your critiquing skills by workshopping your classmates’ writing. The module will also develop your synopsis and query-letter writing skills as you explore the role of agents and editors in the publishing industry and the routes towards novel publication.
View the full module definitionThis module builds on the skills you have acquired in Screenwriting: The Short Film at Level 4 and Script to Screen at Level 5. Through small group work and discussion with the seminar leader, you'll develop an original screenplay idea. The module will cover basic narrative conventions, including the role of conflict, the line of action and plot reversals, character building, and atmosphere. You'll be encouraged to experiment with the representation of place, space and time, and build in subplots when appropriate. You'll be expected to consider your target audience, and will be given the opportunity to explore the role of genre as a means of making narrative choices.
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