English Literature BA (Hons) — 2027 entry

This module explores the varied formal and technical challenges facing creative writers, examining the affordances and constraints of different modes of writing and the cultural, historical and theoretical contexts which impact upon how texts (including prose fiction, poetry, screenplays and dramatic scripts) are written and understood, and to translate this understanding into more effective creative practice.

This is a module for Level 5 students in the School of  Literature and Languages. It is taught over one semester, with three contact hours per teaching week.The module considers a range of approaches to teaching English as a Foreign Language, approaches which can be applied to the teaching of other languages. It provides practice and assessment in lesson planning and in teaching through peer teaching tasks. The skills developed on the module such as speaking in front of groups and decision making are transferable to a number of other careers. The module is capped at 14 students in each semester.  

This module gives students a broad and deep understanding of nineteenth-century literature in relation to a range of social, cultural and political contexts. Following a roughly chronological trajectory the module picks up key issues (industrialisation, the impacts of empire, faith and doubt) and examines them through key texts and authors of the period. The module pushes students to think in nuanced ways about the relationship between text and context and about the cultural forces which have promoted or marginalised historical voices.

This is a practical introduction to translation from French to English. Students will be introduced to some basic concepts and terminology in translation and will learn through translating short texts from French to English and writing reflective commentaries on translation issues. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in translating from French to English and will develop their ability to analyse and interpret texts and to recognise and resolve translation issues, using appropriate translation resources. Texts will be contemporary and will cover a range of text types, chosen to illustrate a wide variety of translation problems as well as to introduce aspects of Francophone cultures.

This is a practical introduction to translation from Spanish to English. Students will be introduced to some basic concepts and terminology in translation and will learn through translating short texts from Spanish to English and writing reflective commentaries on translation issues. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in translating from Spanish to English and will develop their ability to analyse and interpret texts and to recognise and resolve translation issues, using appropriate translation resources. Texts will be contemporary and will cover a range of text types, chosen to illustrate a wide variety of translation problems as well as to introduce aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures.

This module explores elements of poetic craft, discourse, and techniques for writing poetry through the close analysis of lyric, narrative, dramatic, and hybrid modes in contemporary poetry written for the page and / or performance and exhibition. The module introduces students to contemporary and innovative discussions including topics such as formal and free poetic structures, sound effect and rhythm, poetic voice and persona, writing communities, poetic intent and play. The module asks students to engage with the development of their own writing alongside of reading and listening to contemporary poetry, essays, and manifestos by chosen 'companion poets' they will encounter in the module.

This innovative, interdisciplinary and university-wide module explores multiple aspects of popular culture in the contemporary world. The module considers how and why some works acquire the status of popular culture and how these works permeate everyday life. Through an overview of contemporary issues and approaches to popular culture in social, literary, filmic, musical and sociological contexts, you will consider the values inherent in some cultural works, and how these transform to reflect societal preoccupations. You will examine case studies from Dickens through Disney to the Diva, considering the creative choices and the critical reception. This module will equip you with a sophisticated understanding of the academic approaches to culture which will inform and illuminate your work in other disciplines. In particular the module embeds the University Pillars of Resourcefulness & Resilience, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities. This original module is delivered by staff specialising in diverse forms of popular culture across the university, including from the Department of Music and Media, School of Literature and Languages and GSA.

This module explores a range of literary texts produced in England at the end of the Middle Ages, paying particular attention to issues of language, gender, race, social status, travel, and religion. It explores the relationship between the self and the other, focusing on ideas of perfection and monstrosity, and the divine and the demonic within the Middle English texts that we¿ll be reading. The module explores three interrelated themes that speak to the historical, social, and religious contexts of late Medieval English literature: 1) Monstrous Masculinities and Femininities 2) Travellers' Tales: Encountering the Other and 3) Visions of Another Order.Alongside analysing examples the literature of the period, you will practice translating passages from late medieval literary texts in the workshops. In addition to the set primary texts, you will examine relevant examples from historical texts and visual that help to further illuminate these three thematic strands. 

This innovative and interdisciplinary module explores social justice in contemporary society, and how people and communities have worked towards achieving it. The module will focus on different forms of systemic injustice, and we will look at their intersections by considering notions such as race, gender, class, migration and identity. You will explore how social justice has been addressed from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. This will allow you to appreciate how each perspective offers specific critical and imaginative tools to pursue equality and justice in our society. Throughout the semester, you will engage with a diverse set of critical works and reading/viewing materials from disciplines such as literature, sociology, cultural studies, music and media studies, and environmental studies.The thematic units of the module will be taught by lecturers who specialise in the topics and themes under study. Each unit will focus on a particular aspect of social justice so that you will be exposed to multiple and innovative theories and approaches. By the end of the module, you will be able to bring into dialogue these approaches with your own interests and disciplinary focus.

The Gothic has been a fixture of British and American literary history and popular culture from its origins in the eighteenth century, and continues to capture and haunt the human imagination. Straddling both ¿high¿ and ¿low¿ art forms, appealing to elite as well as mass audiences, the Gothic thrives on blurring boundaries and dissolving traditional dichotomies ¿ between, for example, self and other, human and inhuman, civilisation and savagery, public and private identities This optional level 5 module focuses on Gothic literary and cultural production from Horace Walpole¿s 1764 seminal Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto up to the stylized Goth aesthetic and obsession with true crime Gothic figures in twenty-first-century cinema and television. Drawing on a variety of literary and visual texts this module demonstrates how Gothic fictions are born out of hyper-tense socio-political and psychological states, symbolising and expressing anxieties about class, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality and gender. Gothic texts are situated in their historical, biographical, geographical and global contexts, offering a nuanced understanding of the proliferation of the genre across periods, disciplines and borders. As well as exploring famous Gothic figures of the vampire and the zombie, we also consider the Gothic as a mode of writing, and as a mode of cultural engagement with the traumas of post/modernity. The module confronts topics including otherness and the limits of the human, monstrous doubling, the horrors of addiction, grotesque transformation, and the ethics and dangers of science. It traces the evolution of the Gothic, covering: Gothic origin; European Gothic; Gothic satire; Romantic and Neo/Victorian Gothic; Female and Feminist Gothic; American and African-American Gothic; and Goth culture. Through studying the texts, debates and themes of the module, and through the assessments, you will develop transferable skills in critical thinking and reading, independent research and groupwork, presentation and communication, digital capabilities and analytical writing.

Building on the introduction to modernism covered in the first-year core modules, this module explores a period in literature that was to bring innovation across the spectrum of cultural endeavour. Through a range of exciting and innovative works of literature from around the world, you will be introduced to the key ideas underlying the theories and practises of modernist writers in the period between 1900 and 1945. By exploring the concept of multiple global modernisms, the module builds global and cultural skills that will enable you to critically engage with the key themes central to modernist thought. As well as acquiring in-depth knowledge of the individual texts on the module, you will be able to develop a sense of how movements in modernist literature relate both to each other and to other disciplines such as philosophy, economics, politics, and art. Through the independent research undertaken for assessment and a particular focus on the skills required for advanced secondary source research, this module will also develop resourcefulness and digital skills.

This module allows you to explore various modes of storytelling in a contemporary context, with a view to developing your narrative skills. The course will engage with contemporary fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, and theatre and will help you to to investigate and understand the multiple ways readers and writers engage with storytelling and narrative. There will be lectures on each topic, with workshop-style seminars that are designed to help you engage with and analyse your own writing and the writing of others, with the aim of helping students to hone your ability to edit and create. 

Following on from the brief introductions to Romanticism at Level 4 , this module allows students to explore in more depth and detail the profound literary and cultural innovations that took place in the Romantic period (roughly, 1789-1830), and which continue to shape culture and society today. The module forms part of a set of historically focused pre-1900 ‘period’ modules that focus on specific literary periods as a way of studying literature: students must take at least one of these modules to complement the more contemporary focus of other modules, so as to gain greater knowledge of both the evolution of English literature over time and the variant forms and concerns of literature in different historical periods. Examining a broad range of canonical and non-canonical Romantic texts (and thus highlighting the diversity of authors and styles in the period), the module each week uses a selection of representative writers to explore a key form or theme: for example, Nature, imagination, the self and subjectivity, sentimentalism and feeling, and shifting notions of masculinity and femininity. Famous writers such as Blake, Wordsworth, Keats and Byron are read alongside authors who are less well known today (for example, Charlotte Smith, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Ignatius Sancho and Henry Derozio) to give students a rich, synchronic understanding of the key concerns, debates, alliances and animosities distinctive to this specific period in British literary history. At the same time, students explore the global contexts and connections driving the evolution of English literature and of British culture more broadly in this period, and they also consider the ongoing relevance of Romantic-era concerns and debates to 21st century society (for example, Romantic writers’ diverse reactions to increasing globalization, and the emergence of modern environmental and conservationist thinking).

This module takes students off campus and into local schools. They work closely with MFL or English Literature teachers, shadowing them or taking small groups of school students, and gaining an insight into the teaching profession. This module complements ELA2012 Introduction to TEFL, by allowing students to see teaching strategies and techniques in the real world. The Module has the backing of the "Undergraduate Ambassadors Scheme" (www.uas.ac.uk).

This module aims to explore a variety of neo-Victorian texts to examine how the legacy of the Victorians continues to inform contemporary culture. Students will be asked to consider the significance of neo-Victorian writing in the context of postmodernity and will analyse the literary, cultural and commercial impacts of the genre. The module will begin by considering early examples of neo-Victorian texts that emerged in the 1950s and 60s before exploring the expansion of the genre in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It will cover a range of neo-Victorian productions including novels, poetry, film and TV adaptations that are informed by well-known Victorian texts in order to examine the wider cultural impact of contemporary engagements with the Victorian period, and will ask students to analyse issues of race, class, gender and sexuality which are interrogated and challenged by neo-Victorian works. The module draws upon and enhances the core knowledge and research skills acquired in second year Victorian Literature focussed modules. As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years.

This module explores the meanings and developments of science fiction throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as focusing on the relationship between this innovative form and the cultural, political, ethical and ecological sustainability issues addressed in the texts. Discussion and analysis will focus not only on what worlds or peoples are imagined in science fiction and why, but also on how such core features of science fiction have been developed, challenged and reconfigured by various political and historical movements and events (such as the cold war, feminism, black civil rights movements, gay liberation, imperial endeavours, global warming and other ecological sustainability narratives, among others). The module will give particular attention to technological developments and their relationship to the human, addressing the ways in which the human is rethought and reimagined through its interaction with technological innovation. Themes that will be addressed may include alternative futurisms, artificial intelligence, body modifications, alien species and/or worlds, dystopian and utopian imaginaries, future technologies, technology and sustainability, technology and identity and struggles for freedom. Science fiction will therefore be engaged with through the lens of contemporary theories (such as postcolonialism, gender studies, ecocriticism and posthumanism), as well as with attention to changing interpretations of the meaning of the genre in its diverse socio-political and global cultural contexts.  This module connects to other contemporary literature modules on the programme in your second year and is part of the contemporary literature route that students can choose as a focus of their degree, which includes module in the first and final years of the degree. As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years.

This is a practical introduction to translation from English to French. Students will learn to express some basic concepts and terminology in translation in French and will learn through translating short texts from English to French and writing reflective commentaries on translation issues. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in translating from English to French and will develop their ability to analyse and interpret texts and to recognise and resolve translation issues, using appropriate translation resources. Texts will be contemporary and will cover a range of text types, chosen to illustrate a wide variety of translation problems and enhance cultural awareness.

This is a practical introduction to translation from English to Spanish. Students will learn to express some basic concepts and terminology in translation in Spanish and will learn through translating short texts from English to Spanish and writing reflective commentaries on translation issues. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in translating from English to Spanish and will develop their ability to analyse and interpret texts and to recognise and resolve translation issues, using appropriate translation resources. Texts will be contemporary and will cover a range of text types, chosen to illustrate a wide variety of translation problems and enhance cultural awareness.

Sociolinguistics explores language as a social phenomenon, examining both how social factors affect language, and what language can tell us about society. This module introduces students to the interaction between language and society. We start by considering the linguist variables that reflect our social identity, before examining how speaker’s responses to external social factors influences the way in which languages are used, lost and standardized. This module is taught in English at FHEQ Level 5. Introduction to Sociolinguistics builds on themes in linguistics introduced at throughout modules taught at Level 4 and provides in-depth preparation for Level 6 modules that focus in detail on the sociolinguistics of specific languages including French and Spanish.

Communication is a key skill in the information society, from making sense of the world around you to making yourself heard in different settings, including university, work, with friends and family, and in society. This module will introduce students to key concepts in communication as they are relevant to communicating in 21st century society. Accounting for the fact that most of our communication is mediated in some way, the module will give students a strong contextual understanding in mediated communication. This is followed by an interdisciplinary approach to communication in which students will learn about the way we communicate and understand communication in a range of areas, including business, medical settings, science, language, and psychology.

The module asks students what it means to write a life. We consider the function of auto/biography and the ways in which its writers have reflected on the possibilities of truth-telling, the significance of subjectivity and the distillation of narrative from the everyday. It explores writing that bears witness to war and injustice, that blurs the lines between fact and fiction, and re-makes the self through bold experimentation with language. The module examines a variety of forms and modes that Life Writing might take - biography, autobiography, diaries, poetry, journals and others ¿ and gives students the opportunity to create and/or analyse these forms in their assessment.

This is an innovative module offered to students of all disciplines across the University of Surrey, regardless of prior musical experience, which explores multiple aspects of music in contemporary culture. Through an overview of contemporary issues and academic approaches to the appreciation of today¿s music, you will consider the relationship between music, culture, and society, emphasising critical listening, cultural context, and music¿s relationships with other disciplines. Case studies will be drawn from areas including popular music, film and television music, musical theatre, experimental music, classical music, and opera, together with the intersections and crossovers between these genres. This module will equip you with a sophisticated understanding of the academic approaches to music and contemporary culture which will inform and illuminate your work in other disciplines. It will be delivered primarily through lectures (incorporating class discussion) by specialist staff from the Department of Music and Media, supplemented by guest talks from industry professionals and trips to relevant musical events.

Environmental literature is deeply entwined with queer, decolonial and intersectional perspectives: Place and race, space and class, feminist and LGBTQIA2s+* issues, all meet in the queer ecologies we will explore in this module. We will learn about the (queer) history of writing about the environment, about the role of protest in literature and about how describing the world around us in texts actually changes the shape of the natural and built environment. Building on skills and knowledge you have acquired in previous modules on literary history and on theoretical approaches, the module aims to expand your knowledge of global ecocritical and queer writing and theory and to enable you to critically analyse contemporary depictions of climate change dystopias, of human and non-human animal relationships, of protest poetry, and of queer environmental fiction. We will discuss novels, poetry, performances, Youtube videos, as well as the odd social media account, and always combine our readings with a specific theoretical concept to help you learn how to put knowledge into practice. Since the module will also give you some insight into research communication, you will have the option of creating a research-based podcast as your final assessment. The module will include a workshop on podcasting, which will teach you new digital skills and enable you to develop an independent project, potentially in cooperation with collaborators outside of the seminar room. You will also contribute to a collaborative digital glossary, taking charge of creating a communal knowledge resource with formative feedback from your lecturer and comments and questions from fellow students. This module is part of a global strand embedded in our programme, which will help students develop global sensitivity and appreciation for cultural and linguistic diversity. We will discuss a global and culturally diverse range of primary texts, as well as theory texts, and cover, for example, Indigenous knowledges from different parts of the planet.

This module introduces students to a range of creative and critical strands and debates related to contemporary Shakespearean performance. These may include global and intercultural Shakespeare, adaptations on stage and screen, applied Shakespeare, gender - and colour-blind Shakespeare, cultural politics and ethics. Drawing on relevant critical debates on how and why Shakespeare is performed today within diverse and multicultural societies, students will be able to engage with case-studies of UK and international productions and artists. The module will pay attention to key terms such as diversity, diaspora, hybridity and inclusivity and enable students to draw on these in informed critical analysis and discussion.

This module explores the relationship between national and imperial identities in literature from the 1850s to 1890s by writers from Britain and beyond, including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, Behramji Malabari and James Africanus Horton. The module introduces students to contextual debates about the nation-state and its imperial engagements, and seeks to understand how authors respond and contribute to these ideas through literature both from within and beyond Britain. The module engages with these themes through a focus on concepts of space and mobility, using literary journeys as a way into understanding how novelists construct a dialogue between national and imperial spaces in literary texts. It draws upon and enhances the core knowledge and research skills acquired in second year Victorian Literature focussed modules. As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years.

This innovative, interdisciplinary and university-wide module explores multiple aspects of popular culture in the contemporary world. The module considers how and why some works acquire the status of popular culture and how these works permeate everyday life. Through an overview of contemporary issues and approaches to popular culture in social, literary, filmic, musical and sociological contexts, you will consider the values inherent in some cultural works, and how these transform to reflect societal preoccupations. You will examine case studies from Dickens through Disney to the Diva, considering the creative choices and the critical reception. This module will equip you with a sophisticated understanding of the academic approaches to culture which will inform and illuminate your work in other disciplines. In particular the module embeds the University Pillars of Resourcefulness & Resilience, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities. This original module is delivered by staff specialising in diverse forms of popular culture across the university, including from the Department of Music and Media, School of Literature and Languages and GSA.

The Beat Generation writers scandalised and shocked mid-20th Century American culture, challenging societal norms of gender, politics, religion and spirituality, race, sexuality, sex, drugs and music alongside proposing radical literary practices that struck at the heart of polite literary society. They, and their writings, were seen as wild, unpredictable, dangerous and transgressive. This was the birth of youth culture. In this course, students will be introduced to key aspects of and movements in Beat writing, through the techniques employed by the writers themselves, from the spontaneous writing of Jack Kerouac, the paranoia cut-up methods of William Burroughs, the visionary ‘madness’ of Allen Ginsberg to the writings on gender and race of Anne Waldman, John Wieners and Leroi Jones. Alongside this we will look at the writing practices of the Beat writers of the San Francisco Renaissance, for example the beast language of Michael McClure and the Zen poetics of Gary Snyder. In each workshop we will first spend some time discussing the set texts and the techniques employed by those writers concerned, before moving on to the workshop part of the class where students will produce work in accordance with the task set for that week. We will read and discuss a selection of pieces at the end of each class. At the end of the semester students will produce a creative portfolio of Beat or Beat-inspired writing, alongside a critical essay and commentary reflecting on the creative work produced and using theories, concepts and practices studied on the module, OR an academic critical essay examining some aspect of the Beat Writing phenomenon. This module connects to other contemporary literature modules on the programme in the 2nd and final year where the emphasis is on 20th and 21st Century approaches to creating and examining literatures and our cultural responses to them. As such, it is part of the contemporary literature route that students can choose as a focus of their degree. As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years.

This innovative and interdisciplinary module explores social justice in contemporary society, and how people and communities have worked towards achieving it. The module will focus on different forms of systemic injustice, and we will look at their intersections by considering notions such as race, gender, class, migration and identity. You will explore how social justice has been addressed from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. This will allow you to appreciate how each perspective offers specific critical and imaginative tools to pursue equality and justice in our society. Throughout the semester, you will engage with a diverse set of critical works and reading/viewing materials from disciplines such as literature, sociology, cultural studies, music and media studies, and environmental studies.The thematic units of the module will be taught by lecturers who specialise in the topics and themes under study. Each unit will focus on a particular aspect of social justice so that you will be exposed to multiple and innovative theories and approaches. By the end of the module, you will be able to bring into dialogue these approaches with your own interests and disciplinary focus.

This interdisciplinary module, focused on Victorian creative partnerships, explores connections between texts, individuals, couples, circles and movements. It investigates the ways in which female and male figures worked in various forms of partnership: as spouses, siblings, friends and lovers. It examines a range of Victorian texts including poems, short stories, plays, novels and novellas, letters and diaries as well as visual texts. It engages with the themes of gender, sexuality, identity, power, partnership, co/authorship and readership. The module introduces students to contextual debates about sexual politics, gender and representation in the nineteenth-century, and seeks to understand how writers responded and contributed to them. It also reads nineteenth-century figures and texts in relation to more recent feminist and gender theory, revealing their continued cultural importance. Authors studied include: the Brownings, the Brontës, George Eliot and George Henry Lewes, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, the Rossettis, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, and Michael Field.

This module, which assumes no prior knowledge of languages other than English, is intended to give students an insight into the diversity of human communication systems found throughout the world. In order to understand how language works, we need to examine the variety of systems to be found, some of which differ drastically from what we know and what we might expect. This module builds on the skills students have developed in constructing arguments and finding evidence in support of their reasoning through their modules at Levels 4 and 5, by demonstrating how complimentary skills are applied in scientific research related to language. Students are introduced to alternative ways of thinking about the world around us to further develop their ability to scrutinise and assess evidence.

"Literature was never only words, never merely immaterial verbal constructions. Literary texts, like us, have bodies, an actuality necessitating that their materialities and meanings are deeply interwoven into each other"-N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines. In this level 6 Creative Writing module, we will, as Hayles argues, consider the materiality of a variety of print-based and digital-born literature with an eye toward developing original creative projects. We will read and discuss relevant literary and theoretical works in detail, considering the medium (and technology, where appropriate) involved in their construction, as well as the aesthetic and conceptual frameworks that underpin each text. And to make use of all of our reading, students will learn to articulate responses to set texts through a series of writing exercises in which they are encouraged to experiment-to get their hands dirty, to play, to have fun-with the concepts introduced by the texts we read. Students should also be prepared to contribute fully to workshop discussions of their own and each other's work. The module will provide students the opportunity to produce, revise and polish their creative writing and will encourage and enable them to reflect on their own creative work and writing practice in a productive and critically-informed manner. Attendance is compulsory.

This module introduces students to the concept of medieval romance from the twelfth century to now. The medieval texts will be read either in Middle English or in translation (languages covered will be French, Middle English, Arabic, and Welsh). The module explores the genre with a particular interest in gender and sexuality, instances of transgression, multi-culturalism, and multilingualism. It also investigates the traditional connection of romances with female readership. As well as the medieval texts, students will study examples of contemporary historical material and modern interpretations of medieval romance to help them contextualise both the romances and their current significance in popular culture. The module will build on students¿ understanding of medieval texts and historical contexts developed from modules in the first and second years. Additionally, the module will enable students to further engage their interests in literary history, the development of romance as a genre, and examining literature through key critical and theoretical lenses such as gender theory, queer theory, critical race theory, and ecocriticism. After taking this module, students will have a detailed understanding of the fluid and expansive nature of romance and its changing historical and social contexts. They will also have been afforded the opportunity to develop their critical thinking, research, writing, and communication skills in ways that will benefit them on their chosen career path.

The module offers students the opportunity to learn about children’s literature across a variety of genres, ages, as well as about its historical development and socio-cultural contexts. The module will require students to engage the critical thinking skills and theoretical knowledge that they have acquired in modules across their first and second years in a new context, enabling them to think deeply about the ways in which children’s literature should be studied with the same rigorous approach that they would apply to texts written for adults. In particular, students will be encouraged to consider how genre, form, gender, race, identity, setting, temporality,. They will also confront their own relationship to texts that they read as children or young adults and consider what components result in effective writing for children which will enable them to engage with complex critical concepts, and develop their own writing both creative and critical. Through participating in group discussions in the lecture-seminars, students will develop a detailed understanding of how to analyse children’s literature and how to write for children. The module will also afford students the opportunity to develop their critical thinking, research, writing, and communication skills in ways that will benefit them on their chosen career path. At the end of the semester students will produce a work of children’s literature alongside a commentary reflecting upon their creative work OR a critical essay that focusses on two works of children’s literature using the theories, concepts and practices studied.

This module explores the centrality of texts written by and for medieval women to both the history of medieval literature and to women's literary history. You will be introduced to a range of works written for and about women in England between the 11th and 15th centuries and will examine in detail the major female authors writing from the 12th to the 15th centuries, such as the courtly writer Marie de France, the English woman mystic Julian of Norwich, and the visionary Margery Kempe. Texts will be read either in Middle English or in modernized versions, or (in the case of texts written in the French of the English, in translation). The module will explore a range of literary forms and genres, including saints' lives, romance and lais, mystical and visionary writing and women's letters. You will be asked to critically analyse and/or engage creatively with the texts, paying attention to your linguistic, literary, religious and socio- historical contexts and focusing on issues such as antifeminism, social hierarchies, literacy, multingualism and multi-culturalism, and gender and sexuality. The module provides you with a working knowledge of tools on used by researchers and writers examining and engaging with historically remote literatures and cultures, building on previous modules on global literatures and theories of gender and sexuality. These tools include not only the ability to analyse and critically evaluate texts and ideas, but also to understand them within their wider historical, geographical and social contexts, as well as practical tools of reading and translating Middle English texts.

The module offers students the opportunity to learn the processes for writing a compelling script for film or television. Through analysing film clips, reading extracts from screenplays, engaging with theoretical concepts, and participating in class discussions and workshops students will be offered a comprehensive overview of the screenwriting process. The module builds upon the knowledge and skills from students’ BA studies in English Literature and Creative Writing at Level 4. It develops critical and creative skills for modules including the dissertation and aligns with other critical and creative modes in other at Level 6.  The two-hour workshops address the needs of in-depth writing and analysis at level 6. At the end of the semester students will produce a professionally formatted script for a short film or television episode alongside a commentary reflecting upon their creative work and/or a critical essay that focusses on films/ TV episodes of their own choice using theories, concepts and practices studied on the module.

Although the early twentieth century is often described as one of newness and modernity, many writers of the time found inspiration and visionary brilliance by turning to the mysterious occult unknown.  Well-remembered poets and novelists such as Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, H.D., Mary Butts, and Charles Williams were tied to esoteric beliefs, but was it all a lot of foolishness? In this module we will explore how the modernist interest in magic and mysticism led to new understandings of the relationship between ¿the self¿ and ¿society¿ that would seep into sectors as diverse as psychoanalysis, politics, and theatre.  By exploring the mystical beliefs and practices that stirred many writers between the wars this module will allow us to reconsider our understanding of the imagination and unconscious mind in relation to writing and the performing arts.  Along the way we will uncover hidden hopes and anxieties that faced Britain between the wars and see how some of modernism¿s most influential writers understood magic and enchantment as universal forms of cultural expression which have inspired creative exuberance since the dawn of civilisation.This module builds on key themes and methods introduced in modules in your first and second year, including Literary Histories, Modernism, and The American Century, deepening your theoretical, historical, and critical understanding of modernist innovation and its complex entanglements with modernity and social and aesthetic transformation. This module extends those foundations by focusing on the modernist fascination with magic and mysticism, encouraging you to think critically about how esoteric and occult beliefs shaped new models of selfhood, creative expression, and social engagement. Through this lens, you will develop a more nuanced understanding of modernism¿s response to the uncertainties of modernity, tracing how the mystical imagination intersected with psychoanalysis, political theory, and literary production.

What does it mean to write now, in the 21st Century? How do readers respond to fiction produced now? How do authors write their - and our - 'now'?  How do they represent, interrogate, diagnose the challenges, anxieties, idiosyncrasies and opportunities of our contemporary moment? What is the role of the writer in this current moment? These questions are at the heart of this module. Designed primarily as an EL module (but with some CW exercises alongside EL seminar exercises and a CW assessment option), it explores contemporary literary prose fiction, focusing on influential work produced in the twenty-first century in the UK and North America. It is organised around the question of the role of the writer in the twenty-first century. Throughout the twentieth century, individual writers or 'movements' often articulated a distinct sense of their vocation or responsibility at their particular moment (e.g. André Malraux, Jean-Paul Sartre, J. G. Ballard, Iris Murdoch, Philip Roth, etc.). This module explores whether there is a particular set of responsibilities that comes with being an author now in our current social, media and political climate, and how this might differ from being an author in previous eras? A related question underpinning the module is about the value of literature in the current climate, especially the value of literary fiction in a world in which the boundaries between reality and fiction, truth and falsity, the real and simulation, information and misinformation and disinformation have never been more blurred.The module will be organised into a series of weekly encounters with some of twenty-first-century fiction¿s most prominent and emerging writers, and analysis of distinct modes of writing which have emerged or developed in the twenty-first century to respond to a particular 'need'. Students will debate how these varieties of fiction invite readers to engage with some of the most pressing social, cultural and environmental issues in our world, such as the global dominance of late capitalism, the effects of the Anthropocene, the effect of AGI and other technologies on society and humanity, the experience of increasingly compressed time and space, acceleration and immediacy. Creative writing students will also consider the writing practices deployed in these texts, and will be given the opportunity to respond creatively in seminar exercises to compositional aspects of the texts.Surveys of recent fiction often feature on undergraduate literary programmes as a way of easing level 4 students into the study of literature. This module differs in that enables final-year students to place contemporary literature in a broader literary-historical and cultural framework they have been getting to understand throughout their undergraduate study until this point. It will enable them to reflect on the value of Humanities approaches to assessing history, culture and society in general - and creative and critical literary skills in particular -  as they are about to enter the fast-paced, rapidly-changing twenty-first century world as English/Creative Writing graduates.

Gaming has existed as a mode of play and expression since the earliest times of human existence. In the latter part of the 20th and into the first two decades of the 21st Century (the period we will focus on with this module), there has been a vast expansion of the forms, modes and technologies employed in gaming and game play. Out of wargaming and board gaming practices (and often the interfaces of these) in the post-World War II era, increasingly complex and sophisticated character and narrative focussed Role-Playing Games (RPGs) developed as well as other narrative forms that connect gaming with interactive textuality, such as gamebooks, Collectable Card Games, online interactive fiction, video games and multi-player online gaming platforms. There has been, in the early 21st century, additionally, a large increase in the number of board games being produced and played, while wargaming also remains an active and vibrant aspect of gaming culture. An aspect of gaming that has sometimes fallen short, in ¿quality¿ terms, though, is the writing that underpins both the rules systems and the ¿story¿ component of games (background, character, description. narrative, dialogue, terminology, etc.) This is perhaps unsurprising as games have been primarily written by gamers rather than professional writers; many of these, of course, go on to develop their writing skills and become accomplished writers in their own right. More and more, though, creative writers are specifically incorporated into the game design and realisation processes (for both analogue and virtual gaming environments) to improve the quality of the gaming experience. In this module students will receive an overview of the gaming field and examine aspects of this that specifically pertain to writing for games. What approaches work well for games and gaming modes? How are these different from writing for and in other forms and media? What writing skills are particularly useful? Do we have the freedom to write outside of limiting industry constraints and models? What are the new forms of writing practice that are emerging in relation to games and gaming? Students will also have the opportunity to interact with and critique game focussed AI text and narrative generation engines (such as AI Dungeon) in the classroom. We will also be interested in analysing games and gaming critically as cultural objects, and situating them within the broader context of contemporary cultural and literary theory. This is not a module that will teach students how to code and/or produce and design video games (or, indeed commercial analogue games). We will touch on aspects of game design, game production, gaming studies, critical digital studies, etc., but the focus for this module will be on writing creatively for games: writing gaming. Expert guest speakers from the gaming and independent gaming industries will be included in the teaching provision for this module. If students have specific coding, visual art or musical/sound art skills that they would like to bring to their exercises and assignments, they can certainly draw on these skills, but if they don¿t, that is completely fine ¿ none of these are required for this module. In each seminar we will first spend some time discussing the set texts and the techniques and standpoints employed by writers and other artists, before moving on to the workshop part of the session where students will produce work in accordance with the task set for that week, within and outside of the classroom. We will read and discuss a selection of pieces at the end of each class. This process will help students grow in confidence, both in presentational terms and in terms of delivering and receiving feedback on their work, in a safe and supportive setting. In addition, each week there will be a scheduled 2-hour gaming session where students will gather to explore individual and collaborative gaming in practice. Different approaches to gaming will be proposed each week, or students can opt to work during this time on longer gaming experiences and projects. At the end of the semester students will produce a creative portfolio of gaming writing, alongside a critical commentary reflecting on the creative work produced and using theories, concepts and practices studied on the module, OR an academic critical essay examining some aspect of writing for games OR a Game Demo alongside a critical commentary reflecting on the demo produced and using theories, concepts and practices studied on the module. Possible submissions for the creative portfolio include online interactive fiction (e.g. Twine, Squiffy), a gamebook text, a tabletop game text (board game, card game, wargame, Role-Playing Game), a game demo, a game setting, a game system, Game Design Documentation (GDD) for a proposed game, a 'creative essay', gaming portfolio as creative essay, a zine, a website for a game, a creative or critical podcast and/or play-through of a game, etc.This module connects to other contemporary literature modules on the programme in the 2nd and final years where the emphasis is on 20th and 21st Century approaches to creating and examining literatures and our cultural responses to them. As such, it is part of the contemporary literature route that students can choose as a focus of their degree.As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years. 

Often dismissed as disposable entertainment, derided for rehashing formulaic plot devices, popular genre fiction may better be considered literature that tests the generic boundaries within which it operates. This Level 6 Creative Writing module aims to establish the fundamental techniques, strategies, and conventions of popular genres and modes (such as mystery, horror, graphic narrative), as well as ways writers may choose to subvert those conventions, with an eye toward developing original creative projects that engage—in some way—with genre. This module is intended to complement the range of Creative Writing modules offered at level 6, focussing on genre construction and reception across a variety of contexts. One of the keys to becoming a more sophisticated writer is to become a more careful reader. Whether you love or hate, are exhilarated, or bored by a text, you can always learn from it. To that end, we will read and discuss relevant literary and theoretical works in detail, considering both the elements of craft that contribute to the construction of different genres (character, plot, form, structure, and so on), as well as the aesthetic and conceptual frameworks that underpin each text, particularly where writers may subvert genre expectations. And to make use of all our reading, we will learn to articulate responses to set texts through a series of writing exercises in which you are encouraged to experiment—and have fun—with the concepts introduced by the texts we read. Students should also be prepared to contribute fully to workshop discussions of their own and each other’s work. The module will provide students the opportunity to produce, revise and polish their creative writing and will encourage and enable them to reflect on their own creative work and writing practice in a productive and critically informed manner. Attendance is compulsory.

Queer Studies Now is an advanced, interdisciplinary module that explores the most pressing questions, methods and frontiers in contemporary queer studies. Building on prior learning in gender and sexuality, it examines how contemporary queer scholarship engages with contemporary political debates, transnational and decolonial perspectives, digital cultures and data, health and disability justice, and new forms of community and kinship. Students engage with cutting edge research, including work emerging from scholars at the University of Surrey, and critically reflect on what it means to do queer studies inside and beyond the university. Teaching foregrounds queer as a method of inquiry and critique rather than a fixed identity category, and encourages experimentation in both content and form. Assessment combines rigorous academic analysis with opportunities to develop sophisticated, reflexive and transferable skills in research, communication and critical thinking.

This module explores the varied formal and technical challenges facing creative writers, examining the affordances and constraints of different modes of writing and the cultural, historical and theoretical contexts which impact upon how texts (including prose fiction, poetry, screenplays and dramatic scripts) are written and understood, and to translate this understanding into more effective creative practice.

This is a module for Level 5 students in the School of  Literature and Languages. It is taught over one semester, with three contact hours per teaching week.The module considers a range of approaches to teaching English as a Foreign Language, approaches which can be applied to the teaching of other languages. It provides practice and assessment in lesson planning and in teaching through peer teaching tasks. The skills developed on the module such as speaking in front of groups and decision making are transferable to a number of other careers. The module is capped at 14 students in each semester.  

This module gives students a broad and deep understanding of nineteenth-century literature in relation to a range of social, cultural and political contexts. Following a roughly chronological trajectory the module picks up key issues (industrialisation, the impacts of empire, faith and doubt) and examines them through key texts and authors of the period. The module pushes students to think in nuanced ways about the relationship between text and context and about the cultural forces which have promoted or marginalised historical voices.

This is a practical introduction to translation from French to English. Students will be introduced to some basic concepts and terminology in translation and will learn through translating short texts from French to English and writing reflective commentaries on translation issues. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in translating from French to English and will develop their ability to analyse and interpret texts and to recognise and resolve translation issues, using appropriate translation resources. Texts will be contemporary and will cover a range of text types, chosen to illustrate a wide variety of translation problems as well as to introduce aspects of Francophone cultures.

This is a practical introduction to translation from Spanish to English. Students will be introduced to some basic concepts and terminology in translation and will learn through translating short texts from Spanish to English and writing reflective commentaries on translation issues. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in translating from Spanish to English and will develop their ability to analyse and interpret texts and to recognise and resolve translation issues, using appropriate translation resources. Texts will be contemporary and will cover a range of text types, chosen to illustrate a wide variety of translation problems as well as to introduce aspects of Spanish-speaking cultures.

This module explores elements of poetic craft, discourse, and techniques for writing poetry through the close analysis of lyric, narrative, dramatic, and hybrid modes in contemporary poetry written for the page and / or performance and exhibition. The module introduces students to contemporary and innovative discussions including topics such as formal and free poetic structures, sound effect and rhythm, poetic voice and persona, writing communities, poetic intent and play. The module asks students to engage with the development of their own writing alongside of reading and listening to contemporary poetry, essays, and manifestos by chosen 'companion poets' they will encounter in the module.

This innovative, interdisciplinary and university-wide module explores multiple aspects of popular culture in the contemporary world. The module considers how and why some works acquire the status of popular culture and how these works permeate everyday life. Through an overview of contemporary issues and approaches to popular culture in social, literary, filmic, musical and sociological contexts, you will consider the values inherent in some cultural works, and how these transform to reflect societal preoccupations. You will examine case studies from Dickens through Disney to the Diva, considering the creative choices and the critical reception. This module will equip you with a sophisticated understanding of the academic approaches to culture which will inform and illuminate your work in other disciplines. In particular the module embeds the University Pillars of Resourcefulness & Resilience, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities. This original module is delivered by staff specialising in diverse forms of popular culture across the university, including from the Department of Music and Media, School of Literature and Languages and GSA.

This module explores a range of literary texts produced in England at the end of the Middle Ages, paying particular attention to issues of language, gender, race, social status, travel, and religion. It explores the relationship between the self and the other, focusing on ideas of perfection and monstrosity, and the divine and the demonic within the Middle English texts that we¿ll be reading. The module explores three interrelated themes that speak to the historical, social, and religious contexts of late Medieval English literature: 1) Monstrous Masculinities and Femininities 2) Travellers' Tales: Encountering the Other and 3) Visions of Another Order.Alongside analysing examples the literature of the period, you will practice translating passages from late medieval literary texts in the workshops. In addition to the set primary texts, you will examine relevant examples from historical texts and visual that help to further illuminate these three thematic strands. 

This innovative and interdisciplinary module explores social justice in contemporary society, and how people and communities have worked towards achieving it. The module will focus on different forms of systemic injustice, and we will look at their intersections by considering notions such as race, gender, class, migration and identity. You will explore how social justice has been addressed from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. This will allow you to appreciate how each perspective offers specific critical and imaginative tools to pursue equality and justice in our society. Throughout the semester, you will engage with a diverse set of critical works and reading/viewing materials from disciplines such as literature, sociology, cultural studies, music and media studies, and environmental studies.The thematic units of the module will be taught by lecturers who specialise in the topics and themes under study. Each unit will focus on a particular aspect of social justice so that you will be exposed to multiple and innovative theories and approaches. By the end of the module, you will be able to bring into dialogue these approaches with your own interests and disciplinary focus.

The Gothic has been a fixture of British and American literary history and popular culture from its origins in the eighteenth century, and continues to capture and haunt the human imagination. Straddling both ¿high¿ and ¿low¿ art forms, appealing to elite as well as mass audiences, the Gothic thrives on blurring boundaries and dissolving traditional dichotomies ¿ between, for example, self and other, human and inhuman, civilisation and savagery, public and private identities This optional level 5 module focuses on Gothic literary and cultural production from Horace Walpole¿s 1764 seminal Gothic novel The Castle of Otranto up to the stylized Goth aesthetic and obsession with true crime Gothic figures in twenty-first-century cinema and television. Drawing on a variety of literary and visual texts this module demonstrates how Gothic fictions are born out of hyper-tense socio-political and psychological states, symbolising and expressing anxieties about class, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality and gender. Gothic texts are situated in their historical, biographical, geographical and global contexts, offering a nuanced understanding of the proliferation of the genre across periods, disciplines and borders. As well as exploring famous Gothic figures of the vampire and the zombie, we also consider the Gothic as a mode of writing, and as a mode of cultural engagement with the traumas of post/modernity. The module confronts topics including otherness and the limits of the human, monstrous doubling, the horrors of addiction, grotesque transformation, and the ethics and dangers of science. It traces the evolution of the Gothic, covering: Gothic origin; European Gothic; Gothic satire; Romantic and Neo/Victorian Gothic; Female and Feminist Gothic; American and African-American Gothic; and Goth culture. Through studying the texts, debates and themes of the module, and through the assessments, you will develop transferable skills in critical thinking and reading, independent research and groupwork, presentation and communication, digital capabilities and analytical writing.

Building on the introduction to modernism covered in the first-year core modules, this module explores a period in literature that was to bring innovation across the spectrum of cultural endeavour. Through a range of exciting and innovative works of literature from around the world, you will be introduced to the key ideas underlying the theories and practises of modernist writers in the period between 1900 and 1945. By exploring the concept of multiple global modernisms, the module builds global and cultural skills that will enable you to critically engage with the key themes central to modernist thought. As well as acquiring in-depth knowledge of the individual texts on the module, you will be able to develop a sense of how movements in modernist literature relate both to each other and to other disciplines such as philosophy, economics, politics, and art. Through the independent research undertaken for assessment and a particular focus on the skills required for advanced secondary source research, this module will also develop resourcefulness and digital skills.

This module allows you to explore various modes of storytelling in a contemporary context, with a view to developing your narrative skills. The course will engage with contemporary fiction, poetry, non-fiction, film, and theatre and will help you to to investigate and understand the multiple ways readers and writers engage with storytelling and narrative. There will be lectures on each topic, with workshop-style seminars that are designed to help you engage with and analyse your own writing and the writing of others, with the aim of helping students to hone your ability to edit and create. 

Following on from the brief introductions to Romanticism at Level 4 , this module allows students to explore in more depth and detail the profound literary and cultural innovations that took place in the Romantic period (roughly, 1789-1830), and which continue to shape culture and society today. The module forms part of a set of historically focused pre-1900 ‘period’ modules that focus on specific literary periods as a way of studying literature: students must take at least one of these modules to complement the more contemporary focus of other modules, so as to gain greater knowledge of both the evolution of English literature over time and the variant forms and concerns of literature in different historical periods. Examining a broad range of canonical and non-canonical Romantic texts (and thus highlighting the diversity of authors and styles in the period), the module each week uses a selection of representative writers to explore a key form or theme: for example, Nature, imagination, the self and subjectivity, sentimentalism and feeling, and shifting notions of masculinity and femininity. Famous writers such as Blake, Wordsworth, Keats and Byron are read alongside authors who are less well known today (for example, Charlotte Smith, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Ignatius Sancho and Henry Derozio) to give students a rich, synchronic understanding of the key concerns, debates, alliances and animosities distinctive to this specific period in British literary history. At the same time, students explore the global contexts and connections driving the evolution of English literature and of British culture more broadly in this period, and they also consider the ongoing relevance of Romantic-era concerns and debates to 21st century society (for example, Romantic writers’ diverse reactions to increasing globalization, and the emergence of modern environmental and conservationist thinking).

This module takes students off campus and into local schools. They work closely with MFL or English Literature teachers, shadowing them or taking small groups of school students, and gaining an insight into the teaching profession. This module complements ELA2012 Introduction to TEFL, by allowing students to see teaching strategies and techniques in the real world. The Module has the backing of the "Undergraduate Ambassadors Scheme" (www.uas.ac.uk).

This module aims to explore a variety of neo-Victorian texts to examine how the legacy of the Victorians continues to inform contemporary culture. Students will be asked to consider the significance of neo-Victorian writing in the context of postmodernity and will analyse the literary, cultural and commercial impacts of the genre. The module will begin by considering early examples of neo-Victorian texts that emerged in the 1950s and 60s before exploring the expansion of the genre in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It will cover a range of neo-Victorian productions including novels, poetry, film and TV adaptations that are informed by well-known Victorian texts in order to examine the wider cultural impact of contemporary engagements with the Victorian period, and will ask students to analyse issues of race, class, gender and sexuality which are interrogated and challenged by neo-Victorian works. The module draws upon and enhances the core knowledge and research skills acquired in second year Victorian Literature focussed modules. As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years.

This module explores the meanings and developments of science fiction throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as focusing on the relationship between this innovative form and the cultural, political, ethical and ecological sustainability issues addressed in the texts. Discussion and analysis will focus not only on what worlds or peoples are imagined in science fiction and why, but also on how such core features of science fiction have been developed, challenged and reconfigured by various political and historical movements and events (such as the cold war, feminism, black civil rights movements, gay liberation, imperial endeavours, global warming and other ecological sustainability narratives, among others). The module will give particular attention to technological developments and their relationship to the human, addressing the ways in which the human is rethought and reimagined through its interaction with technological innovation. Themes that will be addressed may include alternative futurisms, artificial intelligence, body modifications, alien species and/or worlds, dystopian and utopian imaginaries, future technologies, technology and sustainability, technology and identity and struggles for freedom. Science fiction will therefore be engaged with through the lens of contemporary theories (such as postcolonialism, gender studies, ecocriticism and posthumanism), as well as with attention to changing interpretations of the meaning of the genre in its diverse socio-political and global cultural contexts.  This module connects to other contemporary literature modules on the programme in your second year and is part of the contemporary literature route that students can choose as a focus of their degree, which includes module in the first and final years of the degree. As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years.

This is a practical introduction to translation from English to French. Students will learn to express some basic concepts and terminology in translation in French and will learn through translating short texts from English to French and writing reflective commentaries on translation issues. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in translating from English to French and will develop their ability to analyse and interpret texts and to recognise and resolve translation issues, using appropriate translation resources. Texts will be contemporary and will cover a range of text types, chosen to illustrate a wide variety of translation problems and enhance cultural awareness.

This is a practical introduction to translation from English to Spanish. Students will learn to express some basic concepts and terminology in translation in Spanish and will learn through translating short texts from English to Spanish and writing reflective commentaries on translation issues. Students will gain an understanding of the processes involved in translating from English to Spanish and will develop their ability to analyse and interpret texts and to recognise and resolve translation issues, using appropriate translation resources. Texts will be contemporary and will cover a range of text types, chosen to illustrate a wide variety of translation problems and enhance cultural awareness.

Sociolinguistics explores language as a social phenomenon, examining both how social factors affect language, and what language can tell us about society. This module introduces students to the interaction between language and society. We start by considering the linguist variables that reflect our social identity, before examining how speaker’s responses to external social factors influences the way in which languages are used, lost and standardized. This module is taught in English at FHEQ Level 5. Introduction to Sociolinguistics builds on themes in linguistics introduced at throughout modules taught at Level 4 and provides in-depth preparation for Level 6 modules that focus in detail on the sociolinguistics of specific languages including French and Spanish.

Communication is a key skill in the information society, from making sense of the world around you to making yourself heard in different settings, including university, work, with friends and family, and in society. This module will introduce students to key concepts in communication as they are relevant to communicating in 21st century society. Accounting for the fact that most of our communication is mediated in some way, the module will give students a strong contextual understanding in mediated communication. This is followed by an interdisciplinary approach to communication in which students will learn about the way we communicate and understand communication in a range of areas, including business, medical settings, science, language, and psychology.

The module asks students what it means to write a life. We consider the function of auto/biography and the ways in which its writers have reflected on the possibilities of truth-telling, the significance of subjectivity and the distillation of narrative from the everyday. It explores writing that bears witness to war and injustice, that blurs the lines between fact and fiction, and re-makes the self through bold experimentation with language. The module examines a variety of forms and modes that Life Writing might take - biography, autobiography, diaries, poetry, journals and others ¿ and gives students the opportunity to create and/or analyse these forms in their assessment.

This is an innovative module offered to students of all disciplines across the University of Surrey, regardless of prior musical experience, which explores multiple aspects of music in contemporary culture. Through an overview of contemporary issues and academic approaches to the appreciation of today¿s music, you will consider the relationship between music, culture, and society, emphasising critical listening, cultural context, and music¿s relationships with other disciplines. Case studies will be drawn from areas including popular music, film and television music, musical theatre, experimental music, classical music, and opera, together with the intersections and crossovers between these genres. This module will equip you with a sophisticated understanding of the academic approaches to music and contemporary culture which will inform and illuminate your work in other disciplines. It will be delivered primarily through lectures (incorporating class discussion) by specialist staff from the Department of Music and Media, supplemented by guest talks from industry professionals and trips to relevant musical events.

Environmental literature is deeply entwined with queer, decolonial and intersectional perspectives: Place and race, space and class, feminist and LGBTQIA2s+* issues, all meet in the queer ecologies we will explore in this module. We will learn about the (queer) history of writing about the environment, about the role of protest in literature and about how describing the world around us in texts actually changes the shape of the natural and built environment. Building on skills and knowledge you have acquired in previous modules on literary history and on theoretical approaches, the module aims to expand your knowledge of global ecocritical and queer writing and theory and to enable you to critically analyse contemporary depictions of climate change dystopias, of human and non-human animal relationships, of protest poetry, and of queer environmental fiction. We will discuss novels, poetry, performances, Youtube videos, as well as the odd social media account, and always combine our readings with a specific theoretical concept to help you learn how to put knowledge into practice. Since the module will also give you some insight into research communication, you will have the option of creating a research-based podcast as your final assessment. The module will include a workshop on podcasting, which will teach you new digital skills and enable you to develop an independent project, potentially in cooperation with collaborators outside of the seminar room. You will also contribute to a collaborative digital glossary, taking charge of creating a communal knowledge resource with formative feedback from your lecturer and comments and questions from fellow students. This module is part of a global strand embedded in our programme, which will help students develop global sensitivity and appreciation for cultural and linguistic diversity. We will discuss a global and culturally diverse range of primary texts, as well as theory texts, and cover, for example, Indigenous knowledges from different parts of the planet.

This module introduces students to a range of creative and critical strands and debates related to contemporary Shakespearean performance. These may include global and intercultural Shakespeare, adaptations on stage and screen, applied Shakespeare, gender - and colour-blind Shakespeare, cultural politics and ethics. Drawing on relevant critical debates on how and why Shakespeare is performed today within diverse and multicultural societies, students will be able to engage with case-studies of UK and international productions and artists. The module will pay attention to key terms such as diversity, diaspora, hybridity and inclusivity and enable students to draw on these in informed critical analysis and discussion.

This module explores the relationship between national and imperial identities in literature from the 1850s to 1890s by writers from Britain and beyond, including Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, Behramji Malabari and James Africanus Horton. The module introduces students to contextual debates about the nation-state and its imperial engagements, and seeks to understand how authors respond and contribute to these ideas through literature both from within and beyond Britain. The module engages with these themes through a focus on concepts of space and mobility, using literary journeys as a way into understanding how novelists construct a dialogue between national and imperial spaces in literary texts. It draws upon and enhances the core knowledge and research skills acquired in second year Victorian Literature focussed modules. As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years.

This innovative, interdisciplinary and university-wide module explores multiple aspects of popular culture in the contemporary world. The module considers how and why some works acquire the status of popular culture and how these works permeate everyday life. Through an overview of contemporary issues and approaches to popular culture in social, literary, filmic, musical and sociological contexts, you will consider the values inherent in some cultural works, and how these transform to reflect societal preoccupations. You will examine case studies from Dickens through Disney to the Diva, considering the creative choices and the critical reception. This module will equip you with a sophisticated understanding of the academic approaches to culture which will inform and illuminate your work in other disciplines. In particular the module embeds the University Pillars of Resourcefulness & Resilience, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities. This original module is delivered by staff specialising in diverse forms of popular culture across the university, including from the Department of Music and Media, School of Literature and Languages and GSA.

The Beat Generation writers scandalised and shocked mid-20th Century American culture, challenging societal norms of gender, politics, religion and spirituality, race, sexuality, sex, drugs and music alongside proposing radical literary practices that struck at the heart of polite literary society. They, and their writings, were seen as wild, unpredictable, dangerous and transgressive. This was the birth of youth culture. In this course, students will be introduced to key aspects of and movements in Beat writing, through the techniques employed by the writers themselves, from the spontaneous writing of Jack Kerouac, the paranoia cut-up methods of William Burroughs, the visionary ‘madness’ of Allen Ginsberg to the writings on gender and race of Anne Waldman, John Wieners and Leroi Jones. Alongside this we will look at the writing practices of the Beat writers of the San Francisco Renaissance, for example the beast language of Michael McClure and the Zen poetics of Gary Snyder. In each workshop we will first spend some time discussing the set texts and the techniques employed by those writers concerned, before moving on to the workshop part of the class where students will produce work in accordance with the task set for that week. We will read and discuss a selection of pieces at the end of each class. At the end of the semester students will produce a creative portfolio of Beat or Beat-inspired writing, alongside a critical essay and commentary reflecting on the creative work produced and using theories, concepts and practices studied on the module, OR an academic critical essay examining some aspect of the Beat Writing phenomenon. This module connects to other contemporary literature modules on the programme in the 2nd and final year where the emphasis is on 20th and 21st Century approaches to creating and examining literatures and our cultural responses to them. As such, it is part of the contemporary literature route that students can choose as a focus of their degree. As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years.

This innovative and interdisciplinary module explores social justice in contemporary society, and how people and communities have worked towards achieving it. The module will focus on different forms of systemic injustice, and we will look at their intersections by considering notions such as race, gender, class, migration and identity. You will explore how social justice has been addressed from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. This will allow you to appreciate how each perspective offers specific critical and imaginative tools to pursue equality and justice in our society. Throughout the semester, you will engage with a diverse set of critical works and reading/viewing materials from disciplines such as literature, sociology, cultural studies, music and media studies, and environmental studies.The thematic units of the module will be taught by lecturers who specialise in the topics and themes under study. Each unit will focus on a particular aspect of social justice so that you will be exposed to multiple and innovative theories and approaches. By the end of the module, you will be able to bring into dialogue these approaches with your own interests and disciplinary focus.

This interdisciplinary module, focused on Victorian creative partnerships, explores connections between texts, individuals, couples, circles and movements. It investigates the ways in which female and male figures worked in various forms of partnership: as spouses, siblings, friends and lovers. It examines a range of Victorian texts including poems, short stories, plays, novels and novellas, letters and diaries as well as visual texts. It engages with the themes of gender, sexuality, identity, power, partnership, co/authorship and readership. The module introduces students to contextual debates about sexual politics, gender and representation in the nineteenth-century, and seeks to understand how writers responded and contributed to them. It also reads nineteenth-century figures and texts in relation to more recent feminist and gender theory, revealing their continued cultural importance. Authors studied include: the Brownings, the Brontës, George Eliot and George Henry Lewes, Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, the Rossettis, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, and Michael Field.

This module, which assumes no prior knowledge of languages other than English, is intended to give students an insight into the diversity of human communication systems found throughout the world. In order to understand how language works, we need to examine the variety of systems to be found, some of which differ drastically from what we know and what we might expect. This module builds on the skills students have developed in constructing arguments and finding evidence in support of their reasoning through their modules at Levels 4 and 5, by demonstrating how complimentary skills are applied in scientific research related to language. Students are introduced to alternative ways of thinking about the world around us to further develop their ability to scrutinise and assess evidence.

"Literature was never only words, never merely immaterial verbal constructions. Literary texts, like us, have bodies, an actuality necessitating that their materialities and meanings are deeply interwoven into each other"-N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines. In this level 6 Creative Writing module, we will, as Hayles argues, consider the materiality of a variety of print-based and digital-born literature with an eye toward developing original creative projects. We will read and discuss relevant literary and theoretical works in detail, considering the medium (and technology, where appropriate) involved in their construction, as well as the aesthetic and conceptual frameworks that underpin each text. And to make use of all of our reading, students will learn to articulate responses to set texts through a series of writing exercises in which they are encouraged to experiment-to get their hands dirty, to play, to have fun-with the concepts introduced by the texts we read. Students should also be prepared to contribute fully to workshop discussions of their own and each other's work. The module will provide students the opportunity to produce, revise and polish their creative writing and will encourage and enable them to reflect on their own creative work and writing practice in a productive and critically-informed manner. Attendance is compulsory.

This module introduces students to the concept of medieval romance from the twelfth century to now. The medieval texts will be read either in Middle English or in translation (languages covered will be French, Middle English, Arabic, and Welsh). The module explores the genre with a particular interest in gender and sexuality, instances of transgression, multi-culturalism, and multilingualism. It also investigates the traditional connection of romances with female readership. As well as the medieval texts, students will study examples of contemporary historical material and modern interpretations of medieval romance to help them contextualise both the romances and their current significance in popular culture. The module will build on students¿ understanding of medieval texts and historical contexts developed from modules in the first and second years. Additionally, the module will enable students to further engage their interests in literary history, the development of romance as a genre, and examining literature through key critical and theoretical lenses such as gender theory, queer theory, critical race theory, and ecocriticism. After taking this module, students will have a detailed understanding of the fluid and expansive nature of romance and its changing historical and social contexts. They will also have been afforded the opportunity to develop their critical thinking, research, writing, and communication skills in ways that will benefit them on their chosen career path.

The module offers students the opportunity to learn about children’s literature across a variety of genres, ages, as well as about its historical development and socio-cultural contexts. The module will require students to engage the critical thinking skills and theoretical knowledge that they have acquired in modules across their first and second years in a new context, enabling them to think deeply about the ways in which children’s literature should be studied with the same rigorous approach that they would apply to texts written for adults. In particular, students will be encouraged to consider how genre, form, gender, race, identity, setting, temporality,. They will also confront their own relationship to texts that they read as children or young adults and consider what components result in effective writing for children which will enable them to engage with complex critical concepts, and develop their own writing both creative and critical. Through participating in group discussions in the lecture-seminars, students will develop a detailed understanding of how to analyse children’s literature and how to write for children. The module will also afford students the opportunity to develop their critical thinking, research, writing, and communication skills in ways that will benefit them on their chosen career path. At the end of the semester students will produce a work of children’s literature alongside a commentary reflecting upon their creative work OR a critical essay that focusses on two works of children’s literature using the theories, concepts and practices studied.

This module explores the centrality of texts written by and for medieval women to both the history of medieval literature and to women's literary history. You will be introduced to a range of works written for and about women in England between the 11th and 15th centuries and will examine in detail the major female authors writing from the 12th to the 15th centuries, such as the courtly writer Marie de France, the English woman mystic Julian of Norwich, and the visionary Margery Kempe. Texts will be read either in Middle English or in modernized versions, or (in the case of texts written in the French of the English, in translation). The module will explore a range of literary forms and genres, including saints' lives, romance and lais, mystical and visionary writing and women's letters. You will be asked to critically analyse and/or engage creatively with the texts, paying attention to your linguistic, literary, religious and socio- historical contexts and focusing on issues such as antifeminism, social hierarchies, literacy, multingualism and multi-culturalism, and gender and sexuality. The module provides you with a working knowledge of tools on used by researchers and writers examining and engaging with historically remote literatures and cultures, building on previous modules on global literatures and theories of gender and sexuality. These tools include not only the ability to analyse and critically evaluate texts and ideas, but also to understand them within their wider historical, geographical and social contexts, as well as practical tools of reading and translating Middle English texts.

The module offers students the opportunity to learn the processes for writing a compelling script for film or television. Through analysing film clips, reading extracts from screenplays, engaging with theoretical concepts, and participating in class discussions and workshops students will be offered a comprehensive overview of the screenwriting process. The module builds upon the knowledge and skills from students’ BA studies in English Literature and Creative Writing at Level 4. It develops critical and creative skills for modules including the dissertation and aligns with other critical and creative modes in other at Level 6.  The two-hour workshops address the needs of in-depth writing and analysis at level 6. At the end of the semester students will produce a professionally formatted script for a short film or television episode alongside a commentary reflecting upon their creative work and/or a critical essay that focusses on films/ TV episodes of their own choice using theories, concepts and practices studied on the module.

Although the early twentieth century is often described as one of newness and modernity, many writers of the time found inspiration and visionary brilliance by turning to the mysterious occult unknown.  Well-remembered poets and novelists such as Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, H.D., Mary Butts, and Charles Williams were tied to esoteric beliefs, but was it all a lot of foolishness? In this module we will explore how the modernist interest in magic and mysticism led to new understandings of the relationship between ¿the self¿ and ¿society¿ that would seep into sectors as diverse as psychoanalysis, politics, and theatre.  By exploring the mystical beliefs and practices that stirred many writers between the wars this module will allow us to reconsider our understanding of the imagination and unconscious mind in relation to writing and the performing arts.  Along the way we will uncover hidden hopes and anxieties that faced Britain between the wars and see how some of modernism¿s most influential writers understood magic and enchantment as universal forms of cultural expression which have inspired creative exuberance since the dawn of civilisation.This module builds on key themes and methods introduced in modules in your first and second year, including Literary Histories, Modernism, and The American Century, deepening your theoretical, historical, and critical understanding of modernist innovation and its complex entanglements with modernity and social and aesthetic transformation. This module extends those foundations by focusing on the modernist fascination with magic and mysticism, encouraging you to think critically about how esoteric and occult beliefs shaped new models of selfhood, creative expression, and social engagement. Through this lens, you will develop a more nuanced understanding of modernism¿s response to the uncertainties of modernity, tracing how the mystical imagination intersected with psychoanalysis, political theory, and literary production.

What does it mean to write now, in the 21st Century? How do readers respond to fiction produced now? How do authors write their - and our - 'now'?  How do they represent, interrogate, diagnose the challenges, anxieties, idiosyncrasies and opportunities of our contemporary moment? What is the role of the writer in this current moment? These questions are at the heart of this module. Designed primarily as an EL module (but with some CW exercises alongside EL seminar exercises and a CW assessment option), it explores contemporary literary prose fiction, focusing on influential work produced in the twenty-first century in the UK and North America. It is organised around the question of the role of the writer in the twenty-first century. Throughout the twentieth century, individual writers or 'movements' often articulated a distinct sense of their vocation or responsibility at their particular moment (e.g. André Malraux, Jean-Paul Sartre, J. G. Ballard, Iris Murdoch, Philip Roth, etc.). This module explores whether there is a particular set of responsibilities that comes with being an author now in our current social, media and political climate, and how this might differ from being an author in previous eras? A related question underpinning the module is about the value of literature in the current climate, especially the value of literary fiction in a world in which the boundaries between reality and fiction, truth and falsity, the real and simulation, information and misinformation and disinformation have never been more blurred.The module will be organised into a series of weekly encounters with some of twenty-first-century fiction¿s most prominent and emerging writers, and analysis of distinct modes of writing which have emerged or developed in the twenty-first century to respond to a particular 'need'. Students will debate how these varieties of fiction invite readers to engage with some of the most pressing social, cultural and environmental issues in our world, such as the global dominance of late capitalism, the effects of the Anthropocene, the effect of AGI and other technologies on society and humanity, the experience of increasingly compressed time and space, acceleration and immediacy. Creative writing students will also consider the writing practices deployed in these texts, and will be given the opportunity to respond creatively in seminar exercises to compositional aspects of the texts.Surveys of recent fiction often feature on undergraduate literary programmes as a way of easing level 4 students into the study of literature. This module differs in that enables final-year students to place contemporary literature in a broader literary-historical and cultural framework they have been getting to understand throughout their undergraduate study until this point. It will enable them to reflect on the value of Humanities approaches to assessing history, culture and society in general - and creative and critical literary skills in particular -  as they are about to enter the fast-paced, rapidly-changing twenty-first century world as English/Creative Writing graduates.

Gaming has existed as a mode of play and expression since the earliest times of human existence. In the latter part of the 20th and into the first two decades of the 21st Century (the period we will focus on with this module), there has been a vast expansion of the forms, modes and technologies employed in gaming and game play. Out of wargaming and board gaming practices (and often the interfaces of these) in the post-World War II era, increasingly complex and sophisticated character and narrative focussed Role-Playing Games (RPGs) developed as well as other narrative forms that connect gaming with interactive textuality, such as gamebooks, Collectable Card Games, online interactive fiction, video games and multi-player online gaming platforms. There has been, in the early 21st century, additionally, a large increase in the number of board games being produced and played, while wargaming also remains an active and vibrant aspect of gaming culture. An aspect of gaming that has sometimes fallen short, in ¿quality¿ terms, though, is the writing that underpins both the rules systems and the ¿story¿ component of games (background, character, description. narrative, dialogue, terminology, etc.) This is perhaps unsurprising as games have been primarily written by gamers rather than professional writers; many of these, of course, go on to develop their writing skills and become accomplished writers in their own right. More and more, though, creative writers are specifically incorporated into the game design and realisation processes (for both analogue and virtual gaming environments) to improve the quality of the gaming experience. In this module students will receive an overview of the gaming field and examine aspects of this that specifically pertain to writing for games. What approaches work well for games and gaming modes? How are these different from writing for and in other forms and media? What writing skills are particularly useful? Do we have the freedom to write outside of limiting industry constraints and models? What are the new forms of writing practice that are emerging in relation to games and gaming? Students will also have the opportunity to interact with and critique game focussed AI text and narrative generation engines (such as AI Dungeon) in the classroom. We will also be interested in analysing games and gaming critically as cultural objects, and situating them within the broader context of contemporary cultural and literary theory. This is not a module that will teach students how to code and/or produce and design video games (or, indeed commercial analogue games). We will touch on aspects of game design, game production, gaming studies, critical digital studies, etc., but the focus for this module will be on writing creatively for games: writing gaming. Expert guest speakers from the gaming and independent gaming industries will be included in the teaching provision for this module. If students have specific coding, visual art or musical/sound art skills that they would like to bring to their exercises and assignments, they can certainly draw on these skills, but if they don¿t, that is completely fine ¿ none of these are required for this module. In each seminar we will first spend some time discussing the set texts and the techniques and standpoints employed by writers and other artists, before moving on to the workshop part of the session where students will produce work in accordance with the task set for that week, within and outside of the classroom. We will read and discuss a selection of pieces at the end of each class. This process will help students grow in confidence, both in presentational terms and in terms of delivering and receiving feedback on their work, in a safe and supportive setting. In addition, each week there will be a scheduled 2-hour gaming session where students will gather to explore individual and collaborative gaming in practice. Different approaches to gaming will be proposed each week, or students can opt to work during this time on longer gaming experiences and projects. At the end of the semester students will produce a creative portfolio of gaming writing, alongside a critical commentary reflecting on the creative work produced and using theories, concepts and practices studied on the module, OR an academic critical essay examining some aspect of writing for games OR a Game Demo alongside a critical commentary reflecting on the demo produced and using theories, concepts and practices studied on the module. Possible submissions for the creative portfolio include online interactive fiction (e.g. Twine, Squiffy), a gamebook text, a tabletop game text (board game, card game, wargame, Role-Playing Game), a game demo, a game setting, a game system, Game Design Documentation (GDD) for a proposed game, a 'creative essay', gaming portfolio as creative essay, a zine, a website for a game, a creative or critical podcast and/or play-through of a game, etc.This module connects to other contemporary literature modules on the programme in the 2nd and final years where the emphasis is on 20th and 21st Century approaches to creating and examining literatures and our cultural responses to them. As such, it is part of the contemporary literature route that students can choose as a focus of their degree.As a hybrid creative writing and English literature module, it also makes up part of the creative writing pathway in the degree, connecting to creative writing modules in the 1st, 2nd and final years. 

Often dismissed as disposable entertainment, derided for rehashing formulaic plot devices, popular genre fiction may better be considered literature that tests the generic boundaries within which it operates. This Level 6 Creative Writing module aims to establish the fundamental techniques, strategies, and conventions of popular genres and modes (such as mystery, horror, graphic narrative), as well as ways writers may choose to subvert those conventions, with an eye toward developing original creative projects that engage—in some way—with genre. This module is intended to complement the range of Creative Writing modules offered at level 6, focussing on genre construction and reception across a variety of contexts. One of the keys to becoming a more sophisticated writer is to become a more careful reader. Whether you love or hate, are exhilarated, or bored by a text, you can always learn from it. To that end, we will read and discuss relevant literary and theoretical works in detail, considering both the elements of craft that contribute to the construction of different genres (character, plot, form, structure, and so on), as well as the aesthetic and conceptual frameworks that underpin each text, particularly where writers may subvert genre expectations. And to make use of all our reading, we will learn to articulate responses to set texts through a series of writing exercises in which you are encouraged to experiment—and have fun—with the concepts introduced by the texts we read. Students should also be prepared to contribute fully to workshop discussions of their own and each other’s work. The module will provide students the opportunity to produce, revise and polish their creative writing and will encourage and enable them to reflect on their own creative work and writing practice in a productive and critically informed manner. Attendance is compulsory.

Queer Studies Now is an advanced, interdisciplinary module that explores the most pressing questions, methods and frontiers in contemporary queer studies. Building on prior learning in gender and sexuality, it examines how contemporary queer scholarship engages with contemporary political debates, transnational and decolonial perspectives, digital cultures and data, health and disability justice, and new forms of community and kinship. Students engage with cutting edge research, including work emerging from scholars at the University of Surrey, and critically reflect on what it means to do queer studies inside and beyond the university. Teaching foregrounds queer as a method of inquiry and critique rather than a fixed identity category, and encourages experimentation in both content and form. Assessment combines rigorous academic analysis with opportunities to develop sophisticated, reflexive and transferable skills in research, communication and critical thinking.