English BA Welcome Pack

Preparation and Pre-Arrival tasks

There are no required tasks in advance of your arrival at university, but you might find it helpful to read some of the books on the indicative module reading lists in preparation for your first seminars.

Modules and Reading Lists

The first year of your English degree is made up of the modules below. In your first year you take a total of 120 credits which consists of three 20-credit modules (60 credits) each semester. You will therefore take all three modules listed in Semester One and choose three of the four modules in Semester Two.

Semester One

• LIT1049  Reading and Writing our World
• LIT1038  Contemporary Shakespeares
• LIT1048  American Dreams, American Nightmares: Race, Class and Gender

Semester Two

• LIT1037  Identity Under Construction
• LIT1045  Digital Culture and Print Media
• LIT1046  Decolonising the Bookshelf
• LIT1047  Writing the Wild

The module descriptions below provide a brief overview of module themes and content and include some core texts for these modules – other module texts will be confirmed when full Reading Lists are sent in advance of Semester One.

Level 4 Modules and Initial Short Reading Lists

Semester One

Students study all three modules.

LIT1049 Reading and Writing our World (Compulsory Module)

The purpose of this module is to introduce students to the dual roles involved in the construction of textual meaning: writing and reading. In exploring imaginative and critical reading and writing practices in a range of genres, students will engage in identifying the relevance of textual creativity to real-world applications.

Initial Core Texts

• Henry James, Daisy Miller – please read the Oxford World Classics edition (the one called Daisy Miller and an International Episode, ebook available through the library or buy a copy, though we will only read ‘Daisy Miller’, not ‘An International Episode’)
• T.S. Eliot, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ – available here:  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock
• Elizabeth Bowen, ‘Mysterious Kor’, Iowa Review – available with university login here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/45276700
• Tom Stoppard. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead [1967] – Faber

LIT1038 Contemporary Shakespeares

This module has two main aims:

1. To introduce Shakespeare as studied at university level. This involves looking at Shakespeare as part of his historical, theatrical and literary worlds, familiarising you with a range of his plays across several genres – comedy, tragedysy, and history – and (in particular) developing your skills in the close critical analysis of those texts.
2. To explore a) several contemporary critical approaches to Shakespeare’s plays, which might include presentism, cultural materialism, eco-criticism, psychoanalysis, postcolonialism, critical race theory, and film and performance criticism, among others, and b) cultural appropriations of his life and work. We will look particularly at screen performance and adaptation, but will also discuss how Shakespeare appears in contemporary culture, potentially including popular music, graphic novels, art, advertising, heritage and tourism, or any other area.

The module will show that the meaning of Shakespeare is reinvented in relation to cultural, historical and political pressures, and that its meaning is always unsettled and subject to debate: hence the plural form, ‘Shakespeares’, in the module title. Alongside this, we will explore the richness of the plays’ literary language and the themes it helps them to explore.

Set Text

Please buy or borrow the individual (one play to one book) paperback RSC Shakespeare edition of each play on the Reading List below.

These are the best editions for students: they have a reliable text, explanatory notes, helpful Introductions, and extra information which will really help you on the module. They are relatively cheap, portable, and can often be found second-hand, or at reduced prices, online, as well as in the University Library.

Reading List

Please read the following plays carefully over the Summer, to gather first impressions, and again before the seminar in which we discuss each one, to refresh your memory. Make notes for yourself about plot, characters, themes and imagery.

This is the probable order in which we will study them (although this could change):

• Hamlet
• Henry V
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Othello
• Romeo and Juliet

For the First Week:  

Over the Summer, I’d like you to find examples of ‘Shakespeare’ (his words, his most famous scenes, his characters, his plots, his own image,) which you spot used anywhere in culture in the broadest sense (books, plays, poems, films, art, TV, music, games, memes, tourism and heritage, advertising – anything). Make a note of these, and ideally bring along any portable examples, so that we can share them and discuss their significance in Week 1 of the module.

LIT1048 American Dreams, American Nightmares: Race, Class and Gender

Welcome to the introductory American literature module on the English programme.

This module will introduce you to a range of texts that illustrate the development of a national literature and culture in the US from the Colonial period up to the present day. Through the study of novels, poems and non-fiction forms, seminars will analyse how American writing has developed alongside the emerging republic and how it has responded to key social and historical developments.

The texts are arranged broadly chronologically but will be grouped around themes including race, gender, class, and counter-culture. The notion of founding a nation on the philosophical concepts contained in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will frame the question ‘What is an American?’ throughout the module, as will the ways in which critical perspectives can illuminate our readings of American texts.

The reading for each week is set out below. You must check the schedule in advance so that you can be prepared for every class. Many of these texts can be found on the NILE site but it is your responsibility to find, read and bring these to the relevant seminars.

The module is delivered through 2-hour seminars focusing on one major text over a week or shorter texts that will be discussed in a single seminar. There will also be a small number of online activities to engage with, these will help to supplement the work carried out in seminars. You MUST read the text prior to each respective seminar.

Initial Core Texts

• Nathaniel Hawthorne,. The Scarlet Letter (any edition)
• Frederick Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (any edition)
• Kate Chopin. The Awakening (any edition)
• Stephen Crane. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (any edition)
• F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby (any edition)

Please note that a selection of other shorter required texts will be made available through NILE.

Semester Two Option Modules

Students choose three of the four modules.

LIT1037 Identity Under Construction

This module introduces literatures with a primary focus on the constructions of identity, around issues such as race, class, gender and sexuality. Students also explore the concept of ‘identity’ to ask questions of form and genre, and thus consider key developments in the context of literary movements and social change.

The module will acquaint students with a range of writing including poetry, drama and the novel, which each have a focus on the concept of identity in some manner, as well as key critical and theoretical considerations, such as feminism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. The module will also equip students with a range of key and subject-specific skills relating to information retrieval, referencing, close reading and research.

Initial Core Texts:

You may use any edition of the below texts:

• George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Martin Amis, Money
• Jeanette Winterson, Frankissstein
• Andrea Levy, Small Island

LIT1045 Digital Culture and Print Media

This module focuses on how the meaning of a text is affected by where and how it is published or otherwise shared with the world. We’ll examine the differences between paperbacks, magazines, manuscripts and other media (including film, online texts and literature via social media). There are only four novels (see below) but plenty of other short literary works so we can explore printed and published texts as well as the rise of digital culture.

Initial Core Texts (in order of study):

• H.G. Wells, War of the Worlds [1898] any edition (Penguin recommended)
• Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness [1899] any (Norton critical edition recommended)
• Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart [1958] any (Norton critical edition recommended)
• Jennifer Egan, Visit from the Goon Squad [2010] any edition

LIT1046 Decolonising the Bookshelf

This module sets out to answer the question: what does it mean to decolonise the literary canon? It explores literary representations of global ethnic majorities within a range of texts written in English and drawn from different historical periods.

The module engages a range of critical approaches including post-colonialism and critical race studies to reframe literary debates about diversity and inclusiveness. It examines a range of topics and themes such as colonial discourse, legacies of slavery, writing back to the centre, the relationship between race, gender and class, cultural belonging and unbelonging, and decolonising the canon. It enables students to encounter and discuss a range of representations of the racialised self and other in a constructive, creative and collaborative way.

Initial Core Texts

• Selvon, Sam. The Lonely Londoners (any edition)
• Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince. (any edition)
• Blackman, Malorie. Noughts and Crosses. (any edition)
• Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. Purple Hibiscus (any edition)

LIT1047 Writing the Wild

Writing the Wild explores literary representations of the natural world and the diverse ways in which writers have responded to the wild. The module emphasises the significance of literary texts in contributing to contemporary debates regarding our relationships with the environment and other species, and how the rediscovery of our own wildness can help us to rethink and regenerate those relationships. We will study a range of literary non-fiction, fiction and poetry alongside reading in the fields of eco-criticism, wilderness theory and animal advocacy, drawing on texts from the nineteenth century onwards, and from both British and American writers. Seminar discussions will focus on important themes and concepts such as Wildness, Wilderness, Rewilding, Speciesism, Environmentalism, and the relationship between gender, race, social class and the experience of the natural world and other animals.

Initial Core Texts

• Emily Brontë. Wuthering Heights. Norton Critical Edition (2019).
• Thomas Hardy. The Woodlanders. Any Edition.
• Diane Setterfield. Once Upon a River. Penguin (2018).
• Richard Powers. The Overstory. Vintage (2019).