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EDD301
Stuff: Victorian Literature and Material Culture
Victorian modernity was defined by production and consumption. Objects were made, sold, bought, stolen, given, lost and found on an unprecedented scale. The Victorian period and its literature were stuffed full of things. For some, this proliferation of stuff signified progress, wealth and civilization. Others were less confident, or even critical, about this new materiality. Focusing on the years immediately after the Great Exhibition, this module examines how objects were represented in literature and how literature itself became an object of consumption.
This module takes one literary text ¿ Charles Dickens¿ novel Our Mutual Friend (1865)¿ and studies it from a range of thematic and theoretical perspectives. The novel will be read alongside philosophical and theoretical writing that investigates the fluctuating and unsettled relationship between materiality and subjectivity. The module takes an object-centred approach which shifts emphasis away from the subject as unique generator of literary meaning. In so doing it engages with the recent `material¿ turn in Victorian studies.
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EN-100
Monsters, Theories, Transformations
Literary works open up different meanings depending on the questions we ask them and the assumptions we bring to them. Literary meaning is in continual transformation. This module examines some of the ways in which this occurs through critical reading and intertextual revision. The first half of the module looks at two works, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula, that have been plurally interpreted by critics; the second half of the module considers the transformation of narrative and ideology in the 'intertextual' revision of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre by Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. The course looks at how meaning in literature is transformed and how it transforms the ways in which we see the world.
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EN-120
English Essentials
This is a skills-based module which will equip students with the technical and critical expertise that is necessary for their academic journey in English Literature and Creative Writing. It is designed to support the transition from post-16 study to undergraduate study and to show students *how* to become successful scholars of English. How should we read texts? How do we write essays? Focusing on an exciting anthology of texts selected by the English academics at Swansea, this team-taught module uncovers the power of written language. We will explore how writers inspire and challenge their readers, how to think critically, how to close-read, how to construct powerful arguments and how to produce written work that is rigorous, academic and convincing. This module empowers students to think, write, and persuade.
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EN-3031
Dissertation - English Literature
The Dissertation is an optional, two-semester, 40-credit module designed to develop high-level academic skills and intellectual independence in the students. A first-semester skills-building programme will include: research skills, summary skills, bibliographic skills, ability to synthesise succinctly, planning and organisational skills, correct presentation of a thesis and bibliography, presentational skills and public speaking. Students conduct research on a subject of their choice, devised in consultation with a member of the English literature staff. The topic will be devised to fall within staff research and teaching specialisms, broadly defined. Students attend group sessions on research skills in Semesters 1 and 2, and have individual meetings with supervisors in Semester 2.
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EN-M87
Nineteenth-Century Literature and the Environmental Imagination
Mountains, oceans, polar regions, cities, forests, heaths, and deserts are some of the many locations that inspired nineteenth-century writers. Over the course of 11 weeks we will explore the emergence of what can be called the `environmental imagination¿. We will reflect on the significance of this literary mode in the historical context of industrialisation and urbanisation, forces that played a defining role in the formation of the Anthropocene, the epoch that defines humanity¿s catastrophic impact on the earth¿s ecosystem. Students will have the opportunity to study Romantic poetry, children¿s literature, realist literature, the Condition of England novel, travel writing, science fiction, and nature writing. Connections between empire, exploration and exploitation will be tracked across this range of literature, and theories of gender, ecology, and race, for example, will inform how to productively interpret these nineteenth-century texts.
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EN-M89
Publishing: Cultures and Contexts
This team-taught module introduces students to different cultures and contexts of the publishing industry and its history. Students will gain both practical and intellectual skills across a range of topics taught by staff from English Literature and Creative Writing. The module begins with focused seminars on book history and print culture, and then moves on to workshops in which students will gain a familiarity with industry terminology and the mechanisms of the book trade. Students will be able to choose from different methods of assessment that develop academic or industry-focused skills.
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VC-101
Introduction to Visual Culture
Now, more than ever, our world is saturated with images. We create, distribute, and consume images at an unprecedented scale and pace. This module introduces students to the discipline of Visual Culture and equips them with empowering skills of visual interpretation and contextualisation. We begin by thinking about what an image is and what role representations play in our understanding of ourselves and others. You will study a wide range of material including painting, prints, photography, film, video games, social media and architecture. In doing so you will consider how the discipline of Visual Culture connects with the related fields of Film Studies and Art History. Throughout, we question the relationship between looking, knowing, and dynamics of power.
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VC-102
Visuality and Embodiment
In this module students explore the relationship between environment, embodiment, and vision. We study a range of different environments and think about how their visual design shapes experience. We begin by critiquing ingrained assumptions about what constitutes physiologically `normal¿ sight, and we work towards an understanding of visual diversity, visual impairments, and a problematic existence of a hierarchy of the senses. This foundation informs the rest of the module which is organised into three sections: landscapes, nightscapes, and cityscapes. From picturesque parks to apocalyptic spectacles, we explore examples of how the natural environment has been framed as a landscape for our visual consumption. Then we consider the relationship between light and sight as we think about the visuality of night, light pollution, and light festivals and lighting decorations. The module concludes by examining two contrasting modes of visuality in the city: the art gallery and street art. The former, an institution possessing a history of elite practices of visual consumption, and the latter, a counter-culture activity of rebellious creativity.
Much of the learning on this module strives to be active and embodied and therefore occurs beyond the seminar room. For example, we walk, look, and learn in the setting of Swansea¿s beautiful Singleton Park as we think about the cultural history of public parks and botanical collecting. To help us understand and critique hierarchies of art we visit the Glynn Vivian Art gallery in Swansea, and we take a trip to see Bristol¿s internationally renowned murals created during the annual street art festival Upfest.
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VC-200
Techniques of Seeing
In the module Techniques of Seeing we examine how we see and its impact upon what we see. The module develops and extends ideas encountered in the first-year module, Introduction to Visual Culture. Students will examine different conditions of visuality, their meanings and cultural functions. In particular, we think about the technical complexities of visuality, image-making, and how devices such as microscopes or drones alter or augment the experience of sight. Much of the module is spent analysing dynamics between cultural agendas and scientific discourses of sighted knowledge.
