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EN-206
Debating Texts: Theory in Literature
Literature prompts debate, and speaks to us differently depending on the questions that we ask of it. This course looks at how our understanding of meaning in literature changes when we think about critical debates concerning the role of history, language and subjectivity in texts. We take three very different texts from different periods, and look at the ways in which the texts (and debates around them) raise questions of history, language and subjectivity, and how the texts comment on these issues. We begin with a classic of 19th century realism, Charles Dickens's HARD TIMES (1854), move on to the groundbreaking work of modernist experiment, Virginia Woolf's MRS DALLOWAY (1925), and end with a powerful example of postmodern representation, Toni Morrison's BELOVED (1987). The course will be taught by a formal lecture followed by a discussion forum, in which short passages of literary and theoretical text will be read and debated in the lecture theatre.
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EN-207
Revolution of the Word: Modernism
An introduction to Modernist literature, focussing upon its origins in response to the crisis of modernity, its engagement with colonialism and the First World War, its formal experimentation, its depiction of city-life and its engagement with new ideas of gender and the unconscious.
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EN-241
Fragments of Union: The Cultural Making and Breaking of Britain
The nationality question has been a persistent theme in British politics, most obviously in recent decades in relationship to questions of immigration and settlement, Britain¿s membership of Europe, the `troubles¿ and `peace process¿ in Ulster, and the resurgence of forms of devolution and nationalism in Wales and Scotland. This course explores the ways in which the diverse literatures of the British Isles have responded to, and shaped, debates around these issues. The questions asked on the course will include: How does a `four nations¿ approach, well-established in historical studies, function in literary studies? What are the key differences and similarities between the literatures produced in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales? To what extent does literature reflect social identities, and to what extent is it active in their creation? If all identities are in as sense `imagined¿, why have certain kinds of identities been significant in particular periods? Is an aesthetics informed by nationalism inevitably conservative and restrictive? Are linguistically experimental writers always skeptical of collective identities? Are we witnessing the `break up¿ of Britain in contemporary literature, or is Britishness being reconstructed anew?
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EN-244
American Word / American Image
This module explores the central work of twentieth-century American literature in relation to American visual culture, including film, art, photography and pop culture.
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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-309
Further Creative Non Fiction
In this module we explore the different forms and challenges of writing Creative Non-fiction. We look at various kinds of narrative non-fiction, including, among others, life writing (biographical and autobiographical work), travel writing, the essay, and writing about the human and natural environment. We also examine the ways in which such work is published, disseminated and read. The focus will be on narrative ¿ or, to use the tagline of the publication Creative Nonfiction, `True stories, well told.¿ This is a workshop-based writing class. Each session includes writing exercises and discussion of examples of published writing, as well as discussion and group feedback on students¿ work in progress.
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EN-M003
Words of Power
This team-taught module asks you to explore the relationship of power to language. The course has a number of strands: the question of postcolonial `writing back¿ to power; historical forms of political and cultural resistance and iconoclastic protest in Wales, Britain and America; questions of language, faith and ethical commitment; the philosophical tensions between mind-dependent or mind-independent truth, post-truth and language; the carnivalesque idea of language as double-voiced or `dialogic¿; ideas about art and communication, aesthetic autonomy, political intervention; the rhetorics of persuasion, propaganda and agit-prop; the relationship between monolingualism, language difference and uneven global economics; the ecocritical movement between writing in the world and an environmental sensibility of writing the world; questions of language, gender, agency and affect; styles of communication; intellectual property and the expropriation of language in the age of AI.
You will scrutinise a variety of texts and literary genres: novels, poems, drama; works of literary criticism, theory and philosophy, polemical essays and long-form journalism; digital interventions. You will reach a deeper understanding of the indissoluble relationship ¿
be it benign or malign, creative or repressive ¿ between the expressiveness of the word and the exercise of power. Importantly, taking this course will enhance your awareness of how your own language may be used and abused ¿ an ever more urgent requirement in the digitised workplace.
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EN-M004
Special Research Topic 1
This intellectually rich and flexible module enables MA students to shape their own academic pathway by engaging with specialist areas of research aligned with the expertise of our academic staff. The Special Research Topic is designed for those who wish to explore a focused area of interest in depth, supported by staff who are active researchers at the forefront of their fields.
The content of the module varies each year, reflecting staff research and availability, and offers a broad range of literary and theoretical perspectives across periods and genres. Indicative topics might include:
- Intersecting Identities: Wales, the nation and beyond
- Voyages, `Discovery¿ and cultural encounters in early modern literature
- Modernist writing and urban experience.
All topics are delivered through small-group seminars that emphasise close reading, critical debate, and collaborative inquiry.
To foster a strong sense of academic community and intellectual exchange, the module opens and closes with whole-cohort seminars. These sessions provide a space for students and staff to introduce their research interests and to reflect on the wider significance of their studies.
The Special Research Topic encourages originality, independence, and critical sophistication, offering students a chance to develop advanced research skills within a supportive and stimulating environment. It is ideal preparation for a dissertation or further academic research, as well as careers that demand analytical rigour and effective communication.
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EN-M006
Slow Reading: Attention, Interpretation, Resistance
In an age of hyperconnectivity, infinite scroll, and algorithmic compression, what does it mean to slow down? This module invites you to explore the radical potential of slow reading ¿ not as nostalgia, but as a conscious method of resistance against the cultural pressures of speed, surface, and distraction.
For the duration of the semester, we will engage in an extended, intensive, and meticulous reading of one single substantial literary text ¿ selected from a curated list that spans genres, centuries, and styles. From the theological vastness of Paradise Lost to the polyvocal sprawl of Ulysses, from George Eliot¿s moral intricacies to R.F. Kuang¿s speculative rewriting of empire, the text becomes both anchor and prism for thinking about narrative, language, and the value of attention itself.
The module opens with an introductory session on the theory and history of reading practices. We¿ll explore how literary scholars have variously approached texts:
¿ Close reading, as canonised by `Cambridge English¿ and `New Criticism¿ and refined by figures such as D.A. Miller (`too close reading¿)
¿ Distant reading, as advocated by Franco Moretti, which seeks patterns in literary history through abstraction and aggregation
¿ And emerging hybrids such as `close reading at a distance¿, as theorised by Rebecca Walkowitz, which rethink reading in transnational or digital contexts.
Together, we will ask:
¿ What does it mean to truly attend to a text?
¿ How does reading slowly change our interpretations, our bodies, and our critical ethics?
¿ Can slow reading become a form of care, or even activism, in an accelerated world?
Throughout the semester, weekly seminars will trace the text in detail ¿ line by line, chapter by chapter, rhythm by rhythm. Students will keep a reading journal, reflecting not only on content but on the process and experience of reading itself. The final assessment will be a deep analytical essay grounded in the course¿s collective journey through the text.
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EN-M31
Dissertation
Individual project devised and defined in discussion between supervisor and student.
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ENE1004
Discovering Literature
Discovering Literature is an introductory module designed to provide a broad and engaging foundation in English literary studies. Spanning over a millennium of literary history, from the early medieval period to the present day, this module invites students to explore the richness and diversity of English literature through a chronological and thematic journey. It introduces key texts, authors, and movements that have shaped literary traditions and cultural discourse across time.
The module is structured to guide students through major literary periods, including Old and Middle English literature, the early modern period, Romanticism, nineteenth-century literature, Modernism, Postmodernism, and contemporary writing. Students will encounter a wide range of genres including poetry, drama, prose, and emerging digital forms, and will be introduced to, and encouraged to critique, the literary canon. Discovering Literature equips students with essential critical and technical skills that will underpin their academic development throughout their degree. Students will be introduced to key literary terms, concepts, and analytical methods, including close reading, narrative theory, genre analysis, and critical perspectives including feminism, postcolonialism, and ecocriticism.
Discovering Literature lays the intellectual and methodological groundwork for more specialised study in subsequent years and fosters a lifelong engagement with literary culture.
