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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-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-3060
Philosophy and Literature
Much significant literature of the twentieth century dramatizes ethical, metaphysical and aesthetic questions that are central to the study of philosophy. Work by writers such as Franz Kafka, George Orwell, Samuel Beckett, Claire-Louise Bennett and Milan Kundera enhances our understanding of ethical plights and moral choices. We explore questions of loyalty, affiliation and commitment and the relationship between political power, truth and freedom. Certain conceptual pairings recur: self and other, mind and body, subject and object, animal and human, language and gender. Literature makes manifest universal philosophical questions but may also challenge a philosophical will to explanation. Some of the fictions we study are also conspicuously marked by the particular disfigurements of twentieth-century history, such as totalitarianism. Our approach reveals how these representations of historical trauma, political oppression and social alienation speak of the immediacy and relevance of both philosophical enquiry and literary interpretation. We will study these works alongside selected critical essays, as well as excerpts from philosophers such as René Descartes, Giorgio Agamben, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
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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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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.
