This module introduces you to various aspects of literature and drama. We will examine a range of important concepts to the study of literature and drama, including authorship, form, genre, intertextuality, as well as various historical contexts. To develop skills in analysing drama, we will study the principles of dramaturgy and engage in practical explorations of a range of plays.

This module will introduce you to some of the key topics in contemporary linguistics and language studies, such as pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and psycholinguistics. You will learn to apply linguistic concepts and terminology to real-life examples of spoken and written language in use. You will study a wide range of analytical frameworks which will deepen your understanding of the structural characteristics of English, and will be introduced to the role language plays in other areas of English studies and the humanities. The module will help you develop your skills in critical thinking, in analysing different forms of data, in identifying and synthesising information from a variety of sources, and in presenting your findings in a coherent and well-organised way.

In this module, you will develop a rigorous and inventive writing practice by experimenting with different ways of gathering source material and generating new writing, and then with shaping and crafting that writing in prose and in poetry. You will also develop strategies for building a sustainable writing practice, reflecting on what helps and hinders you in regularly making new work. You will explore the tenet that creative writing does not emerge solely from abstract ideas and the blank page, but from a regular writing practice that engages imaginatively and playfully with stimuli and constraint.

This module seeks to engage you with a focused analysis of poetry, drama, the novella and the novel as specific forms and to equip you with the scholarly tools used to investigate them. We will examine a range of genres and periods, exploring the concept of conflict from war and revolution to social class and gender, as well as at a psychological level. Conflict creates dramatic interest in narrative, but many forms of criticism assume that conflict should ideally be resolved. We will query this and consider how more overtly ideological criticism might explore the contradictions within a text and disclose what the text itself cannot say. This may lead to questioning of conflict, resolution and even how a historical understanding of conflict is important in our contemporary world.

This module will introduce you to how theoretical texts and literary criticism can improve the tools with which we carry out close reading. Each week we will read a theoretical text that covers a different concept and learn how to apply that knowledge to literary writing. You will develop the skills to close read and analyse both primary texts (literature) and secondary texts (criticism and theory). This module will help you to critically reflect on both types of text, as well as on what we bring to a text when we read it, and to pay careful attention to literary form, style, and genre.

This module will introduce you to a number of advanced topics in contemporary linguistics and language studies, such as phonetics, grammar, and corpus linguistics. You will expand your knowledge of linguistic concepts and terminology and develop your ability to apply this knowledge in the analysis of real-life examples of spoken and written language in use. You will be introduced to the phonetic and grammatical characteristics of English and you will analyse these phenomena in context. The module will help you develop your skills in critical thinking, in analysing different forms of data, in identifying and synthesising information from a variety of sources, and in presenting your findings in a coherent and well-organised way.

This module focuses on a period of theatre history characterised by formal innovation and revolutionary ideas. You will learn about the intersection between notions of ‘modernity’ and dramaturgical styles associated with ‘modernism’. You will engage with the artistic movements that developed in Europe from the late nineteenth century and identify key playwrights and practitioners that brought significant changes to the stage, on the continent and in Britain. You will examine seminal works from this era, both as written texts and in performance, concluding the process with your own practical interpretation of a chosen play, which will be informed by historical and critical research.

In this module, you will explore key elements of effective writing, such as character, setting, action and dialogue, and the techniques used to create and control style on the page, such as showing and telling, detail and description, imagery and viewpoint. You will examine each element or technique in a given text and then apply what you have learned in your own writing. Each lecture and workshop will inform a different element of your writing technique, feeding into three new pieces of writing to be submitted for assessment at the end of the semester. This module provides a strong foundation for further study and practice in creative writing in years 2 and 3.

This module examines different forms of writing that engage critically and creatively with ‘nature’ and the ‘environment’. This module will enhance your understanding of reading and writing as practices through which people develop and debate their understanding of the world, and the place of people within it.

This module introduces you to some of the principal works of one of the most dynamic and exhilarating periods in English literature, the cultural legacy of which has influenced the creative arts and the history of ideas ever since. The texts studied on this module raise profound and lasting questions, and you should approach them in a spirit of adventure and enquiry. Can literature act as an agent of revolution? What is the creative imagination? What is liberty? How should we conceive of the natural world? What is the significance of feeling and empathy? What is the relationship between language, society and authority? What do we mean by ‘Romanticism’? Of what is humankind capable? As such, the module also requires you to think about the relationship between literature and history, and how literary texts in any era respond both to the present and the past. Authors and their works are examined in their social, political and economic context, as well as the intellectual, religious and spiritual traditions in which they participate.

The ability to work collaboratively in a team is a vital employability skill within the Creative Industries. This module is an opportunity to learn and critically reflect on the skills of collaboration by enabling you to create a group project with students from complementary disciplines.

The purpose of this module is to enable you to develop professional attributes and subject skills through experience in the work place, and to critically reflect upon your learning in that context. You will normally be expected to arrange your own placement, with support from academic staff and ADM Careers+.

This module explores two concepts central to our understanding of what makes us ‘modern’: gender and sexuality. We will challenge ‘common sense’ understandings of gender and sexuality by interrogating cultural identities, such as queer, heterosexual, homosexual, gay, lesbian, straight and trans. It will introduce you to gender studies and sexuality studies as theoretical, social, cultural, political and historical fields of investigation. There will be a broadly chronological approach to texts and theoretical approaches, moving between examples of twentieth-century fiction, popular culture and theory. You will be given an introduction to literature, culture, and theory as a dynamic field in which issues of gender and sexuality are debated and explored. We will begin by considering where studies of gender and sexuality stood at the start of the twentieth century, and then consider how a number of literary and theoretical texts explore and investigate gender and sexuality. Through these texts we will consider topics such as desire, identity, sexual classification, repression and liberation, the body, transgression, and normality and deviance.

This module will provide you with the knowledge and skills to critically evaluate the representation and function of the child and childhood in both literature for the child and that for an adult audience. You will study a range of texts which will provide you with a broad historical knowledge of the changing role and function of the child in literature and which you will read alongside sociological, philosophical or educational treatise on childhood. In doing so you will gain a broad historical knowledge of the development of ‘theories of childhood’ from the eighteenth century to the present day and examine how these are engaged with in the literature of the day. You will be able to identify and evaluate how literature has conversely figured childhood as a space of discipline, regulation, play, innocence, higher moral purity, and lived social experience. You will be able to apply these ideas to theoretically informed, critically evaluative readings of a range of texts.

This module covers the poetry and prose of the Victorian period, through which you will learn about the formal properties and trends of literature of the period and the innovations which arose, as well as the historical context including social change, gender roles and religion. You will be encouraged to read widely, and to look backwards and forwards through literary history to enable you to situate the literature of the period in context. There will be a strong emphasis on the close reading of texts and on the importance of research and reading relevant works of criticism; you will be encouraged to develop your research and writing skills and to work independently, which will support your work across this and other modules. We'll also think about Victorian culture and how this remains an important determining factor within modern society.

Multicultural Writing focuses on the history of British multiculturalism in literature and criticism from the 1950s up to the present day. Exploring a range of Black, Asian and other multicultural writing, you will develop a critical awareness of how literature and criticism deal with questions of racism, stereotyping, colonial discourse, cultural hybridity, migration and asylum. The overall aim of the module is to develop your aesthetic, critical and historical awareness that will inform your critical thinking about, and imaginative responses to, contemporary multiculturalism. The module spans a diverse set of literary texts (poems, short stories, novels) produced primarily by ‘minority’ writers in Britain since the post-war era (e.g. Black, Asian and other groups who belong to the less established immigrant groups in Britain today). You will study these texts alongside relevant histories of migration, theories of representation, and critical debates about multiculturalism.

This module will provide you with knowledge of key social, political, religious and theatrical contexts relating to literature from the Early Modern period. You will combine this knowledge with key critical and textual analysis tools that will give you the skills to examine several historical, dramatic and poetic texts from the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth centuries. You will focus on the vital role of the early modern period in the formation and transformation of an English literary canon, and discuss key concepts such as materiality, versionality, collaboration and authorship. To do so, you will develop an ability to read closely and analyse textually the language and the literary techniques and devices of this key period, as well as formative skills in archive management.

This module will introduce you to the different intersections of language and society and outline the ways in which language can vary according to class, gender, and age. You will develop your understanding of how to collect, analyse and present language data and results in an ethically responsible and methodologically sound way. You will also examine how language is used to construct social identities, the role of language in wider contemporary society and how sociolinguistic research can be utilised in a non-academic context. You will develop your skills of visual communication, data analysis and data presentation, alongside a careful understanding of the body of research literature within sociolinguistics and how it informs your own work. This module will ultimately allow you to critically evaluate different approaches to the study of linguistic variation and apply your knowledge in designing a research project to investigate language in society.

This module will teach you the essential skills of, and principles behind, the writing of short films. Although these principles apply primarily to screenwriting for film and television, this module will instead be concerned with the writing of short films. You will study a number of freely available short guides to screenplay layout and formatting and be trained in the practical application of screenplay formatting software. You will write three short scripts, given as fortnightly writing exercises, and receive detailed formative feedback on one of the scripts, which you can use to improve and develop your work for your final portfolio. You will focus on visual storytelling, layout conventions, and the issue of writing to scale (budget). You will also be encouraged to analyse, but also critique, dramatic construction in terms of character function, motivation and genre.

The United Kingdom commissions, produces and broadcasts more audio drama – i.e. online, on digital and on radio – than any other country in the world. In this diverse and dynamic medium, writers are able to tell human stories set anywhere in time and space, at a fraction of the cost of television and film production. What’s more – as an old industry saying goes – ‘you see it better on radio’. In this module you will learn how to write compelling audio drama scripts, and engage practically and theoretically with the key principles and techniques involved. You will also be introduced to editorial collaboration, the pitching of projects, and appropriate methods of presentation. Through your workshops, you will learn how to communicate ideas clearly, accurately and effectively both orally and in writing. In devising, developing and writing your own audio drama scripts, you will initiate, manage and complete an independent creative project.

This module introduces writing contemporary poetry. You will learn from the work of a diverse range of contemporary poets, explore the distinctive characteristics of the form, and experiment with techniques involved in writing both set forms and free verse. You will identify, practise and apply eleme