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EN-237
Exploring the Bloody Chamber: Medieval to Postmodern
This module will analyse narratives of female enclosure and gender conflict in a selection of texts from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Our specific focus is the story of the serial wife-killer Bluebeard: we will begin by examining variants of this fairy-tale narrative before both tracing it back to its mediaeval antecedents and following its continuing presence as an influence on more contemporary texts. In the process, we will discuss theories of gender, race and class in order to account for the persistent presence of this story in Western 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-3050
Written in Blood: Reading the Vampire
From Nosferatu to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Barney the Vampyre to the Twilight saga, the vampire is an enduring ¿ one might say persistently `un-dead¿ - presence within culture. This module builds on students¿ encounter with Bram Stoker¿s novel Dracula at Level One, and will take up the study of the literary vampire at a more advanced level. Students will be required to draw on a range of gender, cultural and critical theory in order to examine the changing face of the vampire within literature, and its apparently infinite ability to function as a vehicle for society¿s anxieties concerning sexuality, gender, race and class.
Students should note that this module has a heavy reading load, and requires participation in online as well as seminar discussion.
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EN-3053
The Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize Module
This module examines the hyper-contemporary literature longlisted on The Swansea University International Dylan Thomas Prize. Each week will be devoted to examining a different aspect of the shortlisting process, as well as exploring the 12 longlisted books--all of which will have been published in the previous year. In this module, students will have access to literary agents, publishers, marketers, and prize judges, all the while reading and critiquing brand new literature. These texts have not been read on a literature degree before, and this course changes year on year. It is an exciting module that differs with each cohort, and is driven by the books students like to read.
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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-M007
Special Research Topic 2
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:
¿ Gender and genre in modern Wales
¿ Angela Carter
¿ Neo-Victorian Gothic writing
¿ Medieval bodies, gender, and sexuality
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-M31
Dissertation
Individual project devised and defined in discussion between supervisor and student.
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ENE1001
Theorising Gothic Texts
This course explores a selection of iconic nineteenth-century and later Gothic novels to investigate the ways that literature invites different readings according to the assumptions we bring to texts and the questions we ask of them. Through different conceptual lenses, including Marxism, psychoanalysis, disability studies, postcolonialism, and gender theory, we discover how notions of Otherness and monstrosity are ideologically constructed, mediated, and contested by innovative intertextual revision and critical (re)interpretations. This course introduces you to working with a range of theoretical frameworks and critical concepts to analyse how literary meaning is produced and transformed. Additionally, we consider how Gothic tropes of difference and Othering reflect both sociocultural anxieties at the time of the texts¿ production and such tropes¿ implications for present-day concerns with inclusivity and social justice.
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ENE1002
Approaches to Gender in English Literature
From the earliest myths of creation to the modern literary canon, masculinity has long been entwined with the act of authorship. Think of the Biblical story of Genesis: Adam is made first, Eve fashioned from his rib ¿ a story that has echoed through centuries of cultural narratives, shaping perceptions of creativity and authority. But literature is also a space of resistance, where writers challenge the structures that have defined who gets to speak and be heard.
This module dives into the voices that disrupt, reshape and reclaim literary authorship. We¿ll explore how both male and female writers have resisted the masculinisation of literary tradition and carved out a space for female, queer and alternative masculinities within their work. We will study a series of texts written across centuries, each offering a unique perspective on gender, power and writing.
Along the way, you will engage with groundbreaking debates in gender theory, encountering key thinkers such as Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler. Through reading, discussion and independent analysis, you¿ll develop your own interpretations of the set texts, uncovering how literature both reflects and challenges the structures of gendered authorship .
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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.
