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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-242
Contentious Shakespeare
Shakespeare is often figured as a universal writer who tells us something essential about the human condition; he has been imagined both as a national poet and as the world¿s dramatist. But can Shakespeare really be universal? This module invites students to rethink many of the standard assumptions about Shakespeare. The writer Ben Jonson described as the `sweet swan of Avon¿ was also responsible for plays of horrifying violence and his drama reflects, in unsettling ways, on issues of gender, race, and class. Students will explore contentious questions of race, gender, sexuality and class in five of Shakespeare¿s plays across a range of genres (comedy, tragedy, history and tragicomedy/ romance). Lectures and seminars introduce the plays in their disturbing complexity: Shakespeare emerges as a deeply equivocal presence in literary and theatrical history. Taking into account the important work of feminist and postcolonial criticism, this module addresses both the radical potential and the frequently conservative application of Shakespeare¿s plays.
Indicative texts (may change from year to year):
Twelfth Night
A Midsummer Night¿s Dream
The Winter¿s Tale
Titus Andronicus
Henry IV pt 1
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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-3058
Beyond Shakespeare
Shakespeare is now the best known, most read, and most performed dramatist of the seventeenth century but he was not necessarily the best known, most read, or most performed playwright of his time. This module looks beyond Shakespeare at five important plays written by his contemporaries, Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, John Webster, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, and John Ford. The plays analysed on this module all enter into some form of dialogue with Shakespeare's plays. Some of them, for example, were written for the King's Men, the company Shakespeare helped found; while some were written for rival companies and some explicitly respond to, and seek to reshape, Shakespeare's work. Daring to broach subjects that Shakespeare was less willing to touch, the plays also offer distinct challenges and opportunities. A Ben Jonson play, for example, simply doesn't work in the same way as a Shakespeare play. This module will introduce students to some of the most inventive and outrageous plays of the early modern stage. Students will learn how best to approach the unique challenges posed by the theatre of Shakespeare's contemporaries, focusing in particular on their status as theatrical scripts. The module introduces students to the repertory system of early modern England and its different playing spaces and theatrical cultures. It will also invite students to consider the life the plays have on the stage today, drawing on the evidence of twenty-first century performances.
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EN-M001
Dissertation
The dissertation is a substantial research project on a topic of your choice which you will conceive and develop over the course of the year with support from your supervisor.
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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-M005
Research Practice in English Literature
This module supports the process of scoping and researching your dissertation topic. It combines individual specialized supervision from an expert in your chosen field with supported co-writing time to work on your own project and seminar sessions to check in, share progress, and receive guidance.
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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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ENE1003
Premodern Voices
How did people in premodern times understand themselves and their worlds? `Premodern Literature¿ explores foundational questions about how we read and interpret texts from the distant past: What does it mean to read literature written in a different language, or from a different worldview or moral framework? How do concepts like authorship, audience, and genre function in premodern contexts? In what ways do themes such as gender, power, war, travel, courtly love, identity, and religion emerge in these works? This module introduces you to the rich and diverse world of premodern literature, spanning the medieval and early modern periods (c.1000¿1700). Through close engagement with a range of texts - from epic poetry, devotional texts and courtly romance to drama, metaphysical poetry, and early printed prose - you will explore how literature shaped and reflected the cultural, religious, and political landscapes of the premodern world.
You will also be introduced to some of the key critical tools and contexts necessary for studying premodern literature, including manuscript culture, early print, and the transition from orality to literacy. Close attention will be paid to the development of language, through Old English, Middle English, and early modern English. The module encourages you to think critically about the relationship between literature, language, and history, and to consider how premodern texts continue to resonate with - or challenge - us today.
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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.
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VC-100
Materiality and Meaning in the Visual Arts
This module introduces visual culture across a range of media, and is designed to help you develop the skills you need to conduct close visual analysis as well as to undertake research and develop your academic writing. We will explore a rich variety of artefacts and discuss how their meaning is constructed and how they might be grouped and exhibited. During workshop sessions, you will have the opportunity to deepen your understanding of some key visual media through practical experimentation, which may include making your own short animation or linocut print. You are also invited to identify your own examples of visual media and bring them in to a collaborative discussion .
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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-200
Techniques of Seeing
This module develops and extends ideas encountered in the first-year module, Introduction to Visual Culture by providing historical contextualization of early screen culture. We consider a range of visual devices and entertainment formats and examine different conditions of visuality, their meanings and cultural functions. We will think about nineteenth-century complexities of visuality, image-making, and viewing in relation to twentieth-century and twenty-first century screen practices.
