English Literature

Students will develop an understanding of the way humans and non-humans shape and are shaped by their environment, and how this is reflected and explored in literature. You’ll study a variety of genres and kinds of writing across different eras and cultures. This may include:

• classical pastoral 
• eco-poetry 
• climate fiction 
• non-fiction nature writing
• speculative fiction

You will explore the historical, social and political issues that influence written representations of relationships with the environment, and consider the formal and stylistic features of this writing. You’ll apply and extend this learning through a community engagement project involving literature and environments.  

In this module you’ll consider what it means for texts to break the rules. You’ll learn the ways that literature has transgressed social, cultural and formal literary boundaries and conventions. This may include topics such as:

• Censored and banned texts
• Gender, sexuality and transgression
• Literature and protest
• Modernist and avant-garde transgression
• Genre blending and subversion

You’ll examine shifting ideas of transgression in different historical periods, and will explore how these ideas are shaped and altered by cultural, aesthetic, legislative and scientific factors. Through these investigations, you will explore the power of literature to challenge authority and influence today's world.
 

In this module, you’ll learn how to use leading and transferable tools and techniques within textual studies and digital humanities. You’ll explore, experiment with, and develop expertise in using different digital archives, tools and software for literary study. You’ll develop skills in: 

• research
• creative thinking
• project planning
• digital literacy
• information handling

You’ll apply and extend these skills by designing and undertaking innovative, small-scale research investigations into literature and other cultural artefacts.
 

In this module, you will study literary and media expressions of future visions of the world. You will examine fictional and theoretical versions of the future from the nineteenth century onwards. You will explore:

• dystopias and utopias 
• relationships between humans and technology 
• human and nonhuman futures
• diverse and divergent futures

You’ll enhance your capacity to conceptualise different futures. You’ll also develop your understanding of the issues influencing how and why we project different visions of what our world may become.
 

This module will introduce you to the Romantic and Victorian periods through the theme of the supernatural. You’ll investigate the radical technological, social and scientific changes during these periods, and the new uncertainties which arose from these changes. You will discover how writers and artists explored the resultant challenges to established certainties and distinctions between faith and doubt, good and evil, and right and wrong, through their portrayal of metaphorical angels and demons. You’ll study a range of novels, short stories, plays and poems, and different kinds of writing, such as Gothic novels and poems and Sensation novels.

In this module, you will study literature which considers human experiences of the material and immaterial. You will investigate how people – as individuals and communities – are influenced by both scientific theories and the felt realities of human experience. You will explore how a range of texts, from the mediaeval period to the present day, consider questions around science, emotion, memory, and haunting. Topics may include:

• Haunted spaces
• Other worlds
• Science and technologies
• Place and identity 

In this module, you will study a range of American literary texts from the nineteenth century to the present day, and consider their historical and cultural contexts. You will develop detailed knowledge of the literature and culture of America, exploring key topics such as: 

• race and ethnicity, especially in Black and Native American writing
• slavery and its legacies
• American self-mythologising and national identity
• the effect of the Cold War on American writing
• the Harlem Renaissance

This module enables you to develop your critical understanding of fairy tales, and of young children’s literature more broadly from its first Golden age in the Victorian period to the present day. You will also explore the formal workings of these stories, with a focus on elements such as: 

• retellings and adaptations 
• illustrations
• narrative techniques
• formal experimentation 

You’ll also consider the ideological and socio-political influences upon how such stories are revised and adapted as they travel across different eras and cultures.

In this module, you’ll develop your talent and range as a creative writer. You’ll build on the skills you gained in your Creative Writing 1: Voice and Craft in Poetry and Prose module in Year 1. You’ll experiment with a number of forms and prose styles, including:

• crime writing 
• travel writing 
• science fiction
• historical fiction

You’ll also explore techniques of writing poetry through forms such as the ballad and the sonnet. You’ll enhance your creativity, and reflect on your creative choices, as you critically examine what you and your fellow students write.

In this module, you will develop your insight into the working world by undertaking work-related learning, such as a work placement or project. You can experience and engage with employment environments and enterprise-related opportunities. This module enables you to undertake personal and professional development challenges beyond the conventional academic setting, and to develop your graduate skills and competencies. Previous placements and projects have been provided by Oxford University Press, Oxfam, the Oxford Literary Festival, and the Story Museum. Students have also worked for magazines, video games companies, schools, and well-known commercial brands.

This module gives you the chance to do independent research on a literary topic that fascinates you. With the supervision and support of a lecturer, you will design your own project, choosing your own topic and approach. You will study your selected topic in depth, and will demonstrate your new critical understanding through an assessment method of your choosing, such as a blog, a video documentary, a long essay, a performance, or a report. You will develop skills in project planning, self-motivation, critical and creative thinking and research.

In this module, you will explore how literature relates to broader concerns of what it means to be an active citizen in local and global communities. You will explore relationships between literature and citizenship in a range of social, political, cultural and located senses. You will consider: 

• what we understand by the term ‘citizenship’ 
• how literature can forge new social and cultural ways of thinking
• how knowledge of literature might allow us to be more critical citizens

Through this module, you will explore the value of literature in understanding and addressing the global challenges of the 21st century.

This module gives you the chance to do research on a topic that fascinates you. Over the course of your final year, you’ll work independently on a research project, with the help of an tutor. Whether you’re delving into gothic literature, gaming or the dystopian worlds of George Orwell, your major research project will grow out of your specific passion, and you’ll gain excellent self-discipline and organisational skills for work. You’ll gain core skills for your career, including:

• research
• critical analysis
• time-management 
• planned and focused writing.

You can choose the mode of assessment through which you will demonstrate your new expertise. This could be a long piece of writing in the style of a dissertation, or a presentation, podcast, blog, exhibition or something else that suits your project and preferences.

This module gives you the chance to study specialist areas of literature in depth. The topics available are drawn from the research expertise of your tutors, enabling you to engage with leading insights and approaches in the field. Available topics may alter from year to year, but recent topics have included:

• Windrush Stories: British Black and Asian Voices 1948 to the Present 
• The American Civil War in Literature, Memory and Myth 
• Literature and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 

This module gives you the chance to study specialist areas of literature in depth. The topics available are drawn from the research expertise of your tutors, enabling you to engage with leading insights and approaches in the field. Available topics may alter from year to year, but recent topics have included:

• Urban Jungle: the American City in Modern and Postmodern Literature and Culture
• Utopias
• Witchcraft and Madness in Literature

This module gives you the chance to study specialist areas of literature in depth. The topics available are drawn from the research expertise of your tutors, enabling you to engage with leading insights and approaches in the field. Available topics may alter from year to year, but recent topics have included:

• The Victorian Supernatural
• The Theatrical City
• Video Games, Digital Narratives and Interactive Texts

In this module, you’ll meet literary agents and editors as you explore the submissions process for publication. You will produce a 6000 word piece of writing on a theme or idea that interests you, refining your writing practices. You’ll consider how this piece could work as part of a larger published work, for example as chapters of a novel or memoir, or poems, short stories or essays within an anthology, developing your understanding of how a book works as a whole. 

This module is similar to the Independent Project Module available in Year 2, but requires a higher level of knowledge and more extensive study. This module gives you the chance to do independent research on a literary topic that interests you. With the supervision and support of a lecturer, you will design your own project, choosing your own topic and approach. You will study your selected topic in depth, and will demonstrate your new critical understanding through an assessment method of your choosing. You will develop skills in project planning, self-motivation, critical and creative thinking and research. Unlike the Major Research Project, which is also available in Year 3, this module takes place over the course of just one semester.

In this module, you will develop your insight into the working world by undertaking work-related learning, such as a work placement or project. You can experience and engage with employment environments and enterprise-related opportunities. This module enables you to undertake personal and professional development challenges beyond the conventional academic setting, and to develop your graduate skills and competencies. Previous placements and projects have been provided by Oxford University Press, Oxfam, the Oxford Literary Festival, and the Story Museum. Students have also worked for magazines, video games companies, schools, and well-known commercial brands.