BA (Hons) English, Creative Writing and History

Introduction to Creative Writing

Introduction to Creative Writing provides a foundation for the degree in Creative Writing, with a focus on imagination, creative and critical thinking and the transformative power of language.

This module introduces students to the fundamental skills of creative writing through two core lines of investigation: the Writer’s Notebook and the creation of characters.

Students develop their writer’s notebook through active engagement with a wide range of sources, including personal experience and the local environment, and recording lived experience through attentive use of the senses.  

Creative Non-Fiction: Starting From The Self

This module is an introduction to the versatile genre of creative non-fiction, in which writers employ skills transported from fiction to lend dramatic complexity to factual narratives. Using autobiographical material as a base, and developing narrative skills acquired across CW teaching, students will generate dramatic scenes on a variety of topics and themes.  

The ethics of life writing will be a prime focus throughout and workshops will provide students with the opportunity to provide not only constructive feedback on work-in-progress, but sensitive responses to the life experiences of their peers. Workshop and writing protocols around dealing with ‘life writing’ materials will be developed, as well as engagement with theoretical underpinning from autobiography, memoir and life narratives scholarship.  

The module encourages creative thinking and innovative exploration. This module forms the basis of a creative non-fiction ‘strand’ which will be developed through Level 5 and Level 6, that includes the development of real-world skills aimed at leading towards access to creative writing, publishing and associated industries.  

Make It New: Modernist Experimentation

This module considers the long Modernist period, from the first appearance of Modernist texts in the late 19^th century, through the period of High Modernism in the early 20^th century, and then examining texts through the 1930s and 1940s which engage with Modernist ideas and techniques without necessarily being obvious examples of the radical developments and experimentation associated with Modernist literature.

You will consider literary texts in relation to key contextual and historical information, looking at new forms developed by Modernist writers in order to write about a new period of rapid change, conflict and controversy.

You will also continue to hone their skills of close textual analysis, as well as developing comparative skills in writing on more than one text.  Creative Writing students will be exposed to a wide variety of genre and form and be invited to make use of techniques discussed and examined during the module in their own creative responses to the Modernist era. 

Conflicts and Controversies in Victorian Literature: Charlotte Brontë to Charles Dickens

This module will familiarise you with a series of key texts from the early and mid-Victorian period, covering the 1830s through to the 1860s.

You will focus on some of the major conflicts and controversies associated with this time of significant change, and will consider the different ways in which a range of writers responded to these concerns.

The module will develop your skills in the application of contextual and historical knowledge to the structure and content of a range of texts, including novels, poetry and one scientific text.

The module will also help you develop the skills of close textual analysis, which you will rely on throughout your degree.  

Introduction to Modern Britain (c1800 – 2000)

This module will offer you a rigorous introduction to many of the defining questions of contemporary British history, applying chronological and thematic approaches and exploring a rich variety of source material. 

How did the arts of representative government and the achievement of a mass democracy in twentieth-century Britain create a distinctive picture of change and reform? How did economic crises, social controversies, shifting cultural movements and religious values redefine the political, social and cultural understandings by which British people lived? And how did Britain’s place in the world at large alter as it declined from an age of empire to an increasing subordination to new superpowers and an awkward relationship with the politics of Europe?

In particular, the course will encourage you to examine the interrelationships between domestic and international relations, national and local experience, and questions of class and identity and public and popular culture. It is a course which seeks to introduce the political, social and cultural movements which gave British history a distinctive identity and to introduce a succession of public personalities who defined its character and narrative, from politicians like David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher, to public servants, writers and performers like Lord Reith, J.B. Priestley, John Buchan, Gracie Fields and the Beatles.  

The Tudors, 1485-1603

The reigns of the Tudor monarchs saw fundamental changes in the power and influence of the state, in religious beliefs and practices and in the economy and society. 

This course introduces students to the importance of the sixteenth century to the changing nature of political power and explores how the exercise of monarchical authority was shaped by the politics of personal monarchy, royal personality, minority, female monarchy and religion.

England is the principal focus of study, although Wales, Scotland and Ireland are also discussed where relevant to the main narrative.   

Work Placement

A formal work placement that offers intensive, invaluable industry relevant experience is essential. Moreover, the work placement module provides an opportunity to put theory into practice and develop key transferable skills such as teamwork, communication, task-deadline accomplishment, working under pressure, and professional work ethic. The work placement also permits a network of professional contacts to be established that could greatly aid future employability.

The Wars of the Roses, 1455-1485

This module introduces the period of political upheaval and warfare known as the Wars of the Roses. You will examine the major events, themes, and protagonists in cultural, religious and political contexts to develop an understanding of how these events unfolded in the way that they did during this period.  

Fairy Tales: From Early Modern to Postmodern

This module aims to develop an informed historical, critical and imaginative perspective on the fairy tale. Tracing this powerful literary and cultural tradition from its written roots in early modern Italy, through the Salon culture of 18th-century France, the 19th-century folklore and fairy tale collections of Germany, Norway, Russia and Ireland produced against the backdrop of great social and political change and emerging nationhood, and the collections of Lang and Jacobs, this module will examine the development of the fairy tale over the course of three centuries.

You will explore the changes and developments within the genre through analysis of a wide range of stories, and through a specific focus on six major narratives (Puss in Boots, Bluebeard, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Red Riding Hood).

The later weeks of the module consider the work of a range of major 20th-century authors in order to consider and question the continuing influence of the traditional fairy tale.

Women And Gender, 1000-1600

This module explores the term ‘gender’ and its usefulness as a category of historical analysis. It will then explore major areas of research on gender and sexuality by medieval and early modern historians, examining women across all social strata, from queens and regents to prophets and peasants.

Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries

After gaining knowledge of the earlier eighteenth century, you will study the Romantic period. This was a time of revolution: when the idea of ‘rights’ first emerged; when the ‘noble savage’ was imagined; when childhood was invented; and when an actress made love to a prince and wrote about women’s rights.

This module follows a chronological pattern but will teach the debates stimulated by the American and French Revolutions. It will examine their impact on the vibrant literature and ground-breaking thought of the time.

As well as covering the great works of the major Romantic poets, this module will examine the exciting genres and writers that have risen to prominence within the Romantic period relatively recently.

Experiments in Fiction: Detection, Sci Fi, Magical Realism and Beyond

From historical fiction to science fiction, realism to romance, gothic to detective fiction, this essay-assessed module explores the way writers exploit genre to entertain, persuade or amaze.

You will discover some of the principal genres in prose fiction from the rise of the novel to the present day. You will trace the rise of genres in literary history, defining characteristic features of different kinds of prose text, which you will then be able to apply to your own writing and analytic work.

Genres are often passed over or ignored in certain kinds of modern literary criticism: this module explores why, and argues for the importance of often underrated generic forms.

You will learn to recognise key aspects of specific genres, and variations upon these elements, as well as to examine the historical conditions that give rise to particular genres and make them salient at particular moments.

A Social History Of Early Modern England 1550-1750

This module will explore the lives of ‘ordinary’ (i.e. non elite) men, women and children living in England from c1550 to c1750.

You will consider key defining factors of the society during this period including social structures; gender relations; lifecycles; urban and rural life; poverty and welfare; crime and punishment; popular culture; and the church.

English and Creative Writing Dissertation

Your dissertation gives you the opportunity to work independently on an imaginative writing project of your own choosing (with supervision), to pursue specialist literary-creative interests, and to strengthen and enhance your understanding of a chosen genre, literary form or area of artistic enquiry.

It will include a related essay in which you will investigate either:

• a particular artistic, aesthetic or cultural issue of relevance to you as a contemporary writer

OR

• the work of a particular writer who will be influential as you develop your own body of work for the dissertation project

Unconscious Desires: Psychoanalysis and Culture from Freud to Žižek

This module explores the notion of unconscious desire and the expression of these desires in literature and culture.

It traces the emergence of the ideas of unconscious desire in the work of Freud and how Freud links this idea to the literary and the cultural.

Then the course explores the ways in which various psychoanalytic thinkers have transformed the notion of unconscious desire and used it to grasp literary and cultural forms.

At the heart of our experience is, psychoanalysis argues, a fundamental fantasy that engages and shapes our experience of the world and our ‘selves’. These fundamental fantasies are shaped by literature and culture. 

Art and Knowledge in Europe: From Early Renaissance to Baroque (1250-1650) 

This module offers an in-depth analysis of the development of art, patronage, beliefs, medical and scientific knowledge, technology, and the emergence of a scholarly debate on climate and the environment in Europe from c.1250-c. 1650. By adopting a comparative approach, you will examine these themes and how they developed in geographically distant areas of Europe.

Digital Writing: Writing for the Community of Strangers

On this module, you will harness the skills developed in non-fiction modules in year one and year two to engage with new possibilities in digital writing, including:

• blogs
• games
• websites
• online journalism
• Twitter/Tumblr/Facebook
• texts
• podcasts
• comments forums
• campaigns
• hypertext

and the non-linear; e-books; apps; fan fiction; reviews, etc.

British Culture Wars

This module explores conflict within British culture from the start of the 19th century to the turn of the new millennium.

You will consider the reaction to obscene publications and other literary controversies and moral panics of Victorian Britain, through to the liberal reforms in the 1960s and the self-censorship and the baleful influence of Hollywood on British cinema.

Unforgettable Corpses: Literature, Cultural Memory and the First World War

This module will examine literary products of the First World War, the methods by which the authors reproduced, described and fictionalised their experiences. The second half of the module will also consider the use of First World War tropes in literature produced in the latter half of the 20th century, compare the application of those narrative devices, and critically assess the later use of those devices.

Writing the Novel

On this module, you will write the first chapter of a contemporary novel, deepening skills gained on short fiction modules in Years 1 and 2. Having acquired skills in narrative, imagery, characterisation and theme, you will now be encouraged to develop these skills in greater depth while engaging with the demands and challenges of a longer form.

A Global History of the Cold War

This module introduces you to a wider view of the effects of the Cold War beyond the traditional Western-centric view. You will examine the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Middle East, the decolonisation processes in Asia and Africa, the political influence on developing nations in Latin America, and the emergence of China as an additional player.

Gothic Women's Writing

The aim of this module is to examine a range of women’s Gothic and Romantic- period writing, including Mary Wollstonecraft, Ann Radcliffe and Jane Austen in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

You will explore a range of prose texts across a variety of genres, including the novel, the essay and the drama. You will discover how this writing was of importance to Romanticism.

You will also examine the use of the Gothic and assess how this popular yet often devalued mode of writing adds to our understanding of an extended Romantic period and to nineteenth-century literature.

You will explore the relationship between such writing and the political debates of the period. In particular, the module uses these writings to show the intensity of the debate concerning the nature of the individual and society in the political turmoil following the American and French Revolutions and their long-term aftermath.

By examining women’s writing, you will be encouraged to move away from naïve assumptions about the historical context, particularly in terms of sexual and political oppression. You will consider how ‘feeling’ or sensibility, often connected with femininity, became a key concept.

You will also be encouraged to appreciate the complex interaction of the discourses of taste, gender and politics in the period and consider the role women writers played in this.