BA (Hons) Creative Writing and History

Creative Non-Fiction: Starting From The Self

This module introduces you 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, you will generate dramatic scenes on a variety of topics and themes.

Europe and the Mediterranean World: Society, Identity and Encounters: 1450-1700

This module will introduce you to conflicts and relations between southern Europe, the Maghreb and the Ottomans from 1450 to 1700.

You will explore the socio-political structure of Mediterranean Europe through the study of early modern urban history with a focus on communities and cultural encounters.

Subjects under discussion will include revolts, diplomatic affairs, trade, piracy, spying and human trafficking between Europe and other Mediterranean states.

Introduction to Writing Short Fiction

This module will build on skills and techniques acquired throughout your first semester, such as:

• concrete imagery
• writerly research
• notebook gatherings
• reflections on developing creative work.

You will encounter a variety of forms and voices in a range of examples from traditional and contemporary sources in both British and international short fiction.

Making History: Theory and Practice

This module examines different approaches to a range of historical case studies. These will include, amongst others, social and cultural history, the history of women, gender and sexuality, ideology and discourse analysis, postcolonial, the history of the visual image, landscape and public history, the legacy of modern war, and heritage studies. Key concepts common to history writing such as periodisation and the nature of the archive are also examined.

Renaissance and Reformation Europe: 1350-1600

This module evaluates the political, intellectual and religious development, popular, elite and court culture, warfare and international relations and gender issues across Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire within the Renaissance and Reformation periods.

In doing so, you will gain a better understanding of Early Modern European society and the way it responded to pressure and change.

Source and Exploration

The module will train your observation skills. You will learn to apply the world around you to inform your creative processes. You will also learn the value of the ‘concrete’ as opposed to the ‘abstract’ and discover how the ordinary can become extraordinary.

The Tudors: 1485-1603

This module moves chronologically through the monarchs and events of the sixteenth century.

You will consider the role of political faction in the decision-making process under Henry VIII; the impact of the Reformation at the centre and in the localities; the shaping of monarchical authority by the royal minority of Edward VI; and the female monarchies of Mary and Elizabeth.

The United States: An Introduction: 1763-1970

This module analyses the distinctive origins of American political thought and constitutional practice, the structures and effects of slavery, the origins of the civil war, the evolution of popular culture with special reference to jazz, the pursuit of civil rights and the emergence of the United States as a world power.

The Writer’s Notebook

This module introduces you to keeping a writer’s notebook and how to use this as a storehouse of ideas, images, research and drafts. You will also learn about the journey from rough idea to finished piece as you examine a selection of case studies of notebook entries, drafts, and published work.

War and Peace: Twentieth-Century Europe and Global Conflict

This module provides you with an overview of European political, cultural, and military history during the 20th century through the study of its major conflicts and global forces.

The central focus of the module is the international history of the major Great Powers between 1914 and 2000. You will examine of some of the common debates that often surround the origins of the First World War; the Second World War; the Cold War and debates on the ‘New World Order’.

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.

Creative Writing: Poetry, Form and Freedom

This module will enable you to develop a variety of sophisticated traditional poetic forms and to develop experimental free verse poems within a reflective contemporary poetic practice.

Creative Writing Non-Fiction: Writing Place

You will examine and experiment as writers in three genres:

1. travel writing
2. ‘the new nature writing’
3. psychogeography.

Assessment

Over the course of the module, you will undertake three assignments, one in each genre. In so doing, you will develop a nuanced understanding of non-fiction as a literary form. These ‘assignments’ will also extend your professional skills of research, drafting and presentation.

From ‘Angry Young Men’ to Cool Britannia?: A Historical Analysis of British Cultural Activity After 1945

This module provides you with an opportunity to analyse examples of British cultural activity after 1945 within their artistic, political, and historical contexts.

The module discusses a series of key movements of cultural production, for example, ‘the Angry Young Men’; ‘Cold War fictions’; or ‘Thatcherism/responses to Thatcherism’.

Kingdom of Heaven: Crusading and the Holy Land: 1095-1291

This module assesses the causes and consequences of crusading to the Holy Land between 1095-1291.

You will examine the motives of the First Crusaders and the subsequent defence of the Holy Land, including leaders such as Richard the Lionheart, as well as the political and economic ramifications for the Latin East and the indigenous populations of the invaded territories.

Popes and Politics

This module examines the nature of papal pronouncements and diplomatic interventions in the continuing evolution of the modern nation state. You will consider these ideas in the new ideological landscapes of totalitarian power, in the two world wars and the Cold War.

It will involve an analysis of the ideas, culture and structures of the Roman Catholic Church as they were found at work in the contexts of national and international politics in the years 1864-2005.

Re-Litigating the Past: State, Media and Historical Injustice in Contemporary Britain

This module focuses on how public histories have been rewritten in Britain over the past three decades, through the interventions of state, media, and voluntary sector institutions.

By studying these forms of investigations, you will learn about how private traumas are integrated into or transformed public memory, the ways in which and reasons why silences are maintained or broken, and the place of ‘the past’ in judicial processes.

Renaissance to Restoration

This module explores the evolution of poetry and prose throughout the Renaissance era and into the Restoration period of the 17th century, as result of major political and religious turbulence.

You will consider the works of Spencer, Marlowe and Shakespeare, who begin to explore gender and history in their work, before moving on to the satirical poetry of Donne, Marvell, Milton, and Rochester.

Stuart England 1603-88: Rebellion, Restoration and Revolution

This module introduces you to the Stuart Age, circa 1603-88, as you explore why England went through such a period of extended turbulence and instability in the seventeenth century.

You will explore the radical political, religious, economic, social, cultural and intellectual changes that took place in Britain and beyond, in era of constitutional instability.

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.

Approaches to Research

This module will build on your earlier explorations of research techniques, with a focus on the development of time and project management skills as you begin to prepare for your dissertation.
Questions concerning how one starts on a research project and establishes viability of subject to a range of different approaches/theoretical perspectives will be discussed in detail, in relation to how you will choose their own dissertation topic.

Art & Knowledge in Europe: From Early Renaissance to Baroque: 1250-1650

This module examines the development of art, knowledge, taste, fashion and beliefs in Europe from c.1250-1650 as you consider the importance of intellectual history, cultural history, science and art as key aspects of European culture.
You will pay close attention to a range of textual and visual sources — from literature, diaries, correspondence, journals, painting, sculpture and architecture.

Creative Non-Fiction: Writing Lives

This module introduces you 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, you will generate dramatic scenes on a variety of topics and themes.

Culture and Civilisation in Late Medieval England: C.1200-1550

This module offers a thematic and contextual survey of late-medieval England.

It commences by problematising ‘The Middle Ages’, focusing on historiography, myth, public perception, and the constructed nature of historical periodisation.

The focus is on England, but material from elsewhere may be used, and videos and field trips are normally employed in order to enhance your understanding of late-medieval culture and its conceptualisation.

Enlightenment Europe: 1688-1789

The ideas of the Enlightenment provided new ways of thinking about science, religion, education, politics and society and the place of ‘mankind’ in the world, but to what extent did the ‘philosophers’ transform society and how enlightened were they?

You will explore these ideas as you engage with the works of Locke, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, Beccaria and Wollstonecraft.

Environment and State in Britain Since 1945

This module explores the British state’s evolving stewardship over the environment since the end of the Second World War.

You will examine the connected environmental challenges that the state has faced in this time including pollution, urban change, resource depletion, species conservation and control, epidemics, extreme weather, the threat of nuclear war, and climate change.

Experiments in Fiction: Magic, Detection, Sci Fi and Beyond

This module aims to provide you with an understanding of, and ability to recognise, a range of genres in prose fiction.

You will gain an understanding of genre as a means of classification and understand that the way a text employs genre shapes its meaning.

Fascism and Post-Fascism in Europe

By looking at a variety of case studies from across Europe throughout the first half of the 20th century, we will discuss the way in which fascism was both embraced and fought against.

In addition, by using literary and cultural forms of post-fascism you will explore how many of the core messages of ideological fascism survived despite being politically discredited.

Fairy Tales: Early Modern to Postmodern

Gain an informed historical and critical perspective on a powerful literary and cultural tradition beginning with the fairy tales written in early modern Italy, continuing through Perrault, D’Aulnoy, Grimm, Andersen to the work of more contemporary authors such as Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood. It also asks where we can turn to for modern fairy tales, through a focus on the use of fairy tale tropes in the work of J.K Rowling and Philip Pullman.

Fiction for Children

This module introduces you to writing fiction for children.

The module will extend and deepen your key writing skills as you learn to pay particular attention to such things as suitable and age-specific subject matter, appropriate language, a more active narration, faster pacing and the demands of greater immediacy.

Heritage in Practice: Work Placements for History Students

The aim of the module is to introduce you to the ways in which your learning experiences in the discipline of History can be applied to the working environment.

The work placement experience will provide you with an understanding of the practical, ethical and technical issues involved in the collection, cataloguing and preservation or conservation of physical traces of the past.

Prose Fiction: the Dynamic of Change

This module will explore the dynamics of change in the contemporary short story.

You will examine model short stories and how they invariably dramatise a significant change in character, and/or situation.

In doing so, you will understand how to analyse the devices writers use to shape narrative, and to create tension and conflict.

Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries

The module will also assess how far second-generation Romantic poets developed the key Romantic theme of reform, as you consider the influence of the French Revolution on the work of British writers during the 18th century.

You will study the work of renowned and revered Romantic poets including Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Wollstonecraft, alongside the work of Mary Shelley and Jane Austen.

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.

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.

France and the Modern World

This module introduces you to the key themes and trends in Modern French History. You will study the post-war development of a major European nation, looking at the ways in which it sought to reassert its strengths in international politics. You will also examine how this impacted on its people, analysing aspects of French society and culture to track major changes in national identity.

Henry VIII and Court Culture 1509-1547: Faction, Faith and Fornication

This module examines the structures and cultures of royal courts of the Tudor period.
In particular, you will consider court culture through the eyes of contemporaries in order to explore the centrality of the royal court and its relationship to the localities during this period of such immense change.
You will explore the royal court’s political influence, the role of faction and division and the relationship to the literary arts.

International Law

This module introduces you to international law: the body of law which governs the legal relations between or among states and nations.

You will study the theories, principles and processes of international law, including its sources, legal personality, jurisdiction and realms of responsibility.

In addition, you will also be introduced to debates about the regulation of international activities, including the use of force, dispute settlement processes, human rights, and the role of the UN.

Gothic, Romanticism and Women’s Writing: From Mary Wollstonecraft to Jane Austen

The aim of this module is to introduce you to the exciting range of women’s prose writing in the late 18th century, as you consider the relationship between such writing and the political debates of the period.

You will discover how this writing, while often underrated, was of importance to Romantic aesthetics, often primarily understood and defined in terms of poetry written by men.

Kingship, Queenship and Power in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

This module considers the nature of social, cultural and political power in the late medieval and early modern periods by examining a variety of different topics such as royal ritual and law-making, visual and material culture, and social exclusion and popular rebellion.

You will understand how power was conceptualised and exercised in different socio-cultural contexts and chronological periods, as well as consider the role of gendered within power structures and social responses to rulers.

Louis XVI’s France: 1643-1715

This module assesses the extent to which an ‘absolutist’ monarchy was established in France in the seventeenth century. You will consider various historiographical perspectives of the French monarchy, with a focus on the social and cultural contexts of the period as well as the impact of the military tensions with other European nations.

Making It Strange: Writing the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Modern Gothic Novel

This module offers you the opportunity to develop your creative skills within genres that focus on worlds that lie beyond the tradition realm of ‘realism’. These forms of ‘Beyond Realist’ texts have a distinguished pedigree stretching back to humanity’s earliest myths, epic narratives, folklore and fairy tales. You will explore how to write within genres such as science fiction, fantasy and contemporary Gothic as you learn their specific complexities and intricacies.

Making History: Theory and Practice

This module examines different approaches to a range of historical case studies. These will include, amongst others, social and cultural history, the history of women, gender and sexuality, ideology and discourse analysis, postcolonial, the history of the visual image, landscape and public history, the legacy of modern war, and heritage studies. Key concepts common to history writing such as periodisation and the nature of the archive are also examined.

The Cultural History of Death

This module explores how literary representations of the historical and social treatment of the dead presents a vivid insight into the cultural behaviour, ideology and social order of different cultural and historical contexts.
You will explore the beliefs and attitudes towards the dead within literature from the Middles Ages through to more contemporary examples and debates.

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.

You will trace the emergence of the ideas of psychoanalysis in the work of Freud and how various psychoanalytic thinkers have transformed the notion of unconscious desire and used it to grasp literary and cultural forms.

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.

Birds, Beasts and Bestiaries: Animals and Animal Symbolism in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe: C.1100-1650

This module explores the various roles of animals within Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe, both in reality and within cultural arts. You will examine: the role of animals as diplomatic gifts; domestication and pet keeping; animals and warfare; exotic animals and mythological beasts; hunting and lordship; animals and Christianity; chivalric animals (in heraldry and romances), and animals and national identity.

Commerce and Consumption in Early Modern England: C. 1600-1750

This module examines the emerging commercial cultures of Early Modern England. Using primary sources of wills, business accounts, personal letters, and diaries, you will consider the changing attitudes to business and consumption of the period and how they laid the groundwork for further economic evolutions that influence the way we live today.

Contemporary Short Fiction: Writing the Here and Now

This module will enable you to explore, as active writers and readers, the strategies, innovations and preoccupations of contemporary writers of the short story. You will read and analyse the craft, technique and rigour of three to four highly regarded short story collections from the last fifteen years.

Dictatorship, Conformity and Resistance in Hater’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy and Stalin’s Russia

This module explores the distinctive ideologies of Soviet Communism, Italian Fascism and German National Socialism, and to consider if and how these were in fact new forms of religion. The module will also examine the construction of these ‘totalitarian’ states in practice, and the experiences of individual and institutions caught up within these contexts, with particular reference to the churches and to cultural movements.

Globalisation and Its Malcontents

This module looks at key moments in the development of globalization focusing on moments in which the world came together, such as the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, when the terms of global trade were outlined after the rupture of the Second World War.
You will use these examples to contextualise the work of theorists like Arjun Appadurai to develop your understanding of how globalization has shaped twentieth-century history and politics.

Vice to Virtue? the Origins and Outcomes of the French Revolution: 1744-94

This module examines the roots and consequences of the French Revolution, as well the major historiographical debates that continue through to today. You will gain a clear understanding of the political, social and economic context of the revolution’s origins, the complexities and evolution of the Revolution itself, and the fallout and ramifications across the subsequent decades.

Writing, Environment and Ecocriticism

This module will offer you the opportunity to explore the ways in which contemporary writers and critics engage with images, issues and concepts of the environment in novels, poetry and non-fiction. You will choose whether you wish to engage with the themes of the module as a critic or a creative writer.

Writing Flash Fiction

‘Flash Fiction’ is an exciting new way of telling stories. By composing their own portfolio of very short fiction, you will be challenged to see the form from the inside, and to focus upon the creative challenges that are unique to ‘flash fiction’. These challenges will be brought into additional focus by workshops that require critical reflection upon the evolving work.

Dissertation in Creative Writing

The Dissertation in Creative Writing gives students the opportunity to work independently on an imaginative writing project of their own choosing.

This may take the form of a fiction project, a poetry project, a play or screenwriting project, or a creative non-fiction project.

It will include a related essay in which the student-writer investigates 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.

Dissertation in History

The dissertation represents the culmination of your History studies as you complete an individual research project on a topic of your choosing.

The 10,500-word thesis will include explicit methodological and historiographical dimensions and where appropriate, theoretical discussions integrated into the text.