BA (Hons) English and History with Foundation Year

This module introduces you to the literary-critical skills and approaches that are fundamental to the study of English. It will equip you with specialist analytical terminology and techniques while reinforcing and developing your existing skills of analysis. You will consider the construction of a range of texts drawn from different genres and literary-historical periods. Particular attention will be paid in taught sessions to the subject-specific research, planning and writing skills that you will need throughout your degree. Teaching will also support the development of digital skills in advance of the final assessment.You will develop your knowledge and skills through in-class discussion, directed research tasks and independent study. Some sessions will be explicitly student-led: you will be encouraged to read beyond the texts specified and asked to contribute questions for class discussion. University-level research skills will be embedded in taught sessions, with support from the BGU Digital Learning Development and Library Services.

This module introduces you to the suspenseful world of Gothic literature. Covering texts from the eighteenth century to the present, the sessions will build your knowledge of the rise of the Gothic, its conventions, themes, and motifs. Because of this module’s focus on Gothic literature as evoking effects, it lends itself to psychological and sociological approaches: prepare to be scared! Relating to other courses on your degree, the module links to key concepts and ideas explored on subsequent genre and period modules. Teaching will pay special attention to the close reading of primary texts and the development of written skills in advance of the final assessment.

This module will equip you with the necessary skills to analyse and evaluate poetry. It empowers you to read, analyse, and discuss poems and lyrics by giving you the tools to express your responses to poetry by understanding technical features of poetic form and language. It will give you an idea of the breath and range of poetry in English by developing intertextual connections and recognising its relation to changing contexts. It engages in current debates about the nature and function of poetry, developing three main emphases: skills development, literary knowledge, and theoretical awareness. The module provides an introductory survey of poetry written in English that crosses centuries, poetic genres and forms, metre and rhythm. Its range embraces performance and political poetry, and musical lyrics, as well as written poetry, testing your knowledge through a practical form of assessment that connects visual, digital, and presentation skills.

This module studies Shakespeare’s timeless work and investigates the ways his texts are repeatedly rewritten and performed today. Over 400 years from his death the popularity of his work is not weakened; on the contrary his plays are read, studied, and performed all over the world both in English and in translation. His work is as relevant as ever and it is to be found in the richness of language expressions which still permeate the English language, and in intertextual connections found in multiple, diverse cultural, literary and artistic contexts all over the world. This module provides an introduction to Shakespeare’s range of work and its reception in his time, and a foundation in the use of plays as texts. You will engage in current debates about the nature and function of Shakespeare’s work by reading the work of the Elizabethan bard in relation to changing contexts through a range of production instances. This module emphases skills development, literary knowledge, and internationalisation. It assumes no prior knowledge or engagement with Shakespeare’s work. It provides an introductory survey of his oeuvre and a range of specific case studies by focusing on his plays, ranging from tragedy to comedy. You will reflect on the ways in which his humour, themes, and dramatic twists bridge the difference between age groups and cultures.

This module will introduce you to the importance of individual and collective identities in the study of history. Through examining a variety of key theoretical texts and biographically-focused case studies, largely but not exclusively centred on British history, you will learn about different approaches to the history of identity and its utility for modern historical studies. you will gain an understanding of a range of theoretical methodologies related to the practice of social and cultural history that will provide a firm foundation for later studies. At its core, the module will introduce you to the principle sources for, and main theoretical approaches taken in, the study of key, often intersecting, identities within the disciplinary area of history, such as: sexuality, class, politics, religion, race, gender and disability.

On this module you will be introduced to the early modern British Isles, broadly covering the period from the Reformation of the English Church to the 1688 Revolution. The module will consider political, social, military, cultural and economic perspectives on a transformational period in the history of the British Isles. By taking a survey approach the module will support you as you gain a wider understanding of this period of history. Consideration will be given to, variously, social structures and lifecycles, reformation and religious change, the rise of parliament and the state, radical politics and revolutionary change, the impact of print culture, the English Civil War, and the role played by urban, rural and maritime/imperial development as drivers of change. In summary, you will come to understand why the period is referred to as 'early modern', neither wholly medieval or modern. The module will engage you in the excellent digitised resources available for this period and introduce you to the vibrant historiographical and methodological approaches to explaining changes in the early modern British Isles, as appropriate, and you will learn how to apply these to the research and analysis of this period of history.

This module introduces you to the study of history at undergraduate level and is a key part of your transition to university. You will gain an initial understanding of the varied nature of the discipline and the range of approaches to it, introducing key areas of theory and practice covered in subsequent modules in history, such as: the significance of schools of historical thought, key source types and popular interpretative approaches. There will be a focus on some of the key critical and practical skills involved in reading, researching and writing history. The use of an engaging case study will contextualise how historians analyse primary sources and how historians engage with the secondary accounts produced by their colleagues. Introductions to information literacy, academic integrity and a range of study skills, such as the reading of academic texts, will be explicitly embedded within the module. You will be encouraged to reflect on your own study skills, learning strategies and approaches. Taught sessions and assessments will encourage your to express your ideas in written and spoken form through discussion, debate and argument. This module is designed to support your progression through subsequent modules in the subject.

On this module you will study late medieval England - in particular the various roles, occupations and classes of people in Late Medieval England. Through a survey approach, you will examine the changing nature of various aspect of late medieval society, such as kingship, the aristocracy, feudalism, gender, education, literature and drama. The module will introduce you to recent historiographical debates surrounding the nature and transformation of kingship in this period as well as the extent and nature of conflict between social groups, particularly in relation to the Baron’s Wars and the War of the Roses. As well as providing opportunity to understand the significance of powerful late medieval women, the module will also look at gender roles in wider society and how these changed. You will also study the changing role of religion, how drama was used to promote religious ideas, the development of literature, learning and the transformation of the medieval landscape. The course will introduce you to this formative period of English history and to key historiographical debates. It will use a variety of methodical approaches to enable you to research, analyse and explain various aspects of this period.

This module will introduce you to the generic and thematic diversity of the Victorian period (1837-1901). It considers a range of texts from across the period, from poetic forms to late-Victorian drama. The selection of texts combines some of the most familiar works of Victorian literature with lesser-known and recently neglected writings. It also studies Victorian social, cultural and scientific debates and considers the emergence and significance of a variety of genres, including (but not limited to) the social problem novel, serial fiction, sensation fiction, and comedy. This module emphasises the specific historical, socio-cultural contexts of the Victorian era to reflect on the ways in which Victorian writers negotiated ground-breaking ideas, discoveries, and significant events. It will encourage you to question current preconceptions about the nature of 'Victorianism' and what it represents, and engage with contemporary key Victorian scholarly debates. Teaching will focus on further developing the analytic skills acquired on the degree so far, and applying them in relation to illustrative examples of historicist analysis, debating skills, and nuanced interpretation. In the assessment you will deploy a historically informed approach to issues in context and test sustained research and analytic skills in the form of a written assignment.

This module is organised around key frameworks for the understanding of human and cultural identity; likely to include gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, subculture and social class. The exploration of such frameworks is supported by theoretical materials designed to introduce you to key literary and cultural concepts (such as ideology, patriarchy, heteronormativity, performativity, otherness, diaspora, and hybridity). Literary texts will be drawn from a variety of genres, periods, and cultures, and you will be required to identify, and reflect upon, the correlations between identity and its literary and/or aesthetic expression. Through both seminar discussion and the assignment tasks, you will be encouraged to adopt a pluralistic and comparative approach to the topic, crossing textual and discipline boundaries in your exploration of the interlaced operations of cultural classification and individual self-definition.

This module will develop your knowledge, understanding and subject-specific skills related to local and regional history. This will include relevant research methods, including primary source analysis and digital information skills. The module will review the historiography associated with local and regional histories and you will consider a range of perspectives and framings such as the political, social, cultural and economic. A significant focus of the module will be the exploration of the variety of sources available to the historian investigating local history. These will include visual, oral and textual; tangible and intangible; official and private. This activity is normally facilitated by engaging with both physical and digital primary sources. Through practical exercises in the retrieval, synthesis and interpretation of a range of source material you will develop the skills needed to operate successfully in this field.

This module will engage you in a long view of the history of magic, witchcraft and folklore. The module will begin by surveying the complex relationship between religion, health, miracles and magic during the later medieval period. It will then examine the subsequent development across early modern Europe of a culture of witchcraft persecution and prosecution, which will be considered through the lens of fear, often exacerbated by social status and/or gender. You will finally be tasked to evidence, explain and challenge the meta-narrative for the apparent decline in belief in a witch cult from the 18th century onwards. You will critically examine evidence for the persistence of pagan and magical beliefs as well as the development of folklore and fairy stories into the ‘modern’, ‘enlightened’ age. You will be exposed to relevant primary and secondary material in order to engage fully with the case studies and historical sweep of the module, and will be expected to critically explain and defend your interpretations. A parallel strand running throughout will be critical analysis of the trajectory of historiographical debate associated with the history of magic and, in particular, witchcraft and paganism.

On this module you will explore modern urban history from the global to the regional and local levels. Content is organised thematically, enabling you to engage with historiographical debates and theoretical approaches to the modern city with case studies drawn from every continent. The chronological focus is on cities of the modern age (broadly post-1800). However, the module will include discussion of pre-modern cities (e.g. ancient Greece and Rome), tracing their lineage into the modern period from bustling Victorian industrial cities, coastal conurbations and imperial ports, to twentieth-century skyscrapers and megacities. You will analyse changes in the form and function of urban spaces and explore the profound demographic, architectural, environmental, social, cultural and political changes that took place in these urban spaces and contributed to the very concept of ‘modernity’. On this module you will gain understanding of the urban sphere beyond Britain, taking a comparative approach to a wide variety of case studies and engaging with recent research by urban historians outside the Anglosphere, including India and China. Close reading and discussion of theoretical texts and historiographical debate will be combined with primary source research in physical and digital formats.

This module offers a selective survey of multicultural British literature considered in the context of empire and its demise, the migration of people to Britain from the colonised and formerly colonised world, the racist nationalism of the decades following WWII, and the more contemporary phenomena of asylum-seeking and terror. We will consider in detail the stylistic and formal properties of a diverse range of texts, from realist novels to performance poetry and visual media.

The module will follow a broadly chronological trajectory, giving you an understanding of the literature in its historical and cultural contexts, tracing shifts in the social and political, as well as literary, landscape of Britain. It will also introduce you to a range of contemporary cultural, postcolonial and feminist theories that will aid textual analysis, as well as connecting to wider artistic and political debates

This module examines literature written for children and young adults. It will engage you with its history and recent successes and transformations and explores its diverse range of genres, such as fairy tales, fables, picture books, poetry, fantasy, and non-fiction. It provides knowledge and understanding of cultural and social contexts, origins of literary form as well as constructions and representations of childhood and youth.

Teaching will pay particular attention to themes, such as suitability and creativity, gender and sexuality, childhood and adolescence, as well as a range of different theoretical approaches that deepens the study of literature written for children and young adults and about childhood and youth.

This module offers you the opportunity to study popular literature as a specific field of literary and cultural production. The course will examine key concepts and theoretical issues relating to the popular, including its definition and relationship to genre writing, and the significance of production and distribution practices.

The module programme will address a sample of illustrative texts drawn from popular literary genres such as action-adventure, travel and life writing, romance, crime, sensation and historical fiction, fantasy, horror, and fan fiction. In addition to analysing the distinctive features of selected popular genres, you will examine the social and cultural contexts informing illustrative texts and evaluate your connections to, and articulations of, relevant cultural issues and debates.

This module examines the impact of women in literature through a variety of literary forms and transnational parallels and contrasts. It highlights identity politics and the ways in which women have fought to change discriminations based on race, gender, class, age, and sexuality. By bringing together several themes other modules have introduced, this module will strengthen your confidence in undertaking independent research. It will equip you with increased research skills and resourcefulness in choosing your area of specialist literary knowledge by exploring women’s writing by weaving a thread of critical enquiry determined by the significance of women’s contributions to literature. In doing so, it follows a chronologic trajectory, which acknowledges the origins of feminism, and an international perspective that encompasses a variety of diverse authors. It will test your knowledge through coursework that facilitates your choice and independent research skills.

This module offers a survey of the development of western drama from the late 19th century to the present day. You will be introduced to dramatists such as Ibsen, Brecht, Williams and Beckett, alongside key developments and debates in dramaturgical theory and practice. You will be required to think comparatively about theatrical style and ideological expression, relating approaches such as realism, expressionism and absurdism to thematic structures of cultural dissidence, moral subversion and political engagement. Individual plays will be considered as theatrical events as well as written texts so attention will also be paid to the specific theatrical and institutional contexts of individual works, and you will be examine visual and video materials relating to staged performances. Specialist workshop sessions will be scheduled to introduce and enhance the digital literacies required for the practical assessment.

This module will engage you in a wide-ranging study of the Atlantic World in the early modern period with a particular focus on the 17th and 18th centuries. Through a critical review of secondary texts and a variety of primary source material you will analyse the political, economic, technological, social and cultural history of the Atlantic World, with a particular focus on the ‘Anglophone Atlantic’, its origins, growth and contact with European empires and indigenous peoples in the Americas and Africa. You will engage with historiographical debates concerning the character of the ‘Atlantic World’ with its competing empires and entities and consider whether this is a useful concept for understanding this period of history. Key themes to be explored include: the importance of the trade in goods and the movement of people, including the trans-Atlantic slave trade; the significance of conflict and co-operation between states, sub-state groups and individuals; the importance of identities and how they changed as a result of the Atlantic experience; and the role of science, knowledge and communication in the Atlantic World.

This module will engage you in an in-depth assessment of life in Britain during the twenty-year period between the First and Second World Wars. The overarching theme of the module reflects the perennial historiographical debate on whether these years are best seen through a pessimistic lens of political crisis and economic decline, or more positively via a focus on social opportunity and cultural vibrancy.

You will engage in critical discussion of interwar politics, debating issues such as: the rise of the Labour Party, Conservative electoral dominance, the failure of political extremism in the British context and the beginning of the end of Empire. Unemployment and economic challenges will also be covered, alongside the rise of consumerism, home ownership and the growth of leisure activities. Social and cultural change will be examined through a variety of issues such as the experience of women, the decline of the aristocracy and the impact of the wider world upon Britain: for example, the popularity of American jazz music and cinema. The shadow of war will be a key theme throughout, be it the economic and social consequences of the First World War, or international tensions coming out of it that culminated in the 1930s.

You will engage with a range of primary source material, including novels, autobiographies, contemporaneous journalism, oral histories, newsreels and film and will be expected to engage in and frame your interpretations utilising key, recent historiography.

This module offers a final opportunity for you to extend your critical engagement with modern writing through an examination of some of the most significant writers, movements, and innovations in literature since the end of the second world war. Through a variety of genres and literary forms, the module will examine divergent representations and responses to this unsettling period, from disillusioned expressions of national or political decline to progressive visions of renewal through cultural hybridity and reinvention. Central strands of investigation will likely include: challenges to realism and aesthetic experimentation; the rise of apocalyptic imaginaries and the arrival of the Anthropocene; multiculturalism and globalisation; and the deconstruction of self and subjectivity. Lectures and seminars will test and enhance the literary-critical skills acquired at levels 4 & 5 through an engagement with relatively complex literary works, contexts and theoretical frameworks, paying particular attention to the development of independent critical argument in advance of the final assessment. The inclusion of different national literatures within the module acknowledges the significant impact of international exchanges during the period as well as providing a means of investigating the increasingly global contexts and concerns of late 20thand 21stcentury literature.

This module promotes detailed knowledge of the major developments in English Literature occurring during the Romantic period. With its emphasis on the cultural contexts of literary, poetic and dramatic language this module enables you to discuss critically changing modes of expression in relation to political, philosophical, aesthetic and social contexts. It includes some consideration of visual art and print culture, building upon your exposure to other instances of this on other period or genre modules. The teaching pays particular attention to primary resources in terms of social, cultural and literary contexts, by examining texts written in response to idea championed by revolutionaries, reformers and Enlightenment thinkers. In view of the final assessment the module facilitates the building of research context and skills.

This module requires you to devise and undertake a dissertation on a subject of interest and to prepare, in written form, a substantial literary critical essay, including a proposal and reference list. It draws on research skills imparted on earlier, research-led modules, but requires you to impart these in a more independent and critically advanced manner. This module will deepen and refine your knowledge of your chosen specialist area and offers insights into the construction of longer pieces of analytical written work and the ways in which arguments are honed across them. The teaching pays particular attention to supporting you in your research and writing processes. This support includes taught whole-group sessions at the beginning, midpoint and end of the module, feedback sessions, and tutorial provision delivered by individual tutors.

During this module you will undertake a wide-ranging critical study of British imperial development during the nineteenth century. The narrative underpinning the module is the increasingly global and expansionist nature of European empires at that time, with Britain in the vanguard of imperialistic, globalising forces. You will examine the impact of British political and military power, money, technology and culture on the peoples, societies and environments it came into contact with. You will likewise analyse the agency of human responses to imperialism through a mixture of adaptation, co-operation and resistance and be introduced to scholarly research on the geographical and environmental signifance of industrialised imperialism. Additionally, the ways in which British society and culture was transformed by the imperial experience will be a crucial point of consideration with its legacies stretching into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You will utilise relevant secondary texts and a variety of primary sources in order to understand the most significant political, economic, technological, social and cultural aspects of the imperial experience and engage directly with classic and recent historiographical debates about the nature of the British Empire, its origins, purpose, meaning and legacies.

On this module, you are required to undertake a research-based project, drawing on academic advice as well as your own interests and intellectual skills, to produce a research-driven, written dissertation of 8-10,000 words. You will conduct your research by addressing self-formulated questions, supported by the critical selection, evaluation and analysis of primary and secondary source material. By these means you will devise and sustain a core argument, and/or solve relevant historical problems, to support the premise of your research question. You will proactively manage the first stage of the development of your dissertation by forming conceptual ideas and related arguments and compile aresearch outline, research question and working, annotated bibliography to summarize both quantitatively and qualitatively the research you plan to undertake. Taught sessions will help you to explore and understand the research methodologies and issues of presentation required for the production of a successful history dissertation. You will then have further individual tutorials spread across both semesters, in which allocated dissertation supervisors closely monitor and advise on the development of appropriate, distinctive, and critical arguments in respect of the chosen subject of study.

This module provides you with a critical study of the history of the Cold War ‘conflict’ between the US and its allies, and the Soviet Union during the second half of the 20th century. Through a wide-ranging study, based on primary and secondary sources, the module will review the political, diplomatic and social manifestations of the Cold War. A specific element of the module will focus on the foreign relations between the Soviet Union and the United States of America, examining the historiographical debates that surround the origins and the end of the Cold War. Key features such as Soviet and U.S. foreign policy, ‘proxywars’ and the role of secret intelligence alongside events such as the founding of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, Korea and Suez, the Chinese and Cuban Revolutions, Vietnamese and Afghan Wars will be examined. Popular protest movements will also be considered, such as CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and the Anti-War movement. Key actors, episodes, events and crises will be addressed through an international lens encouraging you to take a global historical view on the issue of when, or indeed if, the Cold War ended. The module will consider relevant historiographical and methodological approaches, and you will learn how to apply these to the research and analysis of aspects of this period of history.

This module studies literature from the English medieval period, covering a range of genres and authors. In addition to analysing texts in their original languages and contexts, you will be encouraged to recognise their impact and influence on contemporary literature and media. You will also consider the practical relevance of texts by exploring manuscripts and the ‘margins’ of medieval literature.

The module is designed to develop your knowledge of pre-Early Modern literature obtained at previous levels. Teaching pays special attention to the particular requirements of studying medieval literature. You will be provided with the skills necessary to reading primary sources in their original languages.

The practical form of assessment allows you to explore an area of personal interest from the module while developing your research, oral, and presentation skills.

This module explores a range of literary and other texts associated with the cultural and artistic developments of Modernism during the early decades of the twentieth-century. It will introduce you to the diverse strands of Modernism, as exemplified by writers such as Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Ernst Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Katherine Mansfield, Jean Rhys, and William Faulkner. In addition, it will contextualise these literary achievements amidst the cultural and historical contexts of modernity, examining areas such as colonialism, the artistic avant-garde, modern alienation & the metropolis, gender and sexuality, and the impact of the First World War. Workshops and seminars will pay particular attention to the relationship between cultural transition and aesthetic innovation, further enhancing your close reading skills and historicist methodologies. There will be specific sessions dedicated to the introduction and enhancement of digital literacies to help you prepare for the hypertext assessment.

At a time of climate emergency, this module asks how literature reimagines the environment and our relationship to it. You will begin by studying literatures produced in the early stages of the industrial revolution in order to understand some of the causes of our current environmental crisis, including fossil fuel production, major transport networks and other infrastructures, urbanisation, and global food supply chains. Literature not only represents these developments, but also imaginatively responds to the environmental changes that result from them. Poetry and fiction, in particular, call attention to alternative ways of conceiving of and responding to our surroundings, from evoking nostalgia for pastoral lands unaffected by industry to presenting utopian visions of environments for the future. This module will develop your understanding of the range of literary forms that imaginatively respond to environmental change. You will examine elegies that express despair at environmental change, creative essay prose that fosters environmentalist action, and speculative fiction that promotes ecological utopias. Teaching will focus on enhancing knowledge and understanding of key literary texts and environmental debates and issues from the eighteenth century until today. The assignment will ask you to develop critical arguments that bring your understanding of environmental literatures to bear on pressing ecological and environmental questions in the environmental humanities today.

This module will explore the political history of the French and Haitian revolutions with a focus on the question of how far these revolutions represented the birth of ‘modernity’? In approaching the topic in this way, you will be encouraged to rethink the political ‘events’, personalities and ideas of the period and key economic, military, social and cultural changes in order to focus on the global significance of these revolutions and thus question more deeply the very concept of ‘modernity’. You will utilise the latest scholarship on figures such as Robespierre, Toussaint Louverture and Napoleon and examine case studies from the Fall of the Bastille to the Haitian Declaration of Independence in order to engage with concepts such human rights, racial and gender identity, terrorism, warfare and political violence, as well as questions of individual liberty, slavery, representative government and the role of the nation state in modern society. You will learn and apply the latest historical methods and approaches to an area that has consistently been one of the most creative (and divisive) in terms of historical theory and in so doing will learn about the role of historiographic debate in driving progress in the historical profession. By the end of the module you will be able to understand and intervene in discussions about the meaning and legacy of two revolutions which are frequently said to stand at the gateway to the modern world.