English and American Literature

An introduction to the analysis of literary and cultural forms and genres, focussing on American texts, primarily on pre-20th Century, 20th and 21st Century texts.

An introduction to the analysis of form and genre in drama from Greek tragedy to the contemporary.

You will be introduced to the history of poetry written in English from the 1500s to the present day. Themes include courtly love poetry, religious poetry, satire, romanticism, Victorian poetry, modernist poetry, post-war poetry, and contemporary poetry.

This module introduces key skills for university study, progressing to research, writing and project development. You will learn skills of close reading and textual analysis, practice on a range of cultural forms and focussed on representations of Manchester as a diverse, international city. You will then develop your own independent project and put into practice the analytical skills developed. 

A module that is about reading in context, focussing on the relationships between aesthetic form, thematic content and historical context in a diverse range of American texts and genres from the 19th century to early 20th centuries.

Students will practice reading in context, focussing on the relationships between aesthetic form, thematic content and the historical context in a diverse range of texts and genres from the 1940s-1970s, late 20th and early 21st centuries. 

Students focus on two literary forms chosen from a list (for example prose, poetry, scriptwriting) and follow an intensive workshop for one semester. 

This module investigates cultures of resistance and their historical conditions. To do so, it places a range of resistant cultural texts in dialogue with relevant theoretical and critical material. 

This module will offer a chronological history of British literature and culture during one of its most significant periods, from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the end of the Romantic movement around 1830. Its main concerns will be with the transformation of certain literary genres (chiefly the novel and poetry) and accompanying themes, such as the move from Classical to Romantic, the rise of the novel (and women novelists), satire, revolutionary writing, and the centrality of Neo-Classic and Romantic figures and ideas to subsequent cultural and social history.

An innovative module which applies interdisciplinary methods and perspectives in a professional and/or public setting. Students work in interdisciplinary teams on one of a range of projects to showcase interdisciplinary skills in practice.

An innovative module that applies interdisciplinary methods, approaches and perspectives of humanities and social science disciplines to contemporary socio-economic challenges, complementing Engaging the Humanities 1. Each year the module will address a different contemporary issue or theme.

The module will take students through the various stages of recruitment from identifying strengths and skills, to job searching and CVs, using platforms such as LinkedIn, and interview practice. Students will build up a portfolio of tasks related to employability, for instance, CV, video interview, assessment centre and reflect on their learning across the module.

This module will analyse the current climate crisis applying the methodologies of creative writing, English literature, or film and media studies.

This module will explore the organisations and activities that make up Manchester’s UNESCO City of Literature network, and assess ways in which literary activity can help cities address contemporary global challenges.

A module that is about reading in context, focussing on the relationship between aesthetic form, thematic content and historical context in a diverse range of texts and genres from the 19th to early 20th centuries. 

A module that is about reading in context. You will initially focus on a diverse range of texts and genres from the 1940s to the 1970s, considering the relationships between aesthetic form, thematic content and historical context.  Focus will then move onto the relationships between aesthetic form, thematic content and historical context in a diverse range of texts and genres from the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

This module considers the adaptation and reinvention of Shakespearean drama in late-twentieth and twenty-first century stage and screen productions.

How can literary and cultural texts write back to the former colonial centre, enact the decolonisation of the mind, and unpick the stereotypes and ideologies central to the establishment of the British empire? How do literary and cultural works represent the lingering effects of imperialism in the present day? What does contemporary inequality, nationalism, Islamophobia and racism have to do with Britain’s colonial past? This module supports students to address the formal, ideological and ethical questions negotiated in postcolonial literature and cinema. The module offers an introduction to postcolonial theory as it relates to the texts and contexts we discuss. Areas of investigation might include climate change, migration, war, gender and sexuality, race and religion.

You will work with a supervisor to define an independent project on a topic of your choosing - it may be an academic subject or involve work with an external partner. Preliminary research will generate a detailed proposal, which will form the basis of a guided independent research-based project to produce an extended piece of work that presents a thesis. Your final submission will be an individual project that builds upon the skills you will have developed on your course.

This module will focus on representations of the United States’ history, culture and selfhood promulgated by the nation’s movie industry from the early twentieth century to the present day; exploring how Hollywood has articulated, interrogated and dominated available ideas of American national identity.

American Sounds and the City combines the study of American literature, film and music to explore the soundscapes of the American city. 

This module investigates the question of the human in contemporary cultural debate. To do so, it draws upon theoretical and critical work in the field and sets these conceptual frameworks in dialogue with a wide range of literary and cinematic texts. 

The module will take students through the various stages of recruitment from identifying strengths and skills, to job searching and CVs, using platforms such as LinkedIn, and interview practice. Students will build up a portfolio of tasks related to employability, for instance, CV, video interview, assessment centre and reflect on their learning across the module.

This module will introduce students to all parts of the book publishing process and industry. Through practical exercises and interactive lectures, students will learn how the industry developed, specialist genres such as children's publishing and how publishers commission, edit, design and produce books in all formats. 

The module will aim to introduce English as a core curriculum subject in secondary schools and as an A-level subject. It will provide students with insight into the application of their subject specialism to teaching in school and colleges in England, covering aspects of both curriculum content and subject pedagogy.

This module explores the relationship between race, postcolonialism and popular culture, examining the ways in which colonial histories and legacies are interrogated, mythologised or sublimated within popular cultural forms.

This module provides an analytical study of a range of classic and modern texts written for children. It also uses these texts as models for the production of new texts. The module also covers appropriate techniques for writing for children. It provides you with the skills to analyse a range of children's literature, and to use the resulting knowledge to produce original texts suitable for teenagers and children. 

This module may also be taken as a 15+15-credit combination with EdLab.

This module introduces students to the range and diversity of contemporary poetry, and develops students' own critical skills in relation to the study of contemporary poetry.

This module provides an analytical study of a range of twenty and twenty-first century games, both analogue and digital. Students will be introduced to the critical and historical field of game studies, and given guidance on the appropriate critical approaches and terminology to enable them to read games and gaming.

Students will study a range of popular fiction texts and study the ways in which such texts conform to and subvert a set of generic conventions.

This module is concerned with critical and creative conceptions, constructions and depictions of forms of violence and trauma, and introduces students to representations and theories of trauma drawn from multiple locations (temporal and geographic).

This module explores nineteenth-century British and global literature and culture through a gothic lens, using a range of texts such as fiction, poetry, short stories, autobiographies, art, essays and non-fiction published or produced during the long nineteenth century (1790-1914).

This module will critically analyse the representation of place in key contemporary texts. These texts, drawn from a range of genres, will be evaluated within the frameworks (including literary geography and ecocriticism) provided by contemporary theoretical debates. The module will also situate creative and conceptual writing about place within the context of 'real world debates': topics to be covered will include environmental crisis, regeneration and the post-industrial city, and digital technologies and spatial literacy.