Department of English and Related Literature

Course Information

This information applies to students joining the Department from 2010 onwards.

The University has a modular structure which is designed to maximise flexibility and student choice. English students select their modules from a long list of possible choices.

As well as the single subject English programme, the Department offers combined courses with the Departments of History, History of Art, Language and Linguistic Science, Philosophy and Politics. Combined course students choose their modules from those offered to single subject students in each Department, and have the opportunity to take an interdisciplinary module or work on a topic linking the two subjects.

The Course Structure

In their first year, students are introduced to a wide range of reading and a variety of critical approaches, covering literature in its historical context and the global range and politics of English literature. They will also choose particular texts or critical concepts for intensive study, and undertake a skills-based module to help them develop as researchers and essay writers.

The second and third years of the programme are distinguished by their flexibility; whilst required to cover a broad range of periods and texts, students can tailor a degree to their own interests. Students choose from a wide range of Period Modules, which allow for the in-depth study of literature in its historical context from the medieval period to the present day, and Special Modules, which concentrate on specific literary or cultural topics, alongside further study of the history and theory of criticism; see below for a sample list of Special Modules.

Single subject students will also take one module in a foreign literature studied at least partly in its own language, chosen from a range of ancient and modern languages. (Combined course students may do so if they wish.)

In their final year, students will also undertake an independent study module, resulting in a dissertation demonstrating their skills in independent study and innovative research.

The University’s module structure gives scope for students to take modules in other Departments in their final year of study, further increasing the opportunities to pursue their particular interests.

Some students may also choose to spend all or part of their second year studying abroad, under exchange schemes with European, North American or Canadian universities.

Teaching Methods

Effective engagement in small group discussion is an important transferable skill which the York programme is designed to foster. Modules are taught through weekly seminars and workshops, in combination with tutorials or essay-writing consultations, and lecture series.

Assessment

An inventive mix of assessment methods takes account of the variety of strengths which students are expected to acquire, though essay writing is central at every stage, from short essays to ambitious dissertations. There will be some assessment by closed examination as well as marks given for seminar performance.

Marks for first year modules do not count towards the final degree result, though regular feedback will give students a detailed sense of their progress.

Special Modules

The modules listed below are currently being offered by the Department in 2009/10. Those on offer to future students may differ, according to staff availability, but will still include a range of topics covering every aspect of English literature.

• A Girl and a Gun: Post-War European Cinema
• American Independent Film: From Orson Welles to David Lynch
• Samuel Beckett & the European Avant-Garde
• Britain’s Cultural Cringe: Inventing English Literature 1700-1800
• Britons at Work: Gender, Class and Victorian Culture
• Chaucer and Chaucerians
• The Culture Business
• Dante in English
• Charles Dickens
• Early Film 1896 to 1917: The Birth of the Movies
• Elizabethan Love Poetry
• Empire and British Identities 1770-1850
• Gender and Identity from John Locke to Jane Austen
• The History and Theory of Criticism
• Homer
• Introduction to Modern Arabic Literature
• Letters and Literary Form
• The Lives of Stories: Myths, Fairytales & Repeating Narratives in Film & Literature
• Measured Laughter: Satire, Parody and Play
• Middle English Romance and Popular Fiction (John Wayne and Gawain)
• Milton and Radical England
• Modern British and Irish Theatre 1945-2006
• Modern Irish Poetry
• Performing Ancient Drama
• Philosophy of Literature
• Politics and the Novel
• Post-Colonial Writing: Literature and Resistance
• Shakespeare: Text, Stage and Screen
• 21st Century American Fiction: Postmodern and Beyond
• Texts and Histories
• Women and Words in Early Modern England
• Writing Eighteenth-Century London