English Literature with Shakespeare Studies final year modules

Compulsory module

Dissertation in English Literature with Shakespeare Studies

During semester 2 of your second year you will be asked to attend an induction talk regarding final year independent study which will encourage you to start to think about the topics you will want to research in your final year. You will then be asked to complete an Initial Proposal form. We will then assign you to one of the Department’s Research Centres, based on your chosen topic, which will allow you to discuss and develop your initial proposal with academic members of staff. All students will attend a one day workshop to help develop their dissertation plans and preparation during the dedicated second year Focus on Finals week in the summer term.

For your final year you will be allocated a Project Advisor who will offer you support and guidance as you undertake your independent research. Advisory Meetings will be linked to specific formative assignments such as literature reviews, detailed plans and draft writing.

On completion of your independent research you will be able to:

  • Undertake a thorough synthesis and review of the material available on the area of study
  • Demonstrate a thorough familiarity with the conventions of scholarly presentation and referencing
  • Conduct independent research through self-formulated questions and tasks
  • Organise relevant information to establish an appropriate and persuasive written argument
  • Apply their understanding of critical, analytic and creative approaches to produce knowledge
  • Use independent and self-reflective critical judgement
  • Develop working relationships with others, especially through constructive dialogue (for example, by listening, asking and responding to questions in group work-in-progress sessions and one-to-one advisory meetings)

Optional modules (may include)

English Literature Options (students choose at least 2)

  • American Frontiers: Nation and Identity in the Nineteenth Century
  • Bedtime Stories: Reading Children’s Picture Books
  • Bringing Out the Bodies: Technology, Transhumans and Skin
  • Decoding Pop Culture
  • Elizabeth I and her Poets
  • Fantastic Beasts and Where They Came From
  • Fantasy and Fandom: Writing Back to the Medieval in Modern Fantasy
  • From Plato to the Postmodern: Theories of Literature and Art
  • Hidden Romanticism
  • Interactivity: The Theory and Practice of Getting Stuck In
  • Islamophobia and the Novel
  • Jane Austen: the Novels and their Afterlives
  • Last Year's Novels
  • Law and Literature
  • Making Global Literatures in Britain
  • Minds, Bodies and Medicine
  • Modern American Poetry
  • Multiple Voices: New York City Poetics, 1960-1985
  • Neo-Victorianism
  • Orwell's Books: Writing Politics, Resisting Tyranny
  • Politics and Terror in the Age of Revolutions
  • Postcolonial Poetry and Poetics
  • Professional Skills (work-based placement)
  • Remembering World War One
  • Senses of the Past: Historical Fiction in the Long Nineteenth Century
  • Shakespeare's Tragedies
  • Single Author: Virginia Woolf
  • The Figure of the Witch: Witch Writings c. 1400 - 1700
  • The Work of Giants: Old English Tales and their Afterlives in Fiction and Film
  • Writing / Painting

Drama (if taking, students choose 1 practical and 1 study option)

Practical Options

  • Contemporary Practice
  • Directing
  • Gamification: Playable Performance
  • Site-Specific Performance

Study Options

  • 21st Century British Theatre: New Writing
  • Alexander Technique for Performers
  • Gender in Theatre & Performance: The Queerest Art
  • Popular Music as Performance
  • Theatre, Philosophy and Emotion
  • Victorian Drama