LEVEL 3 CORE MODULES:
Advanced Analytical and Research Methods, and a double Dissertation or Project module.
LEVEL 3 OPTION MODULES:
Language: Language, Power and Control.
Literature: Positioning the Reader.
Philosophy, Religion and Ethics: Contemporary Ethical Issues.
Popular Culture: Childhood and Culture.
Politics: Global Politics after 9/11.
Society: Narratives of Punishment.
Turbulent Texts I (Abject Voices): Carnivalesque and Comedy; Disease, Madness and Redemption.
Turbulent Texts II (Cultures of Desire): Surrealism and Dreamscapes.
FULL MODULE DESCRIPTIONS:
CORE MODULE: ADVANCED METHODS
SEMESTER 1: SHCCMM22 CREDITS 12
The aim of this module is to prepare you for your dissertation or project. You will discuss and explore the purpose of and approaches to the kind of research which is appropriate on this kind of degree. You will explore ways of gathering information and data and of analyzing, processing and presenting statistical data. The course will consist of some introductory lectures, followed by workshop activities exploring a variety of research methodologies, including textual analysis and data collection and analysis. At the end of the module, you will have produced a proposal for your individual dissertation or project.
CORE MODULE: DISSERTATION
SEMESTER 2: SHCCMM28 CREDITS 24
In this module students are required to submit an extended dissertation on a relevant topic and title agreed with the appropriate tutor(s). Tutorial support will be provided on a regular basis by members of the Programme Team, and group seminars will take place for consolidation, the exchange of ideas, peer review and maintenance of motivation. Visiting speakers will be invited as appropriate. Students who would rather do a data collecting research project will be able to do Module 29 instead.
CORE MODULE: PROJECT
SEMESTER 1: SCHCCMM29 CREDITS 24
STRAND: LITERATURE
In this module students are required to submit an extended report of a data collecting research project on a relevant topic and title agreed with the appropriate tutor(s). Tutorial support will be provided on a regular basis by members of the Programme Team, and group seminars will take place for consolidation, the exchange of ideas, peer review and maintenance of motivation. Visiting speakers will be invited as appropriate. Students who would rather do a dissertation will be able to do Module 28 instead.
OPTION MODULE: NARRATIVES OF PUNISHMENT
SEMESTER 1: SHCCMM23 CREDITS 12
STRAND: SOCIETY
In this module, students will examine changing notions of punishment, from the carnival of execution, the transportation of offenders, through to Bentham's 'panopticon' and the austere regime of the 'total institution', and contemporary discourses relating to discipline, regulation, retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation and punishment.
OPTION MODULE: LANGUAGE POWER & CONTROL
SEMESTER 1: SHCCMM24 CREDITS 12
STRAND: LANGUAGE
This module explores a variety of ways in which the study of language and the study of the operation of power in society overlap, whether at the individual level in face to face to face communication, or in terms of the operation of institutional power, or in terms of the way access to particular discourses may serve as a means of empowerment. It looks at the way the standardization of language may be seen as an extension of the centralized power of the state and the way in a global society powerful languages may impact on the less powerful.
OPTION MODULE: CARNIVALESQUE & COMEDY
SEMESTER 1: SHCCMM25 CREDITS 12
STRAND: TURBULENT TEXTS I (ABJECT VOICES)
This module will explore ideas of festival, regeneration and abnegation in comic texts from Rabelais to Twelfth Night, to the Jacobeans to de Sade and to the anarchic television comedies of the 1990s. It will examine the implications of the liberating and revolutionary effects that comedy and festival can have in society and how these can impact on gender and sexuality.
OPTION MODULE: GLOBAL POLITICS AFTER 9/11
SEMESTER 1: SHCCMM26 CREDITS 12
STRAND: POLITICS
This module allows students to explore the changing place of Britain in the world, and to examine a range of major issues and theories relating to international politics including the "clash of civilizations" thesis; chaos and the "New World Order"; ideological perspectives on 9/11 and its aftermath; UK-US relations; and recent US foreign policy and its impact on the global political system.
OPTION MODULE: DREAMSCAPES
SEMESTER 1: SHCCMM27 CREDITS 12
STRAND: TURBULENT TEXTS II (CULTURES OF DESIRE)
This module explores the broad cultural legacy of Surrealism, from its origins after World War One, its links with utopian agendas in Psychoanalysis and Marxism, to its role in providing a cultural backdrop to later movements including 1960s psychedelic culture and anti-psychiatry, 1970s punk and contemporary cyberculture. Modern psychoanalytic theory from Lacan to Helene Cixous and French psychoanalytic feminism is examined in a context of the emerging politics of sexual and gender identity, the liberating potential of literatures of transgression, and debates relating to new sexual subcultures and the possibility of heterotopias.
OPTION MODULE: POSITIONING THE READER
SEMESTER 2: SHCCMM30 CREDITS 12
STRAND:LITERATURE
Students will explore how texts situate and position the reader/viewer and implicate them in morally ambiguous discourses. Laura Mulvey's work on gaze in the cinema will be a prime consideration of this module.
OPTION MODULE: DISEASE, MADNESS & REDEMPTION
SEMESTER 2: SHCCMM31 CREDITS 12
STRAND: TURBULENT TEXTS I
This module will look at the use of images of disease and insanity in literature and how the body becomes the focal point for discourses on the nature of sin. The notion of the abject female body as an indicator of society's ills, particularly in regard to witchcraft and motherhood, will be explored in detail.
OPTION MODULE:CONTEMPORARY ETHICAL ISSUES
SEMESTER 2: SHCCMM32 CREDITS 12
STRAND: PHILOSOPHY, RELIGION & ETHICS
In this module students will examine the logic of ethical discourse. Specifically, varieties of utilitarianism will be explained and evaluated. The concepts of rights, entitlements, duties and obligations will be analysed, and the social and political contexts of moral discourse will be examined. In particular, a number of ethical issues will be addressed - for example, abortion and euthanasia, warfare and "terrorism", animal rights, pornography and censorship, civil disobedience, and media ethics and privacy rights.
OPTION MODULE: CHILDHOOD & CULTURE
SEMESTER 2: SHCCMM33 CREDITS 12
STRAND: POPULAR CULTURE
This module is concerned with children's culture. It examines the way childhood may be seen as a construct which changes over time. A variety of texts, both literary and TV will be discussed in terms of genre and historical antecedents. Children's reading and watching TV will be examined as a process. The relationship of children's literature and TV to social context will be explored and the way children's culture may be seen as an ideological vehicle reinforcing assumptions about eg class, race and gender.