MLit (Hons) English

Course details On this course you will usually be taught by a range of staff with relevant expertise and knowledge appropriate to the content of the unit. This will include senior academic staff, qualified professional practitioners, demonstrators, technicians and research students. You will also benefit from regular guest lectures from industry. Year 1 Core units Adaptation: The study of adaptation focusing on key perspectives and debates, such as fidelity and medium-specificity. Case studies will include adaptations from a wide range of media, including film, television, comic books and the internet, and will cover classic and popular texts. Media & Society: This unit looks into mass communication media such as newspapers, radio, TV and the internet, with particular emphasis on public service broadcasting, regulation, globalisation and the relationship between politicians and government and the media. You'll examine current challenges that come from hybridisation, digitisation, segmentation, popular culture and dumbing down. Approaches to Literature: Introducing you to literature and associated perspectives, this unit takes multiple literary forms including prose, drama and poetry. You'll concentrate on analysing and evaluating individual texts and using these to introduce perspectives and contextual factors at thematic and structural levels. Language Matters: Offering a theoretical basis for understanding language interactions in various media, this unit examines attitudes and prejudices towards styles of English and the various uses of language in everyday situations and contexts, including persuasive, interactive and communicative. Academic & Writing Skills: Introducing you to the practical skills of academic study, ensuring you make a smooth transition to Higher Education. You will also begin to develop high skills in academic writing, journalistic and creative writing, this unit emphasises the differences between audience and appropriate types of writing. Forms & Contexts: Introducing you to the main literary forms of fiction, drama, and poetry, and associated critical perspectives. You will understand how literature is influenced by its historical, social and cultural context. Year 2 Core units Modernism & Postmodernism: Through a selection of texts, you'll explore modernism and postmodernism, two of the major literary and artistic movements in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You'll also look at their historical and cultural perspectives and influences. Narrative Structures: You'll develop analysis and evaluations of a variety of contemporary narrative texts from sources such as film, television, journalism, magazines, the internet and prose fiction. Children's Literature: This unit examines the relationship between narrative form and content, and the literary, social and cultural context in which children’s literature has been produced. Gender & Sexuality: Representations of gender and sexuality will be considered in novels, plays and other writing from the last 200 years. Writing for the Media: Strengthen your professional writing abilities and develop your understanding of the formats and conventions employed in writing for a range of media. You'll develop judgement skills using a range of media texts. Option units (choose one) Popular Texts & Intertexts: Texts from across popular media including literary, cinematic, televisual and graphic genres will be examined. Media: Messages & Meanings:This unit examines how messages are constructed, conveyed and received over a range of media and by different audiences. Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year. Year 3 A minimum 4-week placement or optional 30-week (minimum) placement. Including this in your degree is a key feature in developing your abilities and understanding of the workplace. It also offers you a platform for entering the professions after graduation. Our placement team will help you find a position in a wide range of organisations, including publishing companies, advertising agencies, schools and newspapers. Year 3/4 Core units Cultures & Materialities: An introduction to working with contemporary collaborative media and the historical differences and continuities in literature’s production, storage and display. From the pre-Gutenberg era to digitalised print, you'll study literary cultural production as part of a broad cultural and media history. Narrating Identities: An opportunity to study a number of genres that can loosely be defined as life writing. Critical approaches to biography, autobiography, autobiographical fiction and film biopic will be analysed in a theoretical framework to help you generate the critical vocabulary and cultural literacy needed for detailed analysis. You'll explore notions such as cultural identity, dominant ideology and emerging or oppositional cultural narratives. Mediating the Nation: The relationship between cultural production and a series of changing historical and political contexts in contemporary Britain. More specifically, you'll consider cultural constructions of Britain, Britons and Britishness. By analysing a range of literary and cultural forms, you'll explore how these things have been constructed and legitimised through culture historically. This unit will also look at how two historical developments have had a significant impact on how Britishness has been culturally constructed: the transition away from imperialism and political devolution across the United Kingdom. Option units (choose three) Crime & Terror: Studying the development of crime and gothic literature over the last 200 years, this unit will explore the cultural and historical context of the genre with reference to a range of critical approaches. Post-Colonial Texts: Exploring the ways in which the legacy of colonialism has impacted on writing and other cultural forms, the unit considers key issues raised in postcolonial discourse, such as plurality, marginality, cultural diversity and hybridity, while interrogating some of the very terms on which those issues are debated. Alternate Worlds: The uses of alternate worlds as motifs and narrative strategies in the development of both classic and contemporary literature. Ancient literature, Jacobean drama, utopian and dystopian visions, science fiction and fantasy are among the genres discussed. Fact & Fiction: The diverse panorama of non-fiction works produced in the realm of literary, or narrative, journalism. You'll analyse ethical issues such as objectivity, accuracy, and the social and historical context of the genre over the centuries, and consider the narrative techniques used to create non-fiction novels. You'll compare these with imaginative and creative fictional narrative formats. News & Journalism: Examine the practical and theoretical concepts of journalism. You'll be offered a critical perspective on journalistic outputs, the ability to report and produce news and other forms of journalism in a digital world and be equipped with practical journalism skills in a more informed and self-reflexive manner. New Media Narrative: Examine the evolution of narrative forms in relation to the development of new digital media, especially non-linear and interactive narratives. You'll evaluate theoretical, critical and creative texts. Writing, Editing & Publishing: A practical unit which combines studying publishing processes and practices with creative writing. Transient Literature & Serial Storytelling: You will explore relationships between storytelling and the publishing formats and media used to deliver those stories. Through the study of key texts and critical perspectives you will consider how elements of materiality such as serialisation and format effectively coordinate with market, audience and content. Space, Place & Environment: This unit focuses on critical representations of space, place and environment in literature and culture from industrialisation to the present. You will explore the significance of space and the environment in relation to diverse yet connected topics such as globalisation, personal, social and national identity, politics and policy, global transmission of literatures, literary tourism, conservation, biophilia and urban regeneration. Media & Trauma: This unit aims to explore critical and cultural responses to traumatic experience and death across a range of media or texts from print and broadcast journalism to filmic and literary representation. The unit will focus on how trauma is interpreted, recorded, represented, constructed and produced across a range of media and in a variety of social, professional and medical contexts. Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year. Year 4/5 Core units Markets & Audiences: A sociological approach to studying the cultural industries and their audiences, exploring marketing and promotion of cultural texts. You'll consider how paratexts and extratextual materials contribute to audience expectations and experiences, and how they reflect cultural and political differences. Interactive Storytelling: Investigate and understand the art of storytelling in digital-interactive media. Starting with a brief pre-history, this unit will come to grips with contemporary traits thrown up at the intersection between digitalisation and interactivity. There will be a rigorous scholarly framework for your existing digital literacy and you'll have space to reflect on and improve your competence with interactive digital media. Literature & Controversy: You'll explore definitions of free speech, freedom of expression, censorship and public interest in the context of public cultural controversies. For example, D.H. Lawrence’s 'Lady Chatterley’s Lover' might be studied as a literary text, while the student also studies the historical context of attempts to censor and suppress the novel and debates over that suppression in the print and broadcast media. Dissertation or Major Project: An opportunity to develop and show your critical, analytical and research skills by completing a significant piece of academic or creative work. You'll finish your studies and work with a degree of independence not previously experienced in your coursework, focusing on topics that interest you the most. You'll hone your strengths and establish curiosity to take with you into future careers. Scheduled learning and teaching activities The emphasis of this course is in guided independent learning, which helps you develop into a self-motivated learner. When not attending lectures and seminars, you will be expected to read around the subject. Your typical week’s activities will include reading books and journal articles, working on group projects, preparing presentations, conducting library research and writing your assignments. The hours below give an indication of how you can expect to spend your time during each year of this course. Year 1 – 18% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities Learning and teaching: 216 hours (estimated) Independent learning: 984 hours (estimated) Year 2 – 18% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities Learning and teaching: 216 hours (estimated) Independent learning: 984 hours (estimated) Year 3/4 – 18% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities Learning and teaching: 216 hours (estimated) Independent learning: 984 hours (estimated) Year 4/5 – 18% of your time will be spent in timetabled learning & teaching activities Learning and teaching: 216 hours (estimated) Independent learning: 984 hours (estimated) 82% of the course is assessed by coursework Year 1: 83% Year 2: 60% Year 3/4: 100% Year 4/5: 83% Throughout the course you will be assessed by coursework culminating in your final year research project, but you will also undertake group work and written exams. Programme specifications Programme specifications provide definitive records of the University's taught degrees in line with Quality Assurance Agency requirements. Every taught course leading to a BU Award has a programme specification which describes its aims, structure, content and learning outcomes, plus the teaching, learning and assessment methods used. Download the programme specification for MLit (Hons) English Whilst every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of the programme specification, the information is liable to change to take advantage of exciting new approaches to teaching and learning as well as developments in industry. If you have been unable to locate the programme specification for the course you are interested in, it will be available as soon as the latest version is ready. Alternatively please contact us for assistance. All statistics shown are taken from Unistats, Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE), BU institutional data and Ipsos MORI (National Student Survey) unless otherwise stated.