Comparative Literature with Film Studies

Year 1

This is three-year course combining both required and optional modules to achieve a total of 120 credits for each year. You also have the option to study abroad in your third year.

In Year 1 you will take these core modules and you can take up to two options in Comparative Literature.

Comparative Literature:

• What is Comparative Literature? Conceptions and Methods (15 credits)

• The Writer in the Text (15 credits)

• Comparative Literature: Theoretical Foundations (15 credits)

• Genres of World Literature (15 credits)

Film Studies

• Introduction to Film Studies: Forms (15 credits)

• Introduction to Film Studies: Contexts (15 credits)

Comparative Literature

You will take 15 credits from a wide range of optional modules that may typically include the three options listed above and:

• Classical & Biblical Contexts of English Literature (15 credits)
• Early Modern Literary Culture (15 credits)
• Forms of Shorter Narrative (15 credits)
• French Narrative Texts: an Introduction (15 credits)
• French Political Thought (15 credits)
• From Frontier to Empire: Cultures in Contact in the Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Worlds (15 credits)
• German Politics and Society (15 credits)
• Greek Literature: An Introduction (15 credits)
• Image: Visual Culture in the Global Iberias (15 credits)
• Introduction to Ancient History (The Eastern Mediterranean & the Near East, c. 1200-200 BC) (15 credits)
• Introduction to Modern Spanish Culture I (15 credits)
• Introduction to the old Testament/ Hebrew Bible (15 credits)
• Language in Time (15 credits)
• Medieval Germany: Language, Literature & Society (15 credits)
• Medieval Literary Culture (15 credits)
• Milestones of German History (15 credits)
• Music of the Lusophone and Hispanic Worlds (15 credits)
• Nineteenth Century Fiction in Brazil and Portugal (15 credits)
• One Hundred Years of German Cinema (15 credits)
• Reading Modern Poetry Comparatively: Greek and English (15 credits)
• Revolution and Reaction in Modern France: an introduction to Modern French history (15 credits)
• Writing London (15 credits)

Year 2 Required Modules

Required Modules

You are required to take the following modules:

• Literature of Empire (15 credits)
• Ideas of Nation (15 credits)
• The Book in the Modern World (15 credits) OR the Canon (15 credits)

You are required to take Comparative Literature modules totalling 30 credits that may typically include:

• Romantic Britain & Italy (15 credits)
• Writing Africa (15 credits)
• Socialism & Literature in China & India in the 20th Century (15 credits)
• Palestinian & Israeli Literature (15 credits)
• Forms of Discovery: Hardy, Cavafy, and the modern short poem (15 credits)
• The Faust Tradition: Dramatic Transformations (15 credits)

You are also required to take 30 credits from optional Film Studies modules that may typically include:

• Asian Popular Cinemas (15 credits)
• Cinema & Spectatorship (15 credits)
• Chinese Cinemas (15 credits)
• Authorship and Creativity in the Cinema (15 credits)
• Film Forms (e.g. Documentary Film, Experimental Film) (15 credits)
• The French New Wave (15 credits)
• Italian Neo-Realism (15 credits)
• Contemporary European Cinema (15 credits)
• Topics in World Cinema (15 credits)
• Film Forms: Avante-Garde Cinema (15 credits)
• Contemporary Spanish Cinema (15 credits)

You may also take up to 15 credits from approved optional modules offered by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities.

Year 3

In Year 3 you are required to write a dissertation, which must involve a Film Studies element. Additionally, you will take Comparative Literature & Film Studies options.

• Dissertation (30 credits) which must involve a Film Studies element.

Optional Modules

You are also required to take at least 30 credits in Comparative Literature optional modules that may typically include:

• Surrealism (15 credits)
• Imaginary Geographies (15 credits)
• The French Revolution Effect (15 credits)
• Testimony: The Holocaust & Rwanda (15 credits)
• Listening across the Channel (15 credits)
• Modern Arabic Literature (15 credits)

Additionally, you are required to take 30 credits in Film Studies optional modules that may typically include:

• Film and Transnationalism (15 credits)
• American Underground Cinema (15 credits)
• Cinema & Social Formations (15 credits)
• Film Genre: Hollywood Musical (15 credits)
• Documentary in the Twenty-First Century (15 credits)
• Film Noir (15 credits)
• Film and Religion (15 credits)
• Film and Architecture (15 credits)
• The Biopic: Historical Lives and Biographical Screen Practices (15 credits)
• New Waves in East Asian Cinema (15 credits)
• Film Style, Criticism and Interpretation (15 credits)

You may also take up to 30 credits from approved optional modules offered by the Faculty of Arts & Humanities.

You will have the opportunity to study abroad in the first semester of the third year. Partner universities currently include:

• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Hong Kong University
• University of Bologna (Italian language required)
• University of Sydney
• Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (German language required - this is a German department exchange which Comp Lit students can access where space is available)
• Sorbonne IV (French language required - this is a French department exchange which Comp Lit students can access where space is available.)

King’s College London reviews the modules offered on a regular basis in order to provide up-to-date, innovative and relevant programmes of study. The optional modules offered may therefore change. We suggest that you keep an eye on the course finder on our website for updates.