English with Film Studies

Course detail Description

The English with Film Studies BA is an inter-departmental course that covers a broad range subjects, from contemporary poetry to medieval performance and creative writing. It combines a variety of approaches, including contemporary critical and cultural theory, close textual and technical examination and historical scholarship. We aim to offer open and imaginative approaches to classic literary and film texts together with newer and less familiar developments in both disciplines.

This is a three-year course that comprises modules totalling 360 credits. Each year, you will take modules totalling 120 credits, with the additional option of studying abroad for part of the second year. In your second and third years you will enjoy great flexibility in your choice of optional modules, enabling you to study in depth those areas that most interest you.

We use lectures, seminars and group tutorials to deliver most of the modules on the programme. You will also be expected to undertake a significant amount of independent study. You will be assigned a personal tutor who will provide support and guidance for your studies.

Typically, one credit equates to 10 hours of work.

The primary methods of assessment for this course are coursework, oral presentations and written examinations.

Your performance will be assessed through a combination of coursework and written examinations. Forms of assessment may typically include essays, exams (unseen, open book and prior disclosure), critical commentaries, sequence analysis, creative work (e.g. fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction), translations, reports, seminar presentations and reader-response exercises.

The majority of learning for this degree takes place at the King’s College London Strand Campus. Please note that locations are determined by where each module is taught and may vary depending on the optional modules you select.

All students are offered the opportunity to study abroad – in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and other locations – during the second year of their English degree at King’s. Recent popular destinations include the University of California, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, the University of Toronto, and the University of Hong Kong.

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Structure

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Year 3

Year 1

A sample of the current modules offered is shown below. We review our modules on a regular basis, in order to continue to offer you an innovative and exciting programme.

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 second year.

English

You are required to take the following module:

• Reading Poetry (15 credits)

In addition, you are required to take five of the following 15 credit English modules:

• Classical & Biblical Contexts of English Literature (15 credits)
• Early Modern Literary Culture (15 credits)
• Introducing Literary Theories (15 credits)
• Introduction to American Literature (15 credits)
• Medieval Literary Culture (15 credits)
• Writing London (15 credits)

Film Studies

You are required to take the following modules:

• Introduction to Film Studies: Forms (15 credits)
• Introduction to Film Studies: Contexts (15 credits)

Year 2 Required Modules

English

The department operates a banding system in the second year, to broaden horizons and ensure a balanced programme of study.

• Band 1: Literature up to 1800 and English Language
• Band 2: Literature 1800 – present

You are required to take a minimum of three Band 1 modules during your second year. At least one of these must be a Band 1 Medieval option.

Film Studies

There are no required Film Studies modules in Year 2.

English

You will take sufficient credits to bring your total for the year to 120, from a range of optional modules within these bands which may typically include:

Band 1

• A Mad World, My Masters: Performing Culture in Jacobean England (15 credits)
• Renaissance Wordplay (15 credits)
• Comedy & Identity (15 credits)
• Cultural Encounters: Literature & Language in the Anglo-Saxon Period (Medieval) (15 credits)
• Eighteenth-Century Travel Writing (15 credits)
• The Film of The Play (15 credits)
• History, Politics & the Elizabethan Imagination (15 credits)
• Language on the Edge (15 credits)
• London Literature 1380-1450 (Medieval) (15 credits)
• Old English Poems & Modern British Poetry (Medieval) (15 credits)
• Performance in Medieval Culture (Medieval) (15 credits)
• The Poetry of Revolution (15 credits)
• Subjects of Desire in Medieval Literature (Medieval) (15 credits)
• The Rise of the Novel (15 credits)
• Family, Authorship and Romanticism (15 credits)
• Medieval Science Fiction (Medieval) (15 credits)
• Early American Literature (15 credits)

Band 2:

• Prose Fiction (15 credits)
• Literature & Psychoanalysis (15 credits)
• Modern Theatre (15 credits)
• Victorians & Social Change (15 credits)
• Shocks of the New (15 credits)
• Writing the New Nation: Nineteenth-Century American Literature (15 credits)
• US Slavery & the Literary Imagination (15 credits)
• Modern Theatre (15 credits)
• Theatre Capital (15 credits)
• Fin de Siècle (15 credits)
• First World War Literature (15 credits)
• The Colonial Novel and British India (15 credits)
• Moments of Culture (15 credits)
• Mapping Modernism (15 credits)
• 20th Century American Fiction (15 credits)
• Experimental Theatre (15 credits)
• Creative Writing: Drama (15 credits)

Film Studies

You are required to take two 15-credit optional Film Studies modules from a range that may typically include:

• Asian Popular Cinemas (15 credits)
• Cinema & Spectatorship (15 credits)
• Film Authorship (15 credits)
• Film Forms (e.g. Documentary Film, Avant- garde Cinema) (15 credits)
• French New Wave (15 credits)
• Italian Neo-Realism (15 credits)
• Contemporary Spanish Cinema (15 credits)
• Contemporary European Cinema (15 credits)
• Topics in World Cinema (15 credits)

Study Abroad

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

• National University of Singapore
• University of California
• University of North Carolina
• University of Pennsylvania
• Hong Kong University
• University of Sydney
• University of British Columbia
• University of Michigan

Year 3 Required Modules

There are no required modules for this course in Year 3.

English

You are required to take 90 credits from a range of modules that may typically include the following 15 credit modules. You may also choose to take a 30 credit dissertation in place of two 15 credit optional modules:

• Autobiography (15 credits)
• Beowulf (15 credits)
• Creative Writing: Poetry (15 credits)
• Critically Queer: Literature, Culture & Queer Theory (15 credits)
• Imagining Britain: Medieval Places, Journeys, Maps (15 credits)
• Late Shakespeare (15 credits)
• Literature and Media (15 credits)
• Modernist Short Story (15 credits)
• Victorians Abroad (15 credits)
• Reading Paradise Lost (15 credits)

Film Studies

You are required to take 30 credits from a range of modules that may typically include the following 15 credit modules:

• American Underground Cinema (15 credits)
• Film & Transnationalism (15 credits)
• Film Genre, Style & Ideology (15 credits)
• Film Noir (15 credits)
• Stardom & Performance (15 credits)
• Third Cinema & Beyond (15 credits)

King’s College London reviews the modules offered on a regular basis to provide up-to- date, innovative and relevant programmes of study. Therefore, modules offered may change.