Year 2, Component 06

How do films tell their story? What narrative conventions do genre films utilise? How do filmmakers adapt original literature to create new stories? Explore meanings in different film narrative using classic, modernist and postmodern examples. Understand narrative conventions in genre films. Study screen adaptation, the cinematic remake and transmedia storytelling.

A century of religious, philosophical and political turmoil, the Renaissance was also the age of the great flourishing of the English stage and English verse. In this module you will study Renaissance love poetry and learn about the sonnet, court literature, and the circulation of manuscripts. You will learn about the great writers of the canon, and some less familiar figures too, such as the female writers, who appropriated literary forms conventionally associated with men, and turned them to their own ends. Moving from the focus on “love”, to the darker theme of “death”, some of the most extraordinary literature of this time is engaged with the religious turmoil and culture of martyrdom associated with the Reformation. Finally, bringing these themes together, this module also explores Renaissance innovation in the theatre, and the revenge play, in which love, desire and death are intermingled and intertwined to horrifying effect.

This module introduces the history of children's adventure stories, and explores the emergence of the multi-novel "Young Adult" genre that dominates bookshelves and literary conventions today. The module begins with the 18th century morality tale, and moves through the Victorian period of classic Children's literature, to culminate in a study of Lewis and Tolkien as founders of the modern form. The module will explore how young readerships are constructed over time, and examine trends in adventure writing for young readers. The questions "what is an adventure?" And "what is special about young audiences?" will be addressed throughout the term. In addition to thinking about the emergence of young adult literature as a genre in its own right, this module will examine the construction of narrative and voice in each text, as a means of examining the process of world-building in literary fiction.

Romantic writers valued feeling, freedom of expression and the power of the imagination. Writers we now consider establishment figures, such as William Wordsworth, John Keats and Samuel Taylor Coleridge rebelled against conventionality, both in their writing and their personal lives. Women writers pursued liberation through literature – on this module you will read works by Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and others. Your study of poetry, prose and drama produced around the turn of the 19th century will provide you with an understanding of a relatively brief, although turbulent and complex period in our literary history. Established and new critical approaches and theories will provide a framework for your enquiries.

The representation of black lives in writing, art, politics and society bears a legacy of erasure, suppression and denial, a practice sometimes referred to by critics as "whitewashing". This legacy, undoubtedly linked to the growth of modern European imperialism in the wake of Columbus's American encounters, can often obscure the history of black people and their cultural output in different periods. From the "whitening" of Ancient Egypt--whereby it was situated within a European Mediterranean world, as opposed to an African one--to quiescence about the presence of black people in Britain prior to the Second World War, black representation in world history often featured as a kind of absence prior to the 1960s. This module aims to examine representations of black lives and cultural output over a broad range of fields, including the visual arts, literature, history and politics, and in different historical periods. It investigates what it means to be black--generally understood as a social category or construct relating to Africans and their descendants, whether Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latin, African American or Black British--in relation to critical discourses of ethnicity, race and postcolonialism. This module has been designed to enable students to integrate their subject knowledge with an understanding of sustainable development, acquiring the skills and competencies essential for addressing the urgent sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

What are the practical aspects of screenwriting? And the theoretical? Explore the construction of a range of screenplays, investigating their shared structural elements. Write your own short films. Produce reports reflecting your understanding of screen writing. Participate in the creative pitching of ideas.

Building on the knowledge and skills gained in the prerequisite Introduction to Film Production, you gain a variety of production techniques, from research, script writing, adaptation, location shooting and editing. You also address key management skills, from learning how to properly plan a project, to collaborating with actors. Working as part of a small group, you conclude the module by producing an imaginative and creative short film.

Focusing on a number of different approaches to directing, in this module you learn how to work creatively and collaboratively with actors for film. You take inspiration from famous film directors and critically analyse their directing style. You cover the process of directing from start to finish, from script analysis for casting, rehearsals and film production. It involves both theoretical and practice-based sessions, allowing you to study directing in a realistic environment.

Columbus’ gateway to the Americas, the Caribbean has experienced a phenomenal mix of indigenous, African and European traditions, giving rise to an exceptionally vibrant and diversified culture. By focusing on twentieth and twenty-first century texts, you gain a deep understanding of the literatures and cultures of the Americas and of recent transatlantic exchanges, whilst reviewing some of the key texts and themes of postcolonial studies and Caribbean literature.

What compels De Monfort's murderous hate? What tragedy has broken Martha Ray? Why does the Ancient Mariner kill the albatross? At the heart of Gothic literature lies a mystery--one that often remains inexplicable; one that harries, harasses, and haunts characters; and one that drives them, often, to acts of horrible violence. And yet, there is something perversely attractive about this compulsion that licenses desires normally repressed or curbed, desires the existence of which we may not wish even to acknowledge. As a window into the gory crypt of the soul, Gothic literature invades our privacy and makes us squirm in light of what it discovers. To this end, the artworks studied in this module touch on such topics as sexuality, deviancy, monstrosity, madness, and the supernatural. The Gothic revival in England is a late eighteenth-century phenomenon, hence the focus on this time period. We will, however, also reach forward into the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries to explore some of the Gothic's hideous progeny.

This module offers an exploration of the extent of writing on the environment, on landscape and the natural world in a time of increasing awareness of a global climate emergency. A number of primary non-fiction and fiction texts will be selected for discussion in seminars. In addition there will be choice literatures of eco-critical writing and contemporary eco-political works such as the Peoples Manifesto for Wildlife and material by Extinction Rebellion. The course will extol the virtues of the outdoor classroom -- extending learning beyond the seminar walls to explore the nature of Wivenhoe Park and through a field trip. Students will be encouraged to extend their knowledge in multidisciplinary ways to enhance their ability to analyse and write literatures of the environment. This module has been designed to enable students to integrate their subject knowledge with an understanding of sustainable development, acquiring the skills and competencies essential for addressing the urgent sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

This practical module is designed for students interested in freelance and portfolio careers. It covers the realities of self employment within creative and media industries, including pitching, client management, branding, contracts, and income generation. Students will develop entrepreneurial skills, confidence, and professional awareness, supported by real world case studies and practical exercises.

How did science fiction develop as a genre? What are the key themes? How do you write your own science fiction story? Explore key science fiction works, alongside texts from film, TV and the internet. Write your own science fiction short stories and complete world-building exercises in group workshops.

This module focuses on three plays and enables a deep understanding of each and the different challenges they offer the actor and the director. Students are asked to negotiate their own creative voices in relation to plays and roles written centuries ago, investigating what it means to perform these plays today.

This module will explore the essential collaborative nature central to the creation and design of technical theatre arts and theatre. You will examine the design principle, its concept, interpretation and application through the forms and disciplines of lighting, sound, set and stage management technical practice. The module will give you an appreciation for design by exploring the principles and aesthetics and broaden your perspective through an exploration of the historical and modern context of technical theatre in the UK.

This module will explore concepts and practices of performance and theatre from around the world in order to provide a theoretical underpinning and some practical grounding. It will look at the main traditional forms of theatre in Asia, Africa and Southern America. This module will foster an interdisciplinary approach: it will make clear links with anthropology, cultural studies, history and film studies and will encourage you to make comparisons between practices and ideas through the employ of a variety of material: archive, video and cinematic material, literary texts and play-texts.