English and Music BA

English literature pathway core modules:

Renaissance to Revolution

This module surveys the poetry and prose from the early modern period in England, i.e., that written between the beginnings of the sixteenth century through the seventeenth century to the late eighteenth century. We will look at different genres, from court complaint to sonnets, prose fiction, erotic verse, restoration drama and the works of writers such as Donne, Herbert, Spenser, Marlowe, Dyrden, Milton and Pope. The texts studied will be related to critical methods that help us understand the relationships between literature and the culture, society, and politics of the period in which it was produced.

40 credits

English literature pathway optional modules:

Early Englishes

Early Englishes works backward over a whole millennium of English, 1600 to 600. Each week's lectures and seminar focus on one century and one text representative of that century (for example, Beowulf and Piers Plowman). We will use a variety of techniques , literary, linguistic, anthropological, cultural historical, to analyse each text, thereby opening up discussion of the issues that preoccupied the English of the time, from glorious monster-slaying to the slow surrender of pagan belief to terror at the imminent arrival of Antichrist and on to the first expressions of love and desire. Texts will initially be studied in translation so no prior knowledge of Old or Middle English is necessary, but students will also be given the opportunity to examine texts in the original language.

20 credits

Foundations in Literary Study: Biblical and Classical Sources in English Literature

This module provides foundational knowledge about the treatment of Biblical and Classical sources in English Literature. It is an important unit for the study of literature and the Humanities, preparing students for work at higher levels. Typically a Biblical or Classical source and a literary text will be discussed together, to expose a range of meanings and to prepare participants for their own research about both the Bible and Classical material as literature and the treatment of Bible and Classical material in Literature. It will also prepare students for independent research. It is recommended that all students of English take this module.

20 credits

Contemporary Literature

This module introduces students to a diverse range of texts in English (prose, poetry, and film) with a focus on texts published since 2000. Texts will be chosen to provoke thinking and debate on urgent and controversial topics that might include: globalisation and neoliberalism; ecology and animal lives; artificial intelligence and the posthuman; political activism and social justice; migration and displacement; state violence and armed conflict. We will discuss formally and conceptually challenging works, raise ethical and philosophical questions and begin to discover how current critical and theoretical approaches can help us to engage with contemporary texts.

20 credits

Studying Theatre: A History of Dramatic Texts in Performance

Covering classical, contemporary and popular texts, Studying Theatre; A History of Dramatic Text in Performance aims to turn an interest in theatre and theatre-going into a more thorough appreciation of the ways in which playwriting, acting, design and performance have shaped theatre's development. Each week students will study a particular play and the historical context that informed its first performances and its theatrical afterlife. The course emphasis is on theatre as a social practice and practical discipline. Seminars and lectures will focus on the play in performance, and the processes that underlie production. Students do not need previous knowledge or experience, but should be prepared to try some new approaches to texts, for example through practical workshops.

20 credits

Exploring Literary Language

This module explores the language of literary texts. We will look at how different literary styles create particular effects and describe these styles and effects using linguistics. The course aims to provide students interested in English literature with a practical introduction to language, and to provide students interested in language with experience of applying linguistic analysis to literary texts. The emphasis is on a hands-on approach, and topics covered will include sentence structure, register, narrative structure, conversation analysis (with reference to drama and dialogue) and point of view in narrative fiction. The texts studied will be predominantly literary and twentieth century, and will include extracts from novels, plays, poetry and short stories.

20 credits

Hybrid Forms? Comedy and Tragedy

This module gives you the opportunity to study developments in comedy and tragedy from classical antiquity to the present day. This focus on genre enables you to take a broadly comparative approach, setting, for instance, works of classical antiquity alongside those of the early modern, modern, and contemporary worlds. As such, the module equips you to draw connections between periods studied separately at different points of your degree and between disparate forms, e.g. drama and the novel. Over the course of this module we will consider questions such as: what is genre, and why is it important? How does genre reflect or respond to historical change? Is there any such thing as a ‘pure’ genre or is hybridization a defining feature of genre itself? We will answer these questions by reading texts by authors such as Angela Carter, Noel Coward, Plautus, Shakespeare, Sophocles, and Wole Soyinka.

20 credits

Introduction to Cinema

This module aims to study a cross-section of the most important American films up to the present day and to develop both a formalist and an institutional analysis of these works. Its intention is to study the growth of the classical Hollywood style, a matter of a sophisticated range of technical stratagems as well as of a genre-based cinema, and of the institution of Hollywood itself, the most significant force in cinema to-day.

20 credits

History of English

This module traces the history of the English language of the Fifth century AD through to the present day. Students will learn about the development of English over this period, looking at the factors which have shaped the language, and learning a variety of techniques for studying the language. The module will also introduce students to the range and variety of the English language at all periods, and to the ways in which English influences, and is influenced by, other languages.

20 credits

Introduction to Creative Writing

The aim of this unit is to help students to develop their expressive and technical skills in writing poetry and prose and to improve their abilities as an editor and critic of their own and other people's writing. Students will be guided in the production of new work and encouraged to develop an analytical awareness of both the craft elements and the wider cultural and theoretical contexts of writing. This module explores poetic techniques for creating new poems and narrative techniques for generating some prose work through the critical study of published examples, imaginative exercises, discussion and feedback on students' own writing. This exploration will help students to develop their own creative work while sharpening critical appreciation of published poetry and modern and contemporary fiction. The course is designed to give students the expereince of being workshopped as well as to establish basic creative writing techniques on Level 1 to preparing students for the challenges of Creative Writing Level 2.

20 credits

English language pathway core modules:

The Sounds of English

This module is an introduction to the subdisciplines of Linguistics known as Phonetics and Phonology, focusing specifically on the sounds of the English language. It is designed to provide a solid understanding of how speech sounds are made and how they function in use. The lectures will present descriptions of English speech sounds and theories to explain their behaviour in a range of different accents and contexts, and the workshop classes will provide hands-on experience in using and thinking about the sounds of English. The module serves as an essential basis for more advanced linguistic study.

10 credits

The Structures of English

This module is an introduction to the syntax of natural languages, focussing on the syntactic structure of contemporary English. This module is intended as a sister module to the 10-credit 'Sounds of English' module, which runs in parallel. It is designed to provide a firm grounding in the descriptions of English sentence structure(s), and to introduce students to the main theories and methods of syntactic argumentation. The lectures will cover major topics in the formal description of English sentences, while the workshop classes will provide hands-on experience in analysing and thinking about sentence structure. The module serves as an essential basis for more advanced linguistic study.

10 credits

English language pathway optional modules:

Varieties of English

This course explores the extraordinary diversity of the English language today, and is concerned with describing the features, use and status of contemporary varieties of English in Britain and around the world. Extraterritorial varieties are located within histories of expansion, colonialism, and globalisation, and considered in relation to the role of English as an international language. We investigate developments which led to the social and geographic distribution of certain present day varieties in Britain. Students will apply tools of description for all linguistic levels, and develop awareness of sociolinguistic aspects of language such as social indexing, attitudes and standardisation, as well as the relationship between variation and change.

20 credits

Early Englishes

Early Englishes works backward over a whole millennium of English, 1600 to 600. Each week's lectures and seminar focus on one century and one text representative of that century (for example, Beowulf and Piers Plowman). We will use a variety of techniques , literary, linguistic, anthropological, cultural historical, to analyse each text, thereby opening up discussion of the issues that preoccupied the English of the time, from glorious monster-slaying to the slow surrender of pagan belief to terror at the imminent arrival of Antichrist and on to the first expressions of love and desire. Texts will initially be studied in translation so no prior knowledge of Old or Middle English is necessary, but students will also be given the opportunity to examine texts in the original language.

20 credits

Exploring Literary Language

This module explores the language of literary texts. We will look at how different literary styles create particular effects and describe these styles and effects using linguistics. The course aims to provide students interested in English literature with a practical introduction to language, and to provide students interested in language with experience of applying linguistic analysis to literary texts. The emphasis is on a hands-on approach, and topics covered will include sentence structure, register, narrative structure, conversation analysis (with reference to drama and dialogue) and point of view in narrative fiction. The texts studied will be predominantly literary and twentieth century, and will include extracts from novels, plays, poetry and short stories.

20 credits

History of English

This module traces the history of the English language of the Fifth century AD through to the present day. Students will learn about the development of English over this period, looking at the factors which have shaped the language, and learning a variety of techniques for studying the language. The module will also introduce students to the range and variety of the English language at all periods, and to the ways in which English influences, and is influenced by, other languages.

20 credits

Linguistic Theory

This module explores how language is structured by examining central issues in linguistic theory, building upon the concepts introduced in EL112 Sounds of English and ELL113 Structure of English. Students will be instructed in (1) foundational theories and concepts in areas such as phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, (2) the linguistic evidence that informs these approaches, (3) the analytical techniques required to apply these theories to language data, and (4) the relevance of such theoretical models for the wider study of language. The module will develop analytical tools in using linguistic theory, training students to rigorously interpret language data within theoretical frameworks

20 credits

Music
For music, dual honours programmes are very flexible. Music modules for combined honours students are the same as those for BMus students except that there are no compulsory modules. You can choose to split your 120 credits per year equally 60:60 between your two subjects, or you can choose a ‘major/minor’ split of 80:40.

Optional music modules:

Music in a Global Context

Whatever kind of music study you decide to specialise in, you'll do it better if you see it in the context of music as a phenomenon common to all humanity. You'll understand what's different about your own chosen field but also how the music you love derives from diverse cultural sources.In this module we examine how any music uses specific ways of organising sound to serve particular cultural purposes. You'll learn to recognise and describe diverse musical styles, research them through scholarly sources, present an analysis using appropriate audio-visual technology, and take control of the transferable skills you're developing.

20 credits

Music Psychology

In this module you will engage with some of the most provocative questions about musical thought and behaviour: What are the characteristics of the musical mind? Why do we feel emotions when listening to or performing music? How does music and music therapy influence our health and wellbeing? Can music make you smarter? The module is designed such that no prior formal musical or psychological training is necessary.

You will develop knowledge of the scientific methods used to study music from a psychological perspective, and how findings can inform applications in education, healthcare, and the creative industries.

10 credits

Technologies for Music

Nowadays, most forms of music-related study involve music technologies. This module introduces you to a range of pertinent technologies, focussing around using computer in four key areas; sound recording, editing, transformation and representation, and a more general approach to computing required to complete tasks in many music modules. In each case, you will experience some of the many ways in which specific technologies serve many different music disciplines. You will go onto learn the essential principals of those technologies, before learning how they work in practice. By the end of the module, you will be versed in basics of digital audio, microphone choices and placement, sound recording techniques, wave-editing, MIDI, sound effect and plugins, file types and format, digital transcription and scoring and visual representation of sound. You will engage with University systems and through period of reflection complete a portfolio that contextualises your transferable skills.

10 credits

Tonal Music Analysis and Criticism

In this module you'll address the core skills of listening to, analysing, and writing critically about Western Classical music. With a focus on eighteenth-century 'common practice' tonality, you will study harmony, counterpoint, melody, texture and form in preparation for analysing short pieces, and will learn to write about the music you hear as well as the notes you see on the page. Your work will also prepare you for future music modules.

10 credits

Popular Music Studies

This module provides an introduction to the academic study of popular music. You will explore the various definitions of 'popular music' in relation to their socio-cultural context, and investigate some of the major issues and debates of popular music studies.

Lecture materials and in-class tasks will engage with approaches to the analysis of popular music and media, issues of representation, and the relationship between popular musicians and their audiences. Assessments involve critical engagement with the themes of the module in relation to a popular music artist or piece of your choosing.

10 credits

History of Western Music

This module considers key moments in the history of Western music from the 1500s to the present day. Taking individual composers and works, it aims to introduce students to different approaches to the study of music history, the development of particular musical genres, and the impact of cultural, historical and geographical context on composers. In addition, the module will consider ways of writing about music, and the use of primary and secondary sources for informing critical discussions of the subject.

20 credits

Composing Electronic Music

The lectures on this module introduce you to various forms of electronic music composition. Through creative practice, key principles of composition with technology are introduced and a number of broad genres are set in a historical and analytical context. A diverse range of software tools are used, further enhancing your digital skills. You will learn how to process and develop a range of recorded and synthetic sound material, before considering some of the various ways in which those materials may be used to compose electronic pieces. After making a number of short etudes throughout the first half of the module, you select one area in which to complete your own original work.

10 credits

Exploring Tonal Styles

This module builds core skills of hearing, describing and using tonal procedures in a range of Western musical styles. It extends MUS133 Tonal Music Analysis and Criticism by moving on from classical 'common practice' to explore styles that use tonality in different ways.

We'll explore styles like Medieval and Renaissance music, jazz and rock. You'll produce analyses from written scores and recordings, and write examples and exercises in the appropriate styles. You'll develop musicianship skills that prepare you for composition, analysis and performance work in subsequent years.

10 credits

Folk Music Participation

This module is based upon participation in and preparation for folk sessions hosted by the Department of Music. Through intensive preparation of challenging repertoire, as well as the skills to enable improvised participation, you will develop your understanding of the demands and pleasures of session practice, and your knowledge of the repertoires concerned (British folk traditions), and be encouraged to reflect upon the roles and responsibilities of individual participants within the group. You will also be required to attend a professional ensemble concert or concerts within the university concert series, or an equivalent online event.

10 credits

Composition

In this module you will develop your composition skills, practice writing music in staff notation, and learn to write effectively for different instrumental and vocal forces. Drawing on the models of a diverse range of classical composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, we will focus on techniques for writing inventive melodies and rhythms, and employing wide-ranging approaches to harmony. The module aims to give you a foundation in composition and increase your confidence in preparation for further study.

20 credits

Performance

In this module you will develop the musical and intellectual abilities appropriate to solo performance. The theoretical background is considered, focusing on the aural and analytical skills essential to performance at an advanced level. An awareness of style and interpretation, as well as effective preparation and communication are built into teaching. You will receive one to one tuition in addition to attending whole class performance lectures.

20 credits

Try a new subject:

The flexible structure of your first year at Sheffield means that you also have the chance to experience modules from outside of English and Music - you can choose up to 40 credits of modules from a list approved by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. A final guided module list is made available to new students when you select your modules as part of registration.

Core English literature modules:

Literature and Critical Thought (a)

This course introduces writers, concepts and approaches fundamental to contemporary literary theory, and explores their application to diverse relevant texts. You will engage in a transhistorical study of the formal, literary and cultural functions of genre (e.g. in the forms of comedy and tragedy). You will also encounter theorists such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Michael Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan and Jean Baudrillard. Lectures will introduce and explain this material, and seminars will discuss and apply it to the study of literature. This module helps you develop your academic writing, critical thinking and research skills while studying the work of major theorists.

40 credits

Romanticism to Modernism (a)

This module focuses on a diverse range of texts (including poetry, prose, drama and film) produced between the late eighteenth to the late twentieth century. It pays detailed attention to the varied styles, issues, and movements produced by the rapid technological, political and cultural shifts that characterise these two centuries. Drawing on the expertise of the teaching team, the module introduces cutting-edge research carried out within the department in areas such as romanticism, the Gothic and science fiction, experimental literature, colonial and postcolonial contexts, war studies, and animal studies

40 credits

Literature and Critical Thought (b)

This course introduces writers, concepts and approaches fundamental to contemporary literary theory, and explores their application to diverse relevant texts. You will engage in a transhistorical study of the formal, literary and cultural functions of genre (e.g. in the forms of comedy and tragedy). You will also encounter theorists such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Michael Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan and Jean Baudrillard. Lectures will introduce and explain this material, and seminars will discuss and apply it to the study of literature. This module helps you develop your academic writing, critical thinking and research skills while studying the work of major theorists.

20 credits

Romanticism to Modernism (b)

This module focuses on a diverse range of texts (including poetry, prose, drama and film) produced between the late eighteenth to the late twentieth century. It pays detailed attention to the varied styles, issues, and movements produced by the rapid technological, political and cultural shifts that characterise these two centuries. Drawing on the expertise of the teaching team, the module introduces cutting-edge research carried out within the department in areas such as romanticism, the Gothic and science fiction, experimental literature, colonial and postcolonial contexts, war studies, and animal studies.

20 credits

Optional English literature modules:

The History of Persuasion

This module focuses on why some written texts seem more persuasive (or authoritative) than others. To answer this question we will look at non-literary writing from a range of different contexts: journalism, advertising, political speaking, science writing, and religious communication. You'll look closely at the language used in each context, think about what constitutes persuasive writing in each, and talk about why this differs from context to context. You'll also have a chance to look at the histories of these different kinds of text. Examples from earlier periods look different from what we are used to in the 21st century and it is fascinating to explore how journalism, for example, has come to look as it does today. All these types of writing are associated with powerful institutions: journalism with the national press, advertising with big corporations, political speaking with the major political parties. But we will also explore how people with more marginalised identities use them, resist them, and are represented through them. The overall aim is help you become more critical in your response to the different kinds of written communication that surround us and this is valuable in many of the careers that English graduates go into.

20 credits

Literature and Critical Thought (b)

This course introduces writers, concepts and approaches fundamental to contemporary literary theory, and explores their application to diverse relevant texts. You will engage in a transhistorical study of the formal, literary and cultural functions of genre (e.g. in the forms of comedy and tragedy). You will also encounter theorists such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Michael Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan and Jean Baudrillard. Lectures will introduce and explain this material, and seminars will discuss and apply it to the study of literature. This module helps you develop your academic writing, critical thinking and research skills while studying the work of major theorists.

20 credits

Romanticism to Modernism (a)

This module focuses on a diverse range of texts (including poetry, prose, drama and film) produced between the late eighteenth to the late twentieth century. It pays detailed attention to the varied styles, issues, and movements produced by the rapid technological, political and cultural shifts that characterise these two centuries. Drawing on the expertise of the teaching team, the module introduces cutting-edge research carried out within the department in areas such as romanticism, the Gothic and science fiction, experimental literature, colonial and postcolonial contexts, war studies, and animal studies

40 credits

Romanticism to Modernism (b)

This module focuses on a diverse range of texts (including poetry, prose, drama and film) produced between the late eighteenth to the late twentieth century. It pays detailed attention to the varied styles, issues, and movements produced by the rapid technological, political and cultural shifts that characterise these two centuries. Drawing on the expertise of the teaching team, the module introduces cutting-edge research carried out within the department in areas such as romanticism, the Gothic and science fiction, experimental literature, colonial and postcolonial contexts, war studies, and animal studies.

20 credits

Victorian Women Poets: Stressing Sex

This module will introduce you to a range of Victorian women poets and the critical and ideological debates that surround their work. Reading the poetry of canonical writers, such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Christina Rossetti alongside less familiar works by, for example Mathilde Blind and Amy Levy, you will engage with questions of gender and genre and to think about how women employed different poetic forms and voices to respond to the political, scientific and religious upheavals of the nineteenth century. We will also also explore the gender politics of the literary canon and consider how a focus on women writers from diverse class, national and ethnic backgrounds might resist powerful narratives about Victorian literature and culture.

20 credits

Exiles and Monsters: An Introduction to Old English

This module explores the language and literature of Anglo-Saxon England, enabling you to read and understand the earliest English literature. You will learn how to read Old English, developing a good understanding of Old English grammar and gaining familiarity with the language and literature through translating a range of texts. We will examine the historical background and cultural contexts of these texts, introducing you to the breadth and variety of Old English texts, and to differing critical approaches to them.

20 credits

Representing the Holocaust

This course will examine fictional and non-fictional, literary and filmic, representations of the Holocaust, and considers the use and extension of conventional textual forms to do so, including documentary film, memoir, short story and cartoon. Texts covered will include Elie Wiesel's 'Night', Claude Lanzmann's film 'Shoah', Martin Sherman's 'Bent', Martin Amis's 'Time's Arrow' and Ida Fink's stories in 'A Scrap of Time'.

20 credits

The Novella and the Uncanny

This course will explore novellas from across the last 150 years which represent uncanny experiences of haunting, madness, obsession, and psychological and political disorientation, with these intense experiences often refracted through the consciousness of a central character. We will consider whether the particularities of this literary form lend themselves to representing experiences at the 'limits of reason'. Texts will include works by Kafka, Camus, George Eliot, Ayn Rand, Pynchon and others. The course will encompass the study of some relevant theory, including Freud's essay 'The Uncanny' - which itself contains an analysis of Hoffman's bizarre short story 'The Sandman'.

20 credits

John Donne Worlds of Desire

This module focuses on the work of one of the most charismatic, provocative, and intellectually challenging poets and preachers of the early modern period, John Donne. Ranging across Donne's writings, we will consider his erotic and religious poetry, political satires, letters, and sermons. The module will examine the social and literary circles in which Donne's work was written and read, with a particular emphasis on contemporary cultures of print and manuscript, and also seek to locate Donne's work in the wider context of sixteenth and seventeenth-century society, exploring, for example, his engagement with court politics, religious controversy, debates about marriage, and the exploration of the New World. The module will conclude with an examination of the critical reception of Donne's work and, in particular, the ways in which his biography has been constructed from the seventeenth-century to the present day.

20 credits

Good Books: Intertextual Approaches to Literature and the Bible

Literature, film and television constantly return to the Bible as a source of narrative, character and image. Biblical texts are translated, rewritten, transposed and radically challenged by literature from the medieval period to the present day and so intertextual readings of the Bible and literature provide insight into the ways authors engage with politics, philosophy, and tradition. Our module explores a range of intertextual relationships, from medieval dream poetry through to contemporary writing and cultural representation, including a range of genres and approaches. We will analyse film, TV and visual media as well as literary forms, to explore the ways in which creative writers interpret and re-imagine biblical narratives and tropes.

20 credits

Creative Writing Prose Fiction 2

The aim of this unit is to help students to develop their expressive and technical skills in writing prose fiction at Level 2 and to improve their abilities as an editor and critic of their own and other people's writing. Students will be guided in the production of new work and encouraged to develop an analytical awareness of both the craft elements and the wider cultural and theoretical contexts of writing. The emphasis throughout will be on reading as a writer and writing as a reader.

20 credits

Hollywood Cinema

This module introduces you to the study of Hollywood's films, methods, meanings and creative figures, and the history and significance of American filmmaking in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You will examine key examples of films and filmmakers from the period of silent cinema up to the present day. You will learn about the characteristics of Hollywood style and narrative, the evolution of film genres such as the Western, the Musical and the Horror film, the progression of the cinema's treatment of subjects such as race, gender, politics and war, and developments in business and technology which have underpinned the international dominance of Hollywood film. As well learning to analyse the details of film form, and gaining understanding of aspects such as editing, lighting and shot composition, you will also engage with the political and cultural readings of popular entertainment cinema, and the history of film theory and criticism. Watching and discussing film texts from different eras will equip you with the analytical and communication skills to debate controversial subjects, to understand the contexts of diverse representations, balance and evaluate differing opinions on challenging subjects, and appreciate the importance of popular cinema.

20 credits

Writing the Real

In both fiction and drama, there is an approach to writing called 'realism' (or, in the case of theatre, 'naturalism'). Realist writers make a commitment to telling their readers about the world as it actually is and this means avoiding supernatural or speculative material and instead focusing on the experiences of ordinary people in a world that is recognisably like our own. The hey-day of realism was the nineteenth century but, since then, virtually all writers have had to take up a position in relation to it and decide whether to write about a world in which people have guardian angels and animals can talk or focus instead on 'real life' in contemporary London or New York City or Lagos. The module examines how realist and non-realist styles work linguistically and you will learn to analyse both kinds of text in a fine-grained way. You will read examples by British authors from different backgrounds as well as writers from other parts of the world. Narrative is central to how we define ourselves and understand the world around us, so the module looks beyond the strictly academic and helps you understand more about how we respond to the world through story-telling.

20 credits

Crime Writing: from the fin de siècle to the Golden Age

How did the genre of crime writing become so influential? This module will examine the cultural history of crime writing from 1890-1950, in a range of genres including detective novels, short stories, plays and films, and true crime writing or reportage. By focusing on a number of narratives of crime, the module will invite an analysis of how this genre is engaged with and subverted by writers wrestling with a modernity that included developments including two World Wars, imperialism and anticolonial movements, women's suffrage and presence in the workplace and a hugely increased use of technology, alongside the rise of criminology and psychoanalysis.

20 credits

Sex and Decadence in Restoration Theatre

The period between the Restoration of Charles II 1660 and the accession of James II (1688), witnessed an astonishing development of theatrical practice and culture; the professional Restoration stage, unlike its Renaissance predecessor, used actresses rather than cross-dressed boys to play female parts and the introduction of moveable scenery to these theatres brought with it different styles of acting, plotting and realism. On this module, we will consider how this new kind of theatre enabled the emergence of two key Restoration theatrical types, the rake and the courtesan, and what these new roles might tell us about changing attitudes towards sex

20 credits

Queer and Now: Contemporary Queer Texts

This module introduces students to a range of contemporary queer texts and considers how they respond to key debates and conversations regarding gender, sexuality, identity and community. Students will explore a variety of exemplary texts and artworks from the late 20th century up to the present day, together with the social, political, cultural and theoretical contexts which inform them. Considering how queer texts and theories might expand, challenge or stand in opposition to notions of canon, students will read works by queer novelists, poets and writers and will watch plays, films and drag performances to examine the opportunities of queer work and its relationship to activism and social change.

20 credits

Satire and Print in the Eighteenth Century

Against a background of political, religious and cultural ferment, new ideas of the individual's relationship to the state emerged in the early-eighteenth century. New kinds of readers, authors, and an increasingly powerful book trade reshaped the literary map of Britain. Those fraught relationships are captured in the prose and poetry of the satirists upon this course. The political, religious and economic satires of writers including Defoe, Pope, Swift, Ramsay, Finch, Gay, Leapor, Montagu, Addison and Steele will be read as a new and troubled relationship between the individual and the state emerged alongside a vigorously contested idea of 'Britain' in literature.

20 credits

Creative Writing Poetry 2

We learn by example: a creative writer is first and foremost a creative reader and a critical reader of his/her own work. This module explores poetic form and techniques for creating new poems through the critical study of published examples, imaginative exercises, discussion and feeback on students' own writing. This exploration will help students to develop their own creative work while sharpening critical appreciation of the formal aspects of poetry. Subjects covered will include: metre, rhythm and free verse; rhyme and verbal patterning; traditional forms such as sonnet and terza rima; new ways with form.

20 credits

Road Journeys in American Culture: 1930-2000

This module analyses the development of road narratives from the 1930s to the present, looking at the ways in which this narrative trope tells the story of American culture and society throughout the twentieth-century. The module aims to address some or all of the following questions. Do road journeys reflect or run away from political realities 'at home'? To what extent is the road journey a gendered space predominantly occupied by men? Are certain groups of people allowed to travel and other groups not? Is the road journey a metaphor for American colonization and expansion, or something else more ambiguous? Texts to be studied include films such as 'The Wizard of Oz', 'Bonnie and Clyde', The Straight Strory', and 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?' novels such as 'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac, 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov, and 'The Music of Chance' by Paul Auster, and poems by Elizabeth Bishop and Amy Clampitt.

20 credits

Christopher Marlowe

This module gives students the opportunity to read the entire dramatic and poetic output of Shakespeare's great rival, Christopher Marlowe. In putting plays into dialogue with lyric and narrative poetry, we will interrogate the implications of the label 'poet-dramatist' to describe the trajectory of Marlowe's career. Students will also look at important institutional contexts for the publication of Marlowe's work: professional theatre, patronage networks and print.

20 credits

Literature, Ecology, Capital

Fredric Jameson famously noted that it seems to be easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism. This module explores how literature represents the relationships between ecological crisis and the crises of capitalism. We will consider texts concerned with (for example) petroculture, habitat loss, biotechnology, meat and tourism. Chronologically, we will move from the late nineteenth century to the present. Given the global nature of the topic, we will be concerned with a diverse range of national literatures.

20 credits

Literature and Critical Thought (a)

This course introduces writers, concepts and approaches fundamental to contemporary literary theory, and explores their application to diverse relevant texts. You will engage in a transhistorical study of the formal, literary and cultural functions of genre (e.g. in the forms of comedy and tragedy). You will also encounter theorists such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, Mikhail Bakhtin, Roland Barthes, Michael Foucault, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Lacan and Jean Baudrillard. Lectures will introduce and explain this material, and seminars will discuss and apply it to the study of literature. This module helps you develop your academic writing, critical thinking and research skills while studying the work of major theorists.

40 credits

Optional English language modules:

The History of Persuasion

This module focuses on why some written texts seem more persuasive (or authoritative) than others. To answer this question we will look at non-literary writing from a range of different contexts: journalism, advertising, political speaking, science writing, and religious communication. You'll look closely at the language used in each context, think about what constitutes persuasive writing in each, and talk about why this differs from context to context. You'll also have a chance to look at the histories of these different kinds of text. Examples from earlier periods look different from what we are used to in the 21st century and it is fascinating to explore how journalism, for example, has come to look as it does today. All these types of writing are associated with powerful institutions: journalism with the national press, advertising with big corporations, political speaking with the major political parties. But we will also explore how people with more marginalised identities use them, resist them, and are represented through them. The overall aim is help you become more critical in your response to the different kinds of written communication that surround us and this is valuable in many of the careers that English graduates go into.

20 credits

Phonetics

This module aims to provide a detailed understanding of speech sounds, how they are produced, how perceived, how they vary from one language to another, and how they are analysed. Lectures will deal with the three core areas of phonetics: articulation, acoustics and audition. The course has a practical as well as a theoretical component. There will be weekly classes in which students will learn to recognise, produce and transcribe the sounds of the International Phonetic Alphabet. The application and history of phonetics will also be covered.

20 credits

Syntax

This module builds on what students have learnt in ELL113 Structure of English at Level 1, providing a more in-depth look at the structure and organising principles of sentences. We develop the tree structures students learn in first year, and see how these structures form a system of representation that can be used for any language. This involves thinking about the universal constraints on the grouping of words into phrases, and consideration of various operations that move elements around inside sentences to generate the word orders we see written or hear spoken, while at the same time ensuring that sentences satisfy formal constraints. In other words, the module provides an opportunity for students to think in more depth about why sentences are structured the way that they are.

20 credits

Exiles and Monsters: An Introduction to Old English

This module explores the language and literature of Anglo-Saxon England, enabling you to read and understand the earliest English literature. You will learn how to read Old English, developing a good understanding of Old English grammar and gaining familiarity with the language and literature through translating a range of texts. We will examine the historical background and cultural contexts of these texts, introducing you to the breadth and variety of Old English texts, and to differing critical approaches to them.

20 credits

Language and Cognition

This module introduces students to the key theories and frameworks at the core of cognitive linguistics. The module explores the relationships between language and the human mind and considers how recent advances in the study of human cognition can enhance our understanding of the conceptual processes that underpin the production and reception of discourse. The module introduces students to such concepts as embodiment, prototypes, situated simulation, profiling, mental representation, conceptual mapping, and conceptual integration. The module equips students with the necessary knowledge and analytical skills to design and carry out their own investigations into language and cognition.

20 credits

Writing the Real

In both fiction and drama, there is an approach to writing called 'realism' (or, in the case of theatre, 'naturalism'). Realist writers make a commitment to telling their readers about the world as it actually is and this means avoiding supernatural or speculative material and instead focusing on the experiences of ordinary people in a world that is recognisably like our own. The hey-day of realism was the nineteenth century but, since then, virtually all writers have had to take up a position in relation to it and decide whether to write about a world in which people have guardian angels and animals can talk or focus instead on 'real life' in contemporary London or New York City or Lagos. The module examines how realist and non-realist styles work linguistically and you will learn to analyse both kinds of text in a fine-grained way. You will read examples by British authors from different backgrounds as well as writers from other parts of the world. Narrative is central to how we define ourselves and understand the world around us, so the module looks beyond the strictly academic and helps you understand more about how we respond to the world through story-telling.

20 credits

Sociolinguistics

This module explores the workings of language in its rich social setting. It includes an investigation of accent and dialect, register and style in relation to social class, gender, age, ethinicity, region and social networks. The module also examines sociolinguistic situations around the world, such as multilingualism and diglossia, pidgins and creoles, new Englishes and other globalised forms of language. The module is intended to be enabling and offers an opportunity for students to develop a sense of their own ethical responsibilities as language users and analysts. Students will be provided with the methodological tools necessary to carry out independent fieldwork and will be encouraged to undertake their own exploration of sociolinguistics.

20 credits

First Language Acquisition

This second-year module is aimed at students who have already taken Introduction to Linguistics at Level 1. In this course, we focus specifically on the first language acquisition of syntactic (and semantic) knowledge. Addressing both theoretical and methodological issues, the course explores the relationship between the logical problem of language acquisition -- how very young children manage to acquire quite abstract and subtle properties of their target grammars in the absence of clear positive evidence -- and the developmental problem of acquisition -- how children recover from systematic errors, and acquire subtle language-specific properties. We also explore the related tension between nativist vs. emergentist explanations for language acquisition and development.

20 credits

Phonology

This module aims to examine phonological theories and the data on which they are constructed, exploring phonological organisation and processes in different languages. Segmental and prosodic (e.g. syllable-based) phenomena will be investigated, using rule- and constraint-based frameworks. As well as being a core part of theoretical linguistics, an understanding of phonology is essential to the studies of historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, speech pathologies, language acquisition, and computerised speech synthesis and recognition technologies.

20 credits

A Sense of Place: Local and Regional Identity

This module takes an interdisciplinary approach to issues of regional and local identity in contemporary Britain. Lectures focus on different aspects of the 'local' involved in the creation, dissemination and commodification of regional and local identity. Topics covered include: perceptual geography; archaeology; material culture; place-names; dialect; 'blason populaire' and regional sayings; regional literature; regional songs as 'anthems'; regional festivals and customs; the marketing of regions in the tourist industry. From 2006 the module will be involved in the 'Business in the Curriculum' initative. Students will work in teams with representatives of cultural and heritage organisation to solve 'real life' problems.

20 credits

Music

Optional modules range across performance, composition, musicology, music psychology, ethnomusicology, music technology, and musical industries.

Some modules run every year, and some run every other year. Some modules are open to both Year 2 and Year 3. These strategies enable us to offer a wider choice of modules.

Every year:

Creative Applications of Music Technology

This module will introduce you to a range of technologies that might be used for creative purposes and provides an opportunity for further electronic music composition. The module necessarily focuses upon the science of music (sound and the digital medium, filters, reverbs, synth design, computer music programming) before engaging with the construction of two works: one that is very synth driven (a dance music style) and one that further develops your electroacoustic music study. The technological aspects of the module are quite broad and strengthen essential transferable skills and computer literacy. The creative aspects of the module develop your original composition profile whilst augmenting skills in sound design and commercial composition.

20 credits

Intermediate Composition

This module follows on from Composition in Year 1 to support the development of your compositional practice. You will study more advanced techniques of 20th and 21st Century classical music and develop strategies for making longer pieces. You'll write for small ensembles and soloists, including collaboration with advanced performers taking the MA Performance Studies, and you will have opportunities to get your work played in concerts. This work will prepare you for other composition-related modules, including Portfolio of Compositions and Special Project in Year 3.

20 credits

Intermediate Performance

This module will introduce you to performance practice and techniques related to performance at an intermediate level. It will act as preparation for advanced performance in Year 3 Recitals, and builds on the foundation work completed as part of Performance in Year 1. You will take individual instrumental/vocal lessons, which will run alongside workshop-based lectures throughout the academic year. You will also attend 6 lunchtime, rush hour or evening concerts across the year and write a short critical review.

20 credits

Work in Music

The module provides an opportunity for students to examine in depth a working environment of interest to them and to undertake work-related learning through contact with a professional music setting. Students will take responsibility for approaching and communicating with external music organisations and professionals with a view to securing advice or practical experience. Module tutors will provide support and will also have access to a directory of local and national organisations that students might approach. Through seminar sessions, students will be supported in developing clear aims and objectives for the module and will receive guidance regarding module assessments. Through experience of a work environment, students will develop specialist knowledge, reflective skills and a critical awareness of primary research methods.

20 credits

Alternating years:

Creative Performance

This module introduces you to contemporary, jazz and classical improvisation. By learning and developing these skills over a series of practical and taught sessions, you will become more flexible and confident as a performer.

20 credits

Ensemble Performance

This module will present you with the opportunity to develop ensemble performance skills in a supervised situation. You will form an ensemble with fellow students prior to the module commencing, and your ensemble will programme a contrasting selection of repertoire for study and public performance. Particular attention will be paid to ensemble considerations, though technical matters and the development of stylistic awareness will also form an important part of the module.

20 credits

Orchestral Technique

This module covers the essential knowledge and skills for scoring music for symphony orchestra, as well as for smaller groupings of orchestral instruments. The module equips you for arranging and writing music for ensembles you might find yourself working with in the future, as a player, composer, conductor or teacher. The Orchestral Technique module is appropriate for all music students, but is particularly important for those specialising in composition. It will give you relevant knowledge of instruments, repertoire and techniques, and also provide the background training you will need for composing for media and film, and for live performance.

20 credits

Sound and Moving Image

This module gives you the opportunity to compose sound and music for film and other visual media, and position sound and music within the filmmaking process. Using a variety of software, you will be responsible for the entire project from the ideas stage through to the creation of all audio materials. A diverse range of existing movies, audiovisual works and relevant literature will be studied, and you will be expected to use these to inform your own work.

20 credits

Music in Renaissance Europe

This module will introduce you to European musical cultures in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the research methods through which they are discovered and studied. You'll investigate the roles played by music in the everyday life of street and home, as well as in religion and politics.

The module links music to some of the big critical themes in the European history of the period, including Europe's expanding international horizons through trade and colonialism, the dramatic increase in the circulation of books thanks to new printing technology, and conflict both within and between religious faiths.

20 credits

Baroque Music

Public knowledge of baroque music today is shaped by the predominance of a canon; of music considered authoritative or great,; which for ideological and historical reasons is dominated by white European male composers. This module sets out to help change that. Students will investigate music created using staff notation between c.1600-1750 by a musician who was NOT a white European man, which is obscure or completely unknown in the present day.

Teaching will use case studies to explore the skills required to transcribe and research Baroque music—such as literature search, accessing and working with Early Modern primary sources, analysing baroque music (including, where relevant, song texts), transcription and editing of music and text, researching baroque performance practice, contextualising music, addressing issues of gender and ethnicity critically within a historical frame.

20 credits

Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791

In this module, you will examine Mozart's career as performer and composer in Vienna (1781-91), looking at the environments and circumstances in which he worked and the aesthetic contexts in which he thrived. Topics will include: the circumstances that led Mozart to move from Salzburg to Vienna in 1781; his career as a performer; aesthetic, historical and contextual issues in 1780s Vienna; Mozart's instrumental, operatic and sacred works composed in Vienna; and Mozart's status as a musical-cultural icon in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

20 credits

Opera and Identity

This module gives you the opportunity to explore, understand and debate contemporary critical issues about the relationship between opera and identity. Focussing on opera from 1800 to the present day, the historical and social contexts surrounding the creation, premiere, and reception of opera forms the backdrop to the study of individual works in relation to topics including race, gender, sexuality, class, colonialism, religion, exoticism, political ideology, and national identity. From exoticised 19th-century Italian constructions of Egypt, through to the interplay of gender and sexuality in the depiction of pop culture icon Anna Nicole Smith, the operatic stage provides a forum for the consideration of some of society's most pertinent and widely debated issues.

20 credits

Analysis of Classical and Early Romantic Music

This module will introduce you to musical analysis in the western classical tradition. The emphasis is on the internal and external workings of musical forms in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focussing on Haydn's and Mozart's mastery of standard classical forms, on Beethoven's formal manipulations, and on the interaction of form and expression in the early nineteenth century (e.g. Schubert and Chopin).

Topics will include: motivic, thematic, melodic and rhythmic manipulation; interrelationships between counterpoint, harmony and melody; standard formal patterns; formal expansions and contractions; wit and humour in the late eighteenth century; expression and form.

20 credits

The Broadway Musical

This module addresses the development of the Broadway musical, focusing on leading figures and critical issues. It looks at shows such as My Fair Lady and Oklahoma!, examines aspects of identity such as race and sexuality, and unpacks the collaborative nature of the genre. Alongside lectures on set works, you will pursue an individual project on a topic of your own choice, allowing freedom to identify with the work being studied.

20 credits

Jazz Studies

This module introduces some of the key figures and developments in the history of jazz, from its origins as an early twentieth-century American music, to its various contemporary manifestations across the world. You will engage with the contexts and debates that have shaped (and continue to shape) the performance, reception, representation, and study of jazz music, and will conduct independent research into a jazz-related topic of your choosing.

20 credits

Topics in Popular Music

In this module you'll explore in depth a range of models, case studies and themes for the study of Popular Music. You'll be introduced to varying analytical and critical approaches to the study of popular musics in global perspective, with topics including (e.g.): how popular musicians learn; popular music and humour; popular music as world music; reading popular music 'texts'; understanding business models; and conducting a popular music ethnography. As well as developing a factual knowledge of the genres covered in the module, you will develop a critical awareness of research methods and discursive themes in the field of popular music studies.

The module aims for diversity both in the styles and population groups represented and in the critical and analytical approaches discussed. The exact topics may vary with the specialisms of the teaching team, but you'll always be free to formulate a focus that interests you for your assessed project, which you'll develop with regular input from tutors and peers.

20 credits

Musical Culture in East Asia

This module introduces the musical life of East Asia, including China, Korea, Japan and neighbouring areas, in historical and cultural context. While emphasising traditional East Asian music and musical theatre, you'll also examine East Asia's participation in the culture of Western-style classical and popular musics.

You'll learn to recognise many forms of East Asian music and explain how they use sound in pursuit of particular cultural goals. You'll also carry out a guided research project on a cultural, historical and/or analytical topic in East Asian music.

20 credits

Traditional Music in the Modern World

This module will introduce you to the study of folk and traditional music, focussing on a range of contemporary folk music cultures. You'll learn to use a range of approaches (ethnomusicology; critical and culture theory; political theory) to consider the traditional identities these music cultures construct, and how they relate to their modern, economic, political and technological contexts. Past and current definitions of the terms folk music and traditional music are explored, and music cultures are investigated in terms of specific debates and contexts, such as revivalism, nationalism, institutionalisation, competition and education.

20 credits

Ethnomusicology

This module introduces ethnomusicology as a way of researching musical culture, with selected musical traditions explored as case studies in applying and assessing ethnomusicological methods. These methods typically emphasise 'ethnography', in which the primary sources are live human beings and knowledge is produced by interacting with them through musical participation, observation and interviewing.

You'll have the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic fieldwork project, either face-to-face or 'virtual', and write up the results in your assessed work. Alternatively, you can submit an essay examining published ethnomusicological research on a specific topic. Either way, you should reflect critically on how musical knowledge is produced by ethnomusicological methods.

20 credits

Psychology of Music: methods and applications

This module lays the foundation for you to be able to research a music-psychological topic using psychological research methods and consider its relevance for musical life and the music profession. You'll work on developing skills in psychological research approaches, through teaching that is problem-based, meaning that you will work on research design and data collection methods to tackle an issue or problem that may be encountered in musical contexts. A combination of methods is considered including qualitative and quantitative data collection, reflection, observation and literature research. Included problems may relate to musical development, psychology of performance, and music engagement.

20 credits

Music and Wellbeing

This module introduces you to the important ways in which music contributes to our sense of wellbeing. Wellbeing is not simply about feeling ok but has health implications for society. Music plays a vital role in fostering wellbeing. In the module, we cover four distinct areas where health and wellbeing may be challenged; these include special educational needs in schools, the use of music for people with dementia, as well as some specialised clinical settings where music is used. As part of your work on the module, you will be able to design your own music intervention.

20 credits

Music Psychology in Everyday Life

This module will introduce you to theories, empirical investigations and applications of music psychology relevant to everyday life. You will learn about the diverse uses of music in everyday situations, which may include personal, communal and commercial settings. The reasons for music use in these situations are explored and possible explanations of music's ability to support functions are critically reviewed, including social, emotional, personal, educational and commercial impacts. The module will be delivered through lectures, group discussions, and small research projects.

20 credits

Community, Music and Education

This module will engage you in the current debates and practices of music in education and community settings, from the formal classroom setting and instrumental studio, through the work done by community support groups, to more recreational musical practice in the community. Questions of music's place in the curriculum, the relationship between school and home music, and the challenges of providing a vibrant musical education for all people, will be addressed in lectures and discussions.

You will work in mentored groups to investigate and support community music-making or school-based music education in Sheffield, building your skills as a researcher, and learning about career options including teaching, delivering and managing music provision for young people and vulnerable adults. You will finish the module knowing more about music and its contribution to education and society, through your critical reflection on published research evidence, and through school and community fieldwork visits.

20 credits

Sound Recording Practice

This module examines the fundamental theories of recording. Focussing upon the recording of both sound and music, it provides you with an opportunity to realise an original track. The module engages briefly with technical aspects of recording (microphone types, sound file formats) before using practical work and listening to decide upon choice of microphone, placement and capture. By making field recordings, location recordings, and session-based recordings, you will acquire a broad understanding of relevant issues and methods. The mixing and mastering of session-based recordings results in your finished track and helps you develop the skills required in the professional sound studio.

20 credits

Try a new subject:

The flexible structure of your second year at Sheffield means that you also have the chance to experience modules from outside of English and Music - you can choose up to 20 credits of modules from a list approved by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. A final guided module list is made available to new students when you select your modules as part of registration.

Optional English literature modules:

Life After Death? Romantic Poets and Writing the Afterlife

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason held that there were only two real questions: Is there a God and is there eternal life? Poets and philosophers (and for Coleridge, 'no man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher') have sought to imagine, conjure, or deny the idea of a life after death. This module will explore the versions of eternity written by Romantic poets. From Keats's denial of eternity, Byron's questioning, Shelley's agnostic yearning, and Hemans's feminist redress of the issue, we will consider the idea of life after death in poetry. Starting with a grounding in key philosophical ideas from Plato's assertion of the soul's immortality and Lucretius' denial of any life after death, this module will look at the hell, purgatory, heaven, and nothingness of life after death as written by Romantic poets.

20 credits

Exiles and Monsters: Reading Old English

This module explores the language and literature of early medieval England (500-1066), enabling you to read, translate, and understand the earliest English literature. You will learn Old English, developing a good understanding of Old English grammar and applying that knowledge as you translate Old English texts. You will also gain familiarity with Old English literature through translating a range of diverse texts. We normally start translating Old English prose in Week 2 and move on to poetry after a few weeks. Texts studied on this module might include Wulfstan's famous sermon to the English (in which he goes on about how sinful the English are), The Battle of Maldon (about a real battle in 991 in which the Vikings defeated the English), Judith (about a woman who chops off the head of the general whose army is besieging her city), and Beowulf (about a hero and several monsters). The module will briefly examine the historical background, cultural contexts, and stylistic features of these texts, introducing you to the breadth and variety of Old English texts and to differing critical approaches to them. No prior knowledge of Old English language or literature is required.

20 credits

Afro-American Literature 1: Beginnings to the Harlem Renaissance

This course examines Afro-American Literature from early slave narratives and poems to the explosion of creativity after the first world war in the Harlem Renaissance, with its mixture of jazz, art, writing and politics. Writers considered include Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, W.E. Du Bois, Jean Toomer, Zora Neale Huston, Langston Hughes, Paul Dunbar. Music, art, and the cartoonist George Herriman will be discussed. We will also consider some later texts which reflect on this history, including Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Toni Morrison's Jazz.

20 credits

No Animals were Harmed in the Making of this Module: Animals in Film

Animals have played a crucial role in film as an artistic medium, from the literal use of animal products in film stock to the capturing of animal movement as a driver of stop-motion, wide-screen and CGI film technology. The wish to picture animals' lives, whether naturalistically or playfully, brings about filmic genres such as wildlife film and animation. By analysing a range of key films, the module will consider these and other major aspects of animals in film such as: animals' roles in different film genres, from art-house documentary to horror; the range of literal and symbolic ways animals appear in film; animals in the film star-system; animal lives and the ethics of film-making; adaptation and the different challenges of filmic and literary representation of animals.

20 credits

Fin de siècle Gothic

The module examines a range of Gothic texts and their fin de siècle contexts. Writers explored include R.L. Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Vernon Lee, Oscar Wilde, M.R. James, Bram Stoker, and H.G. Wells. Students will explore a diverse range of contemporary contexts which will enable them to see how theories of degeneration, images of Empire, models of medicine, notions of decadence, and ideas about history can be applied to the fin de siècle Gothic. The focus on ghosts, vampires, and aliens will help identify how a language of 'otherness' articulated the culturally specific anxieties of fin de siècle Britain. Teaching involves a mixture of lectures and seminars.

20 credits

Creative Writing Poetry 3

The aim of this unit is to help students to develop their expressive and technical skills in writing poetry at Level 3 and to improve their abilities as an editor and critic of their own and other people's writing. Students will be guided in the production of new work and encouraged to develop an analytical awareness of both the craft elements and the wider cultural and theoretical contexts of writing poetry. The emphasis throughout will be on reading as a writer and writing as a reader.

20 credits

Middlemarch

Virginia Woolf famously described Middlemarch as 'one of the few English novels written for grown-up people.' Spanning eight books, it is widely regarded as George Eliot's masterpiece. Eliot described and defied her society; she scrutinised her Victorian moment. She lived and worked at odds with nineteenth-century religious institutions: for more than twenty years, she was the partner of George Henry Lewes, a married man, and in her writing she sought to portray life 'as it was', to represent and celebrate everyday life, to resist its injustices. She is also one of the few pseudonymous women to retain their pen name in posterity. This module focuses on Middlemarch's eight books, exploring a range of historical and thematic issues including: serialisation; gender and marriage; class, religion and politics; Victorian science; art and ethics.

20 credits

The Idea of America

If you are interested in how and why contemporary (1950-present day) American writers revise myths of America, then this module will appeal to you. We explore how foundational ideas of America (such freedom, equality, democracy, self-reliance, the frontier, capitalism and American exceptionalism) are reimagined by its poets, playwrights and prose writers. You might read works by authors such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Cormac McCarthy, C Pam Zhang, Charles Yu, Arthur Miller and Ocean Vuong and the module is organised around a series of thematic strands that will help you to make connections between writers and key American mythologies. For example, the themes could include a focus on the ongoing legacies of slavery and settler colonisation and/or a study of the role of religion, region and place in shaping literary perspectives of America. You can expect to read a diverse range of works by Asian-American, Native-American, African-American and Arab-American authors and by the end of this module you will develop valuable leadership and employability skills including improved emotional intelligence and global awareness.

20 credits

The Man Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock's Films

This course will examine a selection of Hitchcock's British and Hollywood films in the context of a variety of critical approaches. It will analyse the plot, techniques, influences of and homages to a variety of Hitchcock's films.

20 credits

America and the Avant-Garde, 1950's-1990's

We require a situation like it really is - no rules at all. Only when we make them do it in our labs do crystals win our games. Do they? I wonder? (John Cage). In this module we will be looking at a range of avant-garde experiments in poetry, prose and performance that have been carried out by contemporary American writers and artists. As well as discussing the innovations of performance poetry, happenings and assemblages, we will also be comparing the work of different movements such as the Beats, the Black Mountain Poets, FLUXUS, and Mail Art.

20 credits

Writing Fiction 3

This module explores techniques and strategies for creating fiction through the critical study of short excerpts from a wide range of novels and short stories, imaginative exercises, discussion and feedback on students own writing. This exploration will help students develop their own creative work while sharpening critical appreciation of both classic and contemporary fiction. Subjects covered will include: narrative voice, character, dialogue, plot, mood, pace and style. Examples will include work by Laurence Sterne, Dickens, Joyce and Anthony Burgess, JG Ballard, Martin Amis, Irvine Welsh, Chuck Palahniuk and Michael Houellebecq.

20 credits

Crime and Transgression in Romantic Literature

This course focuses on the literature of the period 1900-1945, in particular on Anglo-American and Irish Modernism, its origins around World War 1, and the texts of the 1920s and 1930s which register its impact in Britain and North America. While the Modernism movement will be at the centre of the course, represented by Joyce, Woolf, and Eliot for example, we will examine a full range of texts of that period and pay attention to the vast range of styles, issues, and non-modernists movements of the periods. The aesthetic revolution of Modernism will be changed

20 credits

Contemporary Black British Writing

This module will explore the diversity of Black British Writing from the Windrush Era to the present, paying particular attention to rewritings of earlier British texts and experiments with generic and cultural forms. We will use theoretical interrogations of race and colonialism from thinkers including Paul Gilroy, Stuart Hall and Reni Eddo-Lodge to analyse works that radically reformulate key moments in British literature and culture from the Roman invasion to The Canturbury Tales, through the colonial hinterlands of Victorian fiction to the aspiration and culture clash of 1950s London. 

20 credits

Dissertation

This module provides third year students with an opportunity to develop work done in Approved Modules and Core units, or study a relevant topic not included in these courses. Students are expected to show a capacity for research and for organising a long essay. The Dissertation is an essay between 8,000 and 10,000 words, the result of a sustained period of independent study at Level 3. The Dissertation takes the place of a second semester Approved Module. Disertation topics must be approved by the Dissertation convenor, Cathy Shrank. She will take into account appropriate courses that have been taken. She may advise against taking the Dissertation. It is exected that students will formulate a topic with the help of a potential supervisor chosen from the full-time academic staff and after discussion with their Personal Tutor. Registration for the Dissertation depends on availability of supervisors. Dissertation students have a preliminary meeting with their supervisors early in Semester 1 and then meet supervisors at least three times during Semester 2. Normally supervisors read one near-complete draft of the Dissertation not later than the first week after the Easter vacation. The Dissertation is due at the end of Semester 2 and normal assessment submission regulations apply to it.

20 credits

The Invention of Romanticism

This module is about the birth and legacy of romantic-era writing. It studies famous figures such as William Wordsworth, John Keats and Emily Bronte alongside lesser-known writers such as Charlotte Smith, Charles Waterton and John Clare. It is taught by a team who use their research interests in fields such as environmental criticism, gender studies or colonial writing to think about how such authors inform our thinking about the world today. Over the year you'll write two essays and develop a proposal for an end-of-year module conference where, supported by your tutors, you can present your ideas and findings to the class. As well as helping you find your own critical voice and developing your academic writing and research skills, this module believes that the modern world and how we think of it was born and shaped by the literature of the Romantics and it encourages you to think critically about that legacy.

40 credits

Renaissance Literature, Modern Crisis

This module considers early modern and Renaissance literature in relation to some of the pressing concerns of the modern world, e.g. the climate emergency, decolonisation, and gender identity (topics may vary from year to year depending on staff expertise and current events). It will combine historicism (looking at texts in historical contexts) with presentism (thinking about how we read texts in our own historical context). You'll write a critical essay relating early modern literature to a modern priority, and then work on a project whose nature and scope you'll decide in dialogue with your tutor(s): for example, an edited collection of texts based around a shared theme; teaching materials; or a magazine-style article. As well as helping you hone your academic writing and your research and critical thinking skills, this module encourages you to think about how literary texts can speak to problems in the wider world.

40 credits

Research Topics in Theatre and Film

This module introduces you to significant research topics that cut across theatre and film studies, opening up the synergies and divergence between these art forms. Key themes such as Bodies, Identities, Memory, Site and Migration will focus our analysis of diverse historical and contemporary examples, positioned critically alongside notable remakings and sometimes radical adaptations. Research into these case studies will uncover important contexts of creation, production and reception that serve to deepen and problematise their meanings. You will also explore current approaches in theory and criticism that reframe theatre and film in exciting and challenging ways. The module's year-long structure allows substantial time to pursue individual research interests, guided by your tutors and inspired by and extending beyond work we undertake as a group. Reflecting the creative mediums we focus on, this module includes supported assessment options for video essays and project pitches, building skills in editing and audiovisual presentation, as alternatives to the traditional essay. Whether or not you choose to experiment with these formats, you will acquire sophisticated knowledge of film and theatre, deepen your understanding of cinematic and performance languages, and gain valuable skills in creative thinking and expression beyond the written word.

40 credits

Mod Cons: Exploring the Long 20th Century

This module introduces you to current research in the study of literary and related forms of cultural text and practice, focusing on the modern and contemporary periods from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present. With a curriculum adapted each year in response to the current research interests of academic staff, the module focuses on the ways in which literary and related works can be understood in terms of important aesthetic, cultural and socio-political concerns in the period. During this module you will be given the opportunity to develop your critical thinking and your writing and analytical skills through an indepth engagement with a variety of text from the modern and contemporary periods.

40 credits

Optional English language modules:

Research Practice

Research Practice' is normally taken in combination with the 'Dissertation' module. Taken together these two units give students the opportunity to spend a whole year researching a topic of particular interest to them, engaging with new data or primary sources, and working on material that is typically more advanced than that covered in taught modules. 'Research Practice' focuses on the planning of the larger project. Students receive support and training through whole-group workshops and one-to-one support from a supervisor. By the end of the module, students will have designed an appropriate programme of research and begun to implement it. Although support will be provided by supervisors and the module convenor, students will be expected to drive their projects forward themselves and be proactive in seeking guidance and help when they need it. The module is not suitable for students who do not enjoy independent research and reading. In preparation for the module, students will be required to submit a research proposal towards the end of Level 2. Students will receive guidance on this and may seek help with this part of the process from members of academic staff. Registration for this module depends on both the coherence of the research proposal and the availability of suitable supervisors.

20 credits

Psychology of Language

This third-year module in psycholinguistics examines the relationship between the human mind and language, addressing both theoretical and methodological issues. We look at the processes involved in producing and comprehending speech, and in reading, exploring the ways in which we represent and store linguistic knowledge. The core linguistic modules will be investigated (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics), with a focus on phonology. Evidence from speech errors, impaired speech, and neuroscience alongside classic psychological experimental work in the field will be considered. Students will gain a thorough grounding in psycholinguistic theory and practice, and should acquire the tools to undertake their own research in the future.

20 credits

Exiles and Monsters: Reading Old English

This module explores the language and literature of early medieval England (500-1066), enabling you to read, translate, and understand the earliest English literature. You will learn Old English, developing a good understanding of Old English grammar and applying that knowledge as you translate Old English texts. You will also gain familiarity with Old English literature through translating a range of diverse texts. We normally start translating Old English prose in Week 2 and move on to poetry after a few weeks. Texts studied on this module might include Wulfstan's famous sermon to the English (in which he goes on about how sinful the English are), The Battle of Maldon (about a real battle in 991 in which the Vikings defeated the English), Judith (about a woman who chops off the head of the general whose army is besieging her city), and Beowulf (about a hero and several monsters). The module will briefly examine the historical background, cultural contexts, and stylistic features of these texts, introducing you to the breadth and variety of Old English texts and to differing critical approaches to them. No prior knowledge of Old English language or literature is required.

20 credits

Researching Readers

Your studies so far will have given you many opportunities to think about how you interpret texts and how texts are discussed by professional critics. This module encourages you to engage with the responses of readers outside of University too, in the wider reading public. Academic discussions regularly make claims about the effects of a text on its 'readers' or 'audience', but these readers are often theoretical constructs rather than actual people. This module is a practical introduction to methods that can be used to collect data so that you can investigate the responses of real readers in a variety of contexts. Methods that we study might include experimental tasks, questionnaires, focus groups and internet resources. We focus on qualitative, verbal data: the things which people say or write about their reading experiences. You will learn how to use that data to test and develop your own textual analyses. For instance, we might use data to explore how readers engage with fictional characters, how they make sense of metaphors, or how they respond emotionally to patterns in language. You will be supported in designing, conducting and reflecting upon your own study of real readers, with free choice of the text you study and the method you use, so there is lots of scope for pursuing what interests you.

20 credits

Narrative Style in the Contemporary Novel

On this module you will consider how the contemporary novel experiments with narrative style and technique, and the effects of this on you as a reader. We will be looking at writing in English from all over the world, and from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives. We will be looking at key narrative concepts, such as point of view, in order to enable appreciation of the ways in which contemporary writers play with traditional styles. Some of the experimental features we will look at include: disruptions to chronological sequence; the use of second-person ('you') narration; the use of multiple narrators. We will look at how such techniques increase or hinder such experiences as empathy and identification with characters. You will get a chance to work extensively on a contemporary novel of your choice and deepen your enjoyment of it by looking at how it is written.

20 credits

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

The module introduces and reviews the principles that underlie, and the methodology employed in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages. Among the topics discussed are the teaching of the four main language skills - reading, writing, listening, speaking - and the teaching of the language system - grammar and vocabulary. There are also sessions on the language learning process and the characteristics of communicative language teaching.

20 credits

Language and Gender

This module will explore the relationship between language use and gender identity. We will consider how gender has been defined in social and linguistic research and examine a variety of theoretical perspectives, methodologies and findings (incorporating both quantitiative and qualitative linguistic work). The approach is interdisciplinary (drawing upon sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and discourse analysis) and will address the issues of power, status, socialisation and ideology.

20 credits

Approaches to Discourse

The course aims to introduce students to the critical analysis of spoken and written discourse in contemporary social contexts. It provides a range of resources and techniques for analysing texts and dialogue, enabling students to apply them to real life data drawn from a wide variety of contexts. Instruction will cover classical theoretical approaches to the analysis of discourse and genre, including functional grammatical analysis of clauses and sentences, the generic structure of texts, conversational and pragmatic analysis of spoken discourse, and intertextual and interdiscursive analysis. Throughout the topics covered, the students will be encouraged to reflect upon the role of discourse in the structuring of social practices and power relations.

20 credits

Advanced Syntax

This module builds on the material covered in ELL 221 Syntax, focusing on both the universal and language-specific rules that govern syntactic structure in human language. The topics covered will expand our understanding of areas of structure that could not be explained in Syntax, including further instances of movement, a more nuanced understanding of verbal structure, and a greater emphasis on data from languages other than English.

20 credits

Dissertation

The 'Dissertation' module is always taken in combination with the 'Research Practice' module and, together, these two units give students the opportunity to spend a whole year researching a topic of particular interest to them, engaging with new data or primary sources, and working on material that is typically more advanced than that covered in taught modules. The final result is a dissertation of up to 7,000 words. Students receive support through whole-group workshops and one-to-one support from a supervisor. In the process, they develop research and communication skills valuable in academic and professional contexts. Although support will be provided by supervisors and the module convenor, students will be expected to drive their projects forward themselves and be proactive in seeking guidance and help when they need it. The module is not suitable for students who do not enjoy independent research and reading

20 credits

Conversation Analysis

In this module we will work with recordings of real conversation, analysing aspects of spoken interaction such as turn-taking, overlap, repair, sequence organisation and topic from the perspective of Conversation Analysis (CA). The module provides an opportunity to: deepen your understanding of how conversation is structurally organised; develop analyses of conversation which are inductive and do not rely on reading the minds of participants but are grounded in the observable linguistic-sequential properties of the talk; and explore the relationship between CA and linguistics.

20 credits

Language attitudes, perceptions and regard

This module examines the ways in which non-specialists react to language variation. Students taking the module will learn about why such reactions matter, both for speakers of stigmatised varieties and languages, but also in relation to theories of language variation and change. The module will introduce students to the field of language regard, which moves the study of non-specialists reactions to language beyond the traditional approaches taken in language attitudes research. Students taking the module will consider the theoretical underpinnings of language regard, and examine topics such as real-time reactions to regional speech, manipulating listener reactions, language attitudes findings, perceptual dialectology, and the sociolinguistic monitor.

20 credits

Theolinguistics

This module examines the ways in which people talk about what they hold sacred, both in overtly religious and 'secular' contexts. This module takes a functional approach to language, first asking, what does religious language do for us? Among the topics that will be covered are definitions of religion and religious language, a functional approach to religious language, linguistic features of religious language (for example, religious vocabulary, archaic language, intertextuality, and metaphor), and the use of religious language in a wide range of contexts (contexts could include overtly religious contexts as well as politics, news media, advertising, sport, pop culture). There will be opportunities each week to examine religious language in a variety of contexts, using specific analytic tools. In the assessments, you will have the freedom to develop these skills further by analysing texts of your choice, taken from contexts that suit your interests. The tutor will provide support in finding and selecting these texts. Overall, this module aims to examine the porous boundaries between the sacred and the secular. In so doing, we will consider the language not just of those looking to a sacred supernatural but those who articulate ultimate significance to values and priorities without adherence to organized religion.

20 credits

Text-Worlds

This module introduces students to Text World Theory, a cognitive-linguistic model of discourse processing. It provides an opportunity to explore the text-world approach to the analysis of discourse, as well as a range of related ideas and frameworks from the disciplines of linguistics, psychology, philosophy, narratology, and stylistics. We will examine, for example, the influence of context on the production and reception of discourse, the linguistic means through which mental representations of discourse are created, and the ways in which multiple worlds can be constructed across extended stretches of language. Students will be introduced to the core components of Text World Theory and will develop the skills necessary to apply this approach to a range of discourse types in a practical and systematic manner.

20 credits

Experiments in Interactive Digital Narrative

This module offers the chance to learn about and experiment with the possibilities of interactive digital narratives. What are interactive digital narratives? In brief, they are stories designed (a) to be read on screen and (b) to give the reader choice about how to navigate them. For example, you might have come across digital adventure stories that read like this: 'You walk up to the house but the door is locked. Do you search for a hidden key or do you break the door down?' Here both 'search' and 'break' will be links so you can choose what you want to do and find out what happens when you do it. Stories like this are widely available online but writers and artists have used the same approach to explore a wider range of human experience than fantasy adventures. Early in the semester we will think about various issues relating to digital narrative: the relationship between material and virtual worlds, the relationship between author and reader, our fears about Artificial Intelligence. Then you'll create an experimental narrative of your own inspired by your critical reading. You don't need any special knowledge of computers or coding - all that will be taught in the module. The learning you experience as you develop your project will be invaluable if you go on to work in any field where you need to make digital content.

20 credits

Advanced Phonetics

Students will use specialist computer software to provide robust analysis of a range of different phonetic parameters. This will involve working with waveforms, fundamental frequency traces, spectra and spectrograms. Training will take the form of practical demonstrations and guided workshop exercises, linked to a series of 'lab report' assessments. In the final assessment, students will work on either different varieties of English (reocrdings provide by the student cohort), or on another language selected by the module convenor. This module builds on ELL112 Sounds of English and ELL207 Phonetics; successful completion on these modules is therefore a pre-requisite.

20 credits

Second Language Acquisition

This module will introduce students to major theoretical notions and assumptions in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) - a theory that investigates how language speakers acquire a second language both in adulthood and childhood. The module focuses on the SLA theories that are believed to be constrained by Universal Grammar. It provides a historical overview of how SLA theories have evolved and examines influential concepts to explore how different arguments have been developed and how they have been investigated empirically. At the same time, the module offers students hands-on training in analyzing second language learner data, using their knowledge of syntax and the opportunity to design an SLA project.

20 credits

Historical Pragmatics

Historical pragmatics is an exciting and relatively new field which takes a holistic approach (i.e. inclusive of linguistic, social and historical factors) to studying how language users communicated and constructed meaning in earlier periods. Based on the study of English, the aims of this course are: 1) to introduce the study of historical discourse as evidenced by (for example) correspondence and courtroom dialogue; 2) to introduce topics such as sociopragmatics, (im)politeness, and the 'new philology', grounding them in historical pragmatic theory; and 3) to offer an opportunity to perform historical pragmatic analysis through textual study and corpus applications.

20 credits

Music

Final year dual students must take at least 20 credits from among the project modules. Optionally, you can also take a second project module at 20 or 40 credits.
Additionally, optional modules range across performance, composition, musicology, music psychology, ethnomusicology, music technology, and musical industries.

Some modules run every year, and some run every other year. Some modules are open to both Year 2 and Year 3. These strategies enable us to offer a wider choice of modules.

Project modules (run every year):

Recital

This unit constitutes a practical examination of a cross-section where each student will explore and investigate appropriate styles of interpretation and performance for a representative range of repertoire, from the classical period to the present day, the whole informed by reference to recent musicological scholarship and current theories relating to performance practice. Work will be supported and supplemented by individual instrumental instituton. If preferred, a themed recital may be programmed. A 45-minute public recital demonstrating keen stylistic awareness, accomplished technical control, imaginative use of colour and texture and highly communicative. The student will engage with the audience in expressing their interpretations of chosen repertoire at a professional standard.

60 credits

Extended Prepared Instrumental or Vocal Recital

In this module you will develop your advanced practical skills to demonstrate the ability to communicate meaning in music through a public performance at a professional standard. You will prepare a programme, in any musical style and on any instrument, which exhibits your repertorial range containing works of a contrasting nature from different historical periods and contain a contemporary work. Your work will be supported by individual instrumental tuition.

Instrumental or Vocal Recital can be taken in 20 and 40 credit versions. The length of the recital should be approximately 25 minutes for MUS303 Instrumental or Vocal Recital (20 credits); 35-40 minutes for MUS334 Extended Instrumental or Vocal Recital (40 credits).

40 credits

Dissertation

This module gives you the opportunity to undertake intensive study of a particular aspect of musical sound/material, behaviour or thinking, from the past or present, presenting the findings of your investigation as a substantial piece of scholarly written work, and in the process consolidating and further developing your research and critical skills. Your dissertation topic should enable you to demonstrate the ability to place music in its historical and cultural context, and to support your arguments with informative comments based on detailed analysis.

Dissertation can be taken in 20 or 40 credit versions. The length of the dissertation should be approximately 6000 words for MUS301 Dissertation (20 credits); 9500 words for MUS332 Extended Dissertation (40 credits).

20 credits

Extended Dissertation

This module gives you the opportunity to undertake intensive study of a particular aspect of musical sound/material, behaviour or thinking, from the past or present, presenting the findings of your investigation as a substantial piece of scholarly written work, and in the process consolidating and further developing your research and critical skills. Your dissertation topic should enable you to demonstrate the ability to place music in its historical and cultural context, and to support your arguments with informative comments based on detailed analysis. Dissertation can be taken in 20 or 40 credit versions.

40 credits

Portfolio of Compositions

This final year module supports your independent composition practice and builds upon skills acquired over previous years. Compositions may be for small or large forces of instruments or voices, may combine instruments with electronics, or may be electroacoustic. Where possible the module will culminate in a public performance of some of the work produced.

Portfolio of Compositions can be taken in 20 or 40 credit versions. The length of the portfolio should be approximately 10 minutes for MUS302 Portfolio of Compositions (20 credits); 20 minutes for MUS333 Extended Portfolio of Compositions (40 credits).

20 credits

Extended Portfolio of Compositions

This final year module supports your independent composition practice and builds upon skills acquired over previous years. Compositions may be for small or large forces of instruments or voices, may combine instruments with electronics, or may be electroacoustic. Where possible the module will culminate in a public performance of some of the work produced.

Portfolio of Compositions can be taken in 20 or 40 credit versions. The length of the portfolio should be approximately 10 minutes for MUS302 Portfolio of Compositions (20 credits); 20 minutes for MUS333 Extended Portfolio of Compositions (40 credits).

40 credits

Special Project

This module allows you to negotiate a special project that does not conform to Dissertation, Performance and Composition, on a topic agreed with tutors on a case-by-case basis. It affords an opportunity for you to work with others outside of your discipline and to communicate your work to non-specialist audiences where appropriate. The project must be public-facing and potentially have career-oriented goals; it may include a placement activity.

Special Project can be taken in 20 or 40 credit versions. MUS3040 Special Project (20 credits) comprises the project itself, presented through a public self-designed website and blog. MUS3041 Extended Special Project (40 credits) adds a critical reflective essay that serves to link the project to extant academic work and provide a context for aspects of the project itself.

20 credits

Extended Special Project

This module allows you to negotiate a special project that does not conform to Dissertation, Performance and Composition, on a topic agreed with tutors on a case-by-case basis. It affords an opportunity for you to work with others outside of your discipline and to communicate your work to non-specialist audiences where appropriate. The project must be public-facing and potentially have career-oriented goals; it may include a placement activity.

Special Project can be taken in 20 or 40 credit versions. MUS3040 Special Project (20 credits) comprises the project itself, presented through a public self-designed website and blog. MUS3041 Extended Special Project (40 credits) adds a critical reflective essay that serves to link the project to extant academic work and provide a context for aspects of the project itself.

40 credits

Optional rotational music modules:

Creative Performance

This module introduces you to contemporary, jazz and classical improvisation. By learning and developing these skills over a series of practical and taught sessions, you will become more flexible and confident as a performer.

20 credits

Ensemble Performance

This module will present you with the opportunity to develop ensemble performance skills in a supervised situation. You will form an ensemble with fellow students prior to the module commencing, and your ensemble will programme a contrasting selection of repertoire for study and public performance. Particular attention will be paid to ensemble considerations, though technical matters and the development of stylistic awareness will also form an important part of the module.

20 credits

Orchestral Technique

This module covers the essential knowledge and skills for scoring music for symphony orchestra, as well as for smaller groupings of orchestral instruments. The module equips you for arranging and writing music for ensembles you might find yourself working with in the future, as a player, composer, conductor or teacher. The Orchestral Technique module is appropriate for all music students, but is particularly important for those specialising in composition. It will give you relevant knowledge of instruments, repertoire and techniques, and also provide the background training you will need for composing for media and film, and for live performance.

20 credits

Sound and Moving Image

This module gives you the opportunity to compose sound and music for film and other visual media, and position sound and music within the filmmaking process. Using a variety of software, you will be responsible for the entire project from the ideas stage through to the creation of all audio materials. A diverse range of existing movies, audiovisual works and relevant literature will be studied, and you will be expected to use these to inform your own work.

20 credits

Music in Renaissance Europe

This module will introduce you to European musical cultures in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the research methods through which they are discovered and studied. You'll investigate the roles played by music in the everyday life of street and home, as well as in religion and politics.

The module links music to some of the big critical themes in the European history of the period, including Europe's expanding international horizons through trade and colonialism, the dramatic increase in the circulation of books thanks to new printing technology, and conflict both within and between religious faiths.

20 credits

Baroque Music

Public knowledge of baroque music today is shaped by the predominance of a canon; of music considered authoritative or great,; which for ideological and historical reasons is dominated by white European male composers. This module sets out to help change that. Students will investigate music created using staff notation between c.1600-1750 by a musician who was NOT a white European man, which is obscure or completely unknown in the present day.

Teaching will use case studies to explore the skills required to transcribe and research Baroque music—such as literature search, accessing and working with Early Modern primary sources, analysing baroque music (including, where relevant, song texts), transcription and editing of music and text, researching baroque performance practice, contextualising music, addressing issues of gender and ethnicity critically within a historical frame.

20 credits

Mozart in Vienna, 1781-1791

In this module, you will examine Mozart's career as performer and composer in Vienna (1781-91), looking at the environments and circumstances in which he worked and the aesthetic contexts in which he thrived. Topics will include: the circumstances that led Mozart to move from Salzburg to Vienna in 1781; his career as a performer; aesthetic, historical and contextual issues in 1780s Vienna; Mozart's instrumental, operatic and sacred works composed in Vienna; and Mozart's status as a musical-cultural icon in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

20 credits

Opera and Identity

This module gives you the opportunity to explore, understand and debate contemporary critical issues about the relationship between opera and identity. Focussing on opera from 1800 to the present day, the historical and social contexts surrounding the creation, premiere, and reception of opera forms the backdrop to the study of individual works in relation to topics including race, gender, sexuality, class, colonialism, religion, exoticism, political ideology, and national identity. From exoticised 19th-century Italian constructions of Egypt, through to the interplay of gender and sexuality in the depiction of pop culture icon Anna Nicole Smith, the operatic stage provides a forum for the consideration of some of society's most pertinent and widely debated issues.

20 credits

Analysis of Classical and Early Romantic Music

This module will introduce you to musical analysis in the western classical tradition. The emphasis is on the internal and external workings of musical forms in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, focussing on Haydn's and Mozart's mastery of standard classical forms, on Beethoven's formal manipulations, and on the interaction of form and expression in the early nineteenth century (e.g. Schubert and Chopin).

Topics will include: motivic, thematic, melodic and rhythmic manipulation; interrelationships between counterpoint, harmony and melody; standard formal patterns; formal expansions and contractions; wit and humour in the late eighteenth century; expression and form.

20 credits

The Broadway Musical

This module addresses the development of the Broadway musical, focusing on leading figures and critical issues. It looks at shows such as My Fair Lady and Oklahoma!, examines aspects of identity such as race and sexuality, and unpacks the collaborative nature of the genre. Alongside lectures on set works, you will pursue an individual project on a topic of your own choice, allowing freedom to identify with the work being studied.

20 credits

Jazz Studies

This module introduces some of the key figures and developments in the history of jazz, from its origins as an early twentieth-century American music, to its various contemporary manifestations across the world. You will engage with the contexts and debates that have shaped (and continue to shape) the performance, reception, representation, and study of jazz music, and will conduct independent research into a jazz-related topic of your choosing.

20 credits

Topics in Popular Music

In this module you'll explore in depth a range of models, case studies and themes for the study of Popular Music. You'll be introduced to varying analytical and critical approaches to the study of popular musics in global perspective, with topics including (e.g.): how popular musicians learn; popular music and humour; popular music as world music; reading popular music 'texts'; understanding business models; and conducting a popular music ethnography. As well as developing a factual knowledge of the genres covered in the module, you will develop a critical awareness of research methods and discursive themes in the field of popular music studies.

The module aims for diversity both in the styles and population groups represented and in the critical and analytical approaches discussed. The exact topics may vary with the specialisms of the teaching team, but you'll always be free to formulate a focus that interests you for your assessed project, which you'll develop with regular input from tutors and peers.

20 credits

Musical Culture in East Asia

This module introduces the musical life of East Asia, including China, Korea, Japan and neighbouring areas, in historical and cultural context. While emphasising traditional East Asian music and musical theatre, you'll also examine East Asia's participation in the culture of Western-style classical and popular musics.

You'll learn to recognise many forms of East Asian music and explain how they use sound in pursuit of particular cultural goals. You'll also carry out a guided research project on a cultural, historical and/or analytical topic in East Asian music.

20 credits

Traditional Music in the Modern World

This module will introduce you to the study of folk and traditional music, focussing on a range of contemporary folk music cultures. You'll learn to use a range of approaches (ethnomusicology; critical and culture theory; political theory) to consider the traditional identities these music cultures construct, and how they relate to their modern, economic, political and technological contexts. Past and current definitions of the terms folk music and traditional music are explored, and music cultures are investigated in terms of specific debates and contexts, such as revivalism, nationalism, institutionalisation, competition and education.

20 credits

Ethnomusicology

This module introduces ethnomusicology as a way of researching musical culture, with selected musical traditions explored as case studies in applying and assessing ethnomusicological methods. These methods typically emphasise 'ethnography', in which the primary sources are live human beings and knowledge is produced by interacting with them through musical participation, observation and interviewing.

You'll have the opportunity to conduct an ethnographic fieldwork project, either face-to-face or 'virtual', and write up the results in your assessed work. Alternatively, you can submit an essay examining published ethnomusicological research on a specific topic. Either way, you should reflect critically on how musical knowledge is produced by ethnomusicological methods.

20 credits

Psychology of Music: methods and applications

This module lays the foundation for you to be able to research a music-psychological topic using psychological research methods and consider its relevance for musical life and the music profession. You'll work on developing skills in psychological research approaches, through teaching that is problem-based, meaning that you will work on research design and data collection methods to tackle an issue or problem that may be encountered in musical contexts. A combination of methods is considered including qualitative and quantitative data collection, reflection, observation and literature research. Included problems may relate to musical development, psychology of performance, and music engagement.

20 credits

Music and Wellbeing

This module introduces you to the important ways in which music contributes to our sense of wellbeing. Wellbeing is not simply about feeling ok but has health implications for society. Music plays a vital role in fostering wellbeing. In the module, we cover four distinct areas where health and wellbeing may be challenged; these include special educational needs in schools, the use of music for people with dementia, as well as some specialised clinical settings where music is used. As part of your work on the module, you will be able to design your own music intervention.

20 credits

Music Psychology in Everyday Life

This module will introduce you to theories, empirical investigations and applications of music psychology relevant to everyday life. You will learn about the diverse uses of music in everyday situations, which may include personal, communal and commercial settings. The reasons for music use in these situations are explored and possible explanations of music's ability to support functions are critically reviewed, including social, emotional, personal, educational and commercial impacts. The module will be delivered through lectures, group discussions, and small research projects.

20 credits

Community, Music and Education

This module will engage you in the current debates and practices of music in education and community settings, from the formal classroom setting and instrumental studio, through the work done by community support groups, to more recreational musical practice in the community. Questions of music's place in the curriculum, the relationship between school and home music, and the challenges of providing a vibrant musical education for all people, will be addressed in lectures and discussions.

You will work in mentored groups to investigate and support community music-making or school-based music education in Sheffield, building your skills as a researcher, and learning about career options including teaching, delivering and managing music provision for young people and vulnerable adults. You will finish the module knowing more about music and its contribution to education and society, through your critical reflection on published research evidence, and through school and community fieldwork visits.

20 credits

Sound Recording Practice

This module examines the fundamental theories of recording. Focussing upon the recording of both sound and music, it provides you with an opportunity to realise an original track. The module engages briefly with technical aspects of recording (microphone types, sound file formats) before using practical work and listening to decide upon choice of microphone, placement and capture. By making field recordings, location recordings, and session-based recordings, you will acquire a broad understanding of relevant issues and methods. The mixing and mastering of session-based recordings results in your finished track and helps you develop the skills required in the professional sound studio.

20 credits

Try a new subject:

The flexible structure of your third year at Sheffield means that you also have the chance to experience modules from outside of English and Music - you can choose up to 20 credits of modules from a list approved by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. A final guided module list is made available to new students when you select your modules as part of registration.