Explore two of the most critical issues of today: artificial intelligence (AI) and emotional intelligence (EQ). Learn to use generative AI tools like MS Copilot and critique their societal impacts, including challenges in academia and ethics. Explore EQ through literature and film, developing skills in empathy, critical thinking, and emotional management. Equip yourself for the future of work and life in an AI-driven world.

Looking to develop your passion for reading? In this module, you’ll get the chance to work with tutors to create a personalised reading list, exploring texts that challenge and inspire you.

By analysing these texts and their historical contexts, you’ll improve your reading skills, deepen your understanding of literature, and enhance your critical awareness, while preparing for more complex concepts to come.

If you're ready to reconnect with literature and build the skills to thrive, this module is made for you.

Study key concepts like adaptation, appropriation, and intertextuality, examining how literature transforms existing stories. Explore texts like Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Chaucer, and Shakespeare to see how myths and narratives are reworked across time and cultures. This module incorporates feminist, postcolonial, and LGBTQ+ perspectives and encourages creating creative responses, blending English Literature and Creative Writing.

Explore global Anglophone poetry’s response to issues like the US Civil Rights Movement and South African Apartheid and gender and identity politics. Study poetry’s spoken forms, including metre, rhyme, and verse types such as sonnets and ballads. Investigate how poets worldwide use these forms to engage with historical and social contexts, challenging and reshaping poetic expectations.

Explore evolving notions of identity through drama, focusing on gender, race, sexuality, and intersectionality. Examine how plays reflect and challenge societal norms from contemporary texts to ancient Greece and Shakespeare. Develop skills in dramatic analysis, gain insights into the relationship between self and society, and explore gender equality barriers.

Delve into genres like science fiction, fantasy, romance, and realism. Examine how young adult fiction addresses real-life issues such as gender, sexuality, and racial justice, helping readers navigate their identities. Understand how young adult fiction shapes visions of the future, and its appeal to both young and adult audiences.

Explore environmental issues, focusing on 'green' (land) and 'blue' (sea) themes. Analyse Anglophone eco-writing, including Native Indian and Indigenous perspectives, and texts on pollution, climate change, and sustainability, such as Juliet Blaxland’s The Easternmost House and W. G. Sebald’s Rings of Saturn. This module fosters cross-cultural and creative approaches to global environmental crises.

Few aspects of contemporary life are untouched by the Internet, but the all-pervasiveness of digital networks does not mean they are easy to understand. This module offers tools and case studies to help you think more clearly and ask better questions about our networked societies.

This module explores 'scandalous' texts, focusing on themes like prostitution, domestic abuse, and incest. Analyse works addressing maternity, authority, and relationships, to understand changing perceptions of scandal. Spanning various genres and periods, the module invites you to reflect on contemporary and historical understandings of scandal and how literature challenges and redefines societal norms.