Module overview
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Analyse works of fiction and other cultural artefacts in the contexts of their production and reception
- Reflect on key concepts and recent developments in the areas of book, theatre, film and social history and popular culture
- Re-evaluate the notions of national and period-specific cultural productions in relation to trans- national and cross-media communication networks
- Think holistically about material culture beyond the literary in a given historical period
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Critically evaluate a particular work or cultural practice
- Deliver an oral presentation as part of a team
- Engage in self-managed research
- Formulate an effective research question
- Write a clear, concise report on your web searches
- Manage your time effectively during the process of primary research and writing up
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- Changes in the approach to and uses of consumer items – including literature – across space and time in the period 1800-1914
- Recent debates around the complexities of the terms ‘Victorian’ and ‘bestseller’
- The study of a range of material objects as cultural artefacts
- The ways in which science, technology, religion, politics, art and consumer culture interacted in and across this period
- The usefulness (and limitations) of web-based resources for historical research
- Changes in the literary marketplace in the period 1800-1914
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Use web-based resources in conjunction with other sources of evidence
- Produce historically-grounded original analyses of material objects and cultural practices from the past
- Work effectively and critically in web-based resources
Syllabus
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Type | Hours |
---|---|
Teaching | 12 |
Wider reading or practice | 20 |
Lecture | 24 |
Follow-up work | 20 |
Completion of assessment task | 100 |
Seminar | 24 |
Preparation for scheduled sessions | 100 |
Total study time | 300 |
Resources & Reading list
General Resources
Rudyard Kipling, selected poems (1890s); selections from the Just-So Stories (1902). Selections
Selections from Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (1859), Character (1871), Thrift (1875), Duty (1880), Life and Labour (1887). Selections
Sections from the King James Bible (the world’s best-selling book and crucial in 19th-century Britain) John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (1678, but massively reprinted in the Victorian era for a range of niche markets). Selections
Selections from G.W. M.Reynolds et al, The Mysteries of London (1st installment1844). Selections
Selections from Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys (1908). Selections
Selected editions of The Times (1840s), the Daily Mail (1896), the Cornhill (1860s), Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1890s), Boy’s Own (1878), Girl’s Own (1880), Cassell’s Family Magazine (1874) and Punch (1800s- 1900s). Selections
Textbooks
Richard Altick (1957). The English Common Reader 1800-1900. Denton: Ohio State University.
Eric Hobsbawm (1990). Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge: CUP.
Marie Corelli (1886). A Romance of Two Worlds.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (2005). Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ed. Jean Fagin Yellin. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics.
A.E.Housman (2005). ‘A Shropshire Lad’, in Collected Poems, introduction by Michael Irwin. Ware: Wordsworth Poetry Editions.
Laurel Brake, Marysa Demoor eds. (2009). The Lure of Illustration in the Nineteenth Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Shafquat Towheed, Ros Crone and Katie Halsey (eds.) (2010). The History of Reading. London: Routledge.
Robert Louis Stevenson (2007). Treasure Island, ed. Emma Letley. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics.
David Trotter (1993). The English Novel in History 1895-1920. London: Routledge.
Mary Poovey (1988). Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-Victorian England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mary Poovey (2008). Genres of the Credit Economy: Mediating Value in 18th and 19th-century Britain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Richard Altick (1986). Evil Encounters: Two Victorian Sensations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
John Ruskin (2003). The Stones of Venice, Vol. 1, 2nd edition (abridged), ed. J.G Links. Cambridge, Ma: De Capo Press.
Alfred (Lord) Tennyson (2008). ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ in The Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, introduction by Karen Hodder. Ware: Wordsworth Poetry Editions.
Clive Bloom (2002). Bestsellers: Popular Fiction since 1900. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Laurel Brake (2001). Print in Transition 1850-1910: Studies in Media and Book History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mrs Humphry Ward (1888). Robert Elsmere.
David Finkelstein and Alistair McCleery (eds.) (2003). The Book History Reader. London: Routledge.
Charles Dickens (2000). The Pickwick Papers, ed. Mark Wormald. London: Penguin Classics.
Thomas Carlyle (1989). ‘On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History’, in Six Lectures. Oxford: OUP.
Hall Caine (2009). The Manxman , ed. David MacWilliams. Vallancourt Books.
Laurel Brake, Bill Bell and David Finkelstein eds. (2001). Nineteenth-Century Media and the Construction of Identities. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
George du Maurier (1995). Trilby, ed. Elaine Showalter. Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics.
Assessment
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Timed Assignment | 50% |
Essay | 50% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
Method | Percentage contribution |
---|---|
Essay | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External