Victorian Bestsellers

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Re-evaluate the notions of national and period-specific cultural productions in relation to trans- national and cross-media communication networks
• Reflect on key concepts and recent developments in the areas of book, theatre, film and social history and popular culture
• Think holistically about material culture beyond the literary in a given historical period
• Analyse works of fiction and other cultural artefacts in the contexts of their production and reception

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
• Changes in the literary marketplace in the period 1800-1914
• 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
• The study of a range of material objects as cultural artefacts
• Recent debates around the complexities of the terms ‘Victorian’ and ‘bestseller’

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Formulate an effective research question
• Deliver an oral presentation as part of a team
• Write a clear, concise report on your web searches
• Engage in self-managed research
• Critically evaluate a particular work or cultural practice
• Manage your time effectively during the process of primary research and writing up

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Work effectively and critically in web-based resources
• Produce historically-grounded original analyses of material objects and cultural practices from the past
• Use web-based resources in conjunction with other sources of evidence

The term ‘bestseller’ was coined by a journalist in the United States in the 1880s, and used to describe a specifically literary phenomenon, but it has since been extended culturally and critically to encompass a wide range of activities and products. Victorians, comprising the world’s first capitalist economy, made, bought and sold a vast range of items, ideas and inventions globally. Likewise, while the term ‘Victorian’ notionally applies to the period of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901) in the United Kingdom, even during the monarch’s own time the influences, ideologies and products created and promulgated by her subjects extended far beyond the boundaries of Great Britain and Ireland, and even after her death the ideas and creations of the ‘Victorian period’ lived on in myriad popular and widely circulated forms. This module will encourage you to investigate both the terms presented in its title. In addition to some of the literary bestsellers of the Victorian period – which range from Dickens, drama and poetry to the tabloid newspaper - you will get the opportunity to examine the range and influence of some other nineteenth-century ‘bestsellers’ in areas which may include art, religion, sex, technology, crime, science, and politics both within and outside the UK. You will be introduced to some of the key bestsellers which lasted well beyond the end of the century, and some which did not, and explore some of the theories that seek to explain why. Using texts and other artefacts from the period and some of the available online resources for Victorian Studies you will produce an original piece of research which will be especially useful as training for your dissertation in Semester 2, and will help to pave the way for those of you wishing to go on to postgraduate study afterwards

• Lectures given by a range of experts • Tutor-led seminar discussion • Small group work • Group presentations This module includes a Learning Support Hour. This is a flexible weekly contact hour, designed to support and respond to the particular cohort taking the module from year to year. This hour will include (but not be limited to) activities such as language, theory and research skills classes; group work supervisions; assignment preparation and essay writing guidance; assignment consultations; feedback and feed-forward sessions.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.