Module overview
The global industries shaping contemporary literary cultures are diverse, dynamic and rapidly changing. They incorporate children’s literature, graphic novels, plays and poetry, site-specific and experimental writing, popular genre fiction, as well as the canonical works of the heritage industry. This module will give you a critical understanding of these innovative industries and the skills needed to engage and develop them. It particularly focuses on literature’s digital revolution and the ways in which new media has radically transformed the meaning and processes of writing, publishing, editing, adapting, reading and reviewing. Issues to be examined on the module include the use of interactive writing platforms, the role of literary narrative in gaming, the adaptations of fiction into film, television, hypertexts and immersive experiences, the use of locative technologies in writing and reading. The module concludes with in-depth case studies that allow students to read literary texts through their complex cultural and economic contexts. These case-studies allow you to look at specific examples of the issues involved in the marketing, selling, copyrighting, adapting, translating, reading and interpreting of influential, often ground-breaking, cultural practices.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- The economic contexts that give meaning to literary texts, such as heritage, marketing, prize-giving, book-selling, genre, publishing houses
- cultures of reading and writing, such as fan fiction and interactive writing platforms
- Specific theoretical and cultural issues involved in understanding the literary and cultural industries
- historical and practical knowledge of how these industries have been changed through the emergence of new technologies, including the role of literary narrative in gaming and locative technologies
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Research and present material drawn from individual and archival research in an engaging way
- Distill and rework primary and secondary materials in a way that is accessible to a wide range of audiences
- Display, promote and disseminate your research in a variety of forms
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- research specific case studies, to follow critical debates and apply them to own readings
- evaluate the varied complex stages of the literary industries, from production, to consumption to marketing
- identify of the contemporary challenges in the literary industries, including understanding of copyright and authorship
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Carry out your own research on a topic
- Demonstrate intellectual independence in your writing.
Syllabus
The module provides a critical introduction to the various stages of the literary industry, paying particular attention to their changing meanings in a digital age. These include the role of new media in writing, publishing and reading literature, the meaning of authorship, the re-mediation of literary texts into screenplays, television series, computer games, immersive and leisure experiences, the cultural formations of genre, and of high and low culture, new and changing cultures of responsive reading. It guides students through the demands of arts management and innovation.
Specific topics to be studied include:
- publishing and editing in a digital culture
- global literature and the roles of adaptations and translations
- the economics of the global literary industry, including marketing, prize-giving, book-selling
- new cultures of reading and writing, including fan fiction and interactive writing platforms
- the role of literary narrative in gaming and locative technology
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
Teaching methods include:
- Seminars
- Individual guidance sessions in advance of the final assessment
Learning activities include
- Preparatory reading and research prior to contact hours
- Individual study and research
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Seminar | 24 |
| Preparation for scheduled sessions | 100 |
| External visits | 10 |
| Follow-up work | 66 |
| Completion of assessment task | 100 |
| Total study time | 300 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
Adam Hammond (2014). Literature in the Digital Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
David Hesmondhalgh (2012). The Cultural Industries.
Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker (2017). Digital Humanities. New York: MIT Press.
John Hartley (2005). Creative Industries.
Assessment
Formative
Formative assessment description
Individual Oral PresentationSummative
Summative assessment description
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Written assignment | 60% |
| Written assignment | 20% |
| Written assignment | 20% |
Referral
Referral assessment description
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Assessment | 100% |
Repeat
Repeat assessment description
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Assessment | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External