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The (PG) Learning Curve aims to support students as they transition into postgraduate (taught) University life and as such includes both academic skills (researching, writing, referencing, etc) as well as life skills (time management, adaptability, resilience, career planning) in addition to the practical information they'll need to navigate their programme of study (University IT platforms, Student Wellbeing, etc)

The (UG) Learning Curve aims to support first-year students as they transition into University life and as such includes both academic skills (researching, writing, referencing, etc) as well as life skills (time management, adaptability, resilience, career planning) in addition to the practical information they'll need to navigate their programme of study (University IT platforms, Student Wellbeing, etc).

The (UG) Learning Curve aims to support first-year students as they transition into University life and as such includes both academic skills (researching, writing, referencing, etc) as well as life skills (time management, adaptability, resilience, career planning) in addition to the practical information they'll need to navigate their programme of study (University IT platforms, Student Wellbeing, etc).

This module focuses on the essay as a critical practice and a literary form. The essay is fundamental to literary criticism, and basic to assessment across your degree. But the essay is also a literary and popular-cultural genre in its own right: one that marks the invention of the individual and the compulsion to, as Virginia Woolf puts it, ‘write one’s self’.

During the course of this module, you will hone your skills as a literary essayist—a writer who produces and/or engages with literature as an art form. You will explore the eccentricities and paradoxes of essay-writing across history, through ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, from its origins in the sixteenth century to popular journalism, blogs, and multi-media essays in our own time. In so doing, you will look closely at essayists’ choices of writing style, rhetoric, evidence, argument, and aesthetics and refine these elements in your own writing.

This module focuses on the essay as a critical practice and a literary form. The essay is fundamental to literary criticism, and basic to assessment across your degree. But the essay is also a literary and popular-cultural genre in its own right: one that marks the invention of the individual and the compulsion to, as Virginia Woolf puts it, ‘write one’s self’.

During the course of this module, you will hone your skills as a literary essayist—a writer who produces and/or engages with literature as an art form. You will explore the eccentricities and paradoxes of essay-writing across history, through ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, from its origins in the sixteenth century to popular journalism, blogs, and multi-media essays in our own time. In so doing, you will look closely at essayists’ choices of writing style, rhetoric, evidence, argument, and aesthetics and refine these elements in your own writing.

This module sets out to introduce you to the advertising process from initial client briefing, through to the generation of ideas and concepts in response to that brief and concluding with the presentation of those solutions to the client in a manner that will simulate an ‘agency pitch’.

Weekly online study resources covering the key stages of this process will precede an intensive 4-day workshop comprising of a simulated client/agency roleplay activity that will engage you in a fully immersive learning environment that will enable you to experience the various aspects and challenges of the client/agency relationship.


During the workshop, you will work within small student groups, undertaking the role of an advertising agency.

In this role, you will learn how to interpret a client brief, develop it into a creative brief, generate creative ideas that are strategically sound, and present those ideas to the client.

The workshop will provide a ‘safe’ environment to experience the challenges of working with a client and producing creative work to a deadline, together with the responsibility and accountability, that accompanies your role as part of the advertising agency.

The module will prepare you to reflect on the workshop experience, together with the knowledge and understanding you have from gained from the learning activities overall and considerations that have been given to achieving advertising and branding solutions that are ethical and sustainable.

This module sets out to introduce you to the advertising process from initial client briefing, through to the generation of ideas and concepts in response to that brief and concluding with the presentation of those solutions to the client in a manner that will simulate an ‘agency pitch’.

Weekly online study resources covering the key stages of this process will precede an intensive 4-day workshop comprising of a simulated client/agency roleplay activity that will engage you in a fully immersive learning environment that will enable you to experience the various aspects and challenges of the client/agency relationship.


During the workshop, you will work within small student groups, undertaking the role of an advertising agency.

In this role, you will learn how to interpret a client brief, develop it into a creative brief, generate creative ideas that are strategically sound, and present those ideas to the client.

The workshop will provide a ‘safe’ environment to experience the challenges of working with a client and producing creative work to a deadline, together with the responsibility and accountability, that accompanies your role as part of the advertising agency.

The module will prepare you to reflect on the workshop experience, together with the knowledge and understanding you have from gained from the learning activities overall and considerations that have been given to achieving advertising and branding solutions that are ethical and sustainable.

The Age of Discovery explores the maritime expansion of Europe from c.1350-c.1650 through the experiences of four European states: Portugal; Spain; England and the Netherlands. It therefore covers the transition of these states from medieval polities to Renaissance powers. The history of the Age of Discovery is a story of two halves. The first part (c.1350-c.1580) is told through the endeavours of the Portuguese and the Spanish. Here we encounter famous names such as Henry the Navigator and Christopher Columbus. This first phase saw the rapid enrichment of Spain and the end of great civilisations such as the Aztecs and Incas. The second phase (c.1580-c.1650) witnessed the growth of England and the Netherlands as maritime powers. England focused on North America and the Indian Ocean; the former as an area of colonisation and the latter as a place to trade. The Dutch initially concentrated on the Indian Ocean and in doing so competed with the Portuguese and the English in this area.

The course begins by examining the reasons for European expansion and the tools and technology that permitted the ‘European Breakout’. Seminars will be supported by lectures and be based around discussions of primary and secondary sources. A study of contemporary works not only offers an opportunity to learn about the history of European maritime expansion over this period, but also provides encounters with people directly involved in all aspects of the Age of Discovery. Early Portuguese voyages along the West Africa coast and into the Indian Ocean will be examined through contemporary narrative accounts such as the writings of Gomes Eanes de Zuara and the anonymous author who described in vivid detail Vasco da Gama’s 1497-99 voyages to the Indian Ocean (A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497–1499, ed. E.G. Ravenstein). The Spanish voyages and the impact these had on indigenous cultures can be explored through the writings of Columbus (Felipe Fernández-Armesto: Columbus on Himself), Bartolomé de las Casas (A Short Account of the Destruction of Indies) and Bernal Diaz del Castillo (The True History of the Conquest of New Spain). English maritime expansion is told through a series of texts collected by Richard Hakluyt (Principal Navigations), which include contemporary narratives of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation in 1577 and Sir Martin Frobisher’s search for the Northwest Passage in 1578. The Dutch experience is partly told by Philippus Baldaeus and Dutch voyages to Asia can be explored through the use of an on-line database (Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries).

The Age of Discovery explores the maritime expansion of Europe from c.1350-c.1650 through the experiences of four European states: Portugal; Spain; England and the Netherlands. It therefore covers the transition of these states from medieval polities to Renaissance powers. The history of the Age of Discovery is a story of two halves. The first part (c.1350-c.1580) is told through the endeavours of the Portuguese and the Spanish. Here we encounter famous names such as Henry the Navigator and Christopher Columbus. This first phase saw the rapid enrichment of Spain and the end of great civilisations such as the Aztecs and Incas. The second phase (c.1580-c.1650) witnessed the growth of England and the Netherlands as maritime powers. England focused on North America and the Indian Ocean; the former as an area of colonisation and the latter as a place to trade. The Dutch initially concentrated on the Indian Ocean and in doing so competed with the Portuguese and the English in this area.

The course begins by examining the reasons for European expansion and the tools and technology that permitted the ‘European Breakout’. Seminars will be supported by lectures and be based around discussions of primary and secondary sources. A study of contemporary works not only offers an opportunity to learn about the history of European maritime expansion over this period, but also provides encounters with people directly involved in all aspects of the Age of Discovery. Early Portuguese voyages along the West Africa coast and into the Indian Ocean will be examined through contemporary narrative accounts such as the writings of Gomes Eanes de Zuara and the anonymous author who described in vivid detail Vasco da Gama’s 1497-99 voyages to the Indian Ocean (A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497–1499, ed. E.G. Ravenstein). The Spanish voyages and the impact these had on indigenous cultures can be explored through the writings of Columbus (Felipe Fernández-Armesto: Columbus on Himself), Bartolomé de las Casas (A Short Account of the Destruction of Indies) and Bernal Diaz del Castillo (The True History of the Conquest of New Spain). English maritime expansion is told through a series of texts collected by Richard Hakluyt (Principal Navigations), which include contemporary narratives of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation in 1577 and Sir Martin Frobisher’s search for the Northwest Passage in 1578. The Dutch experience is partly told by Philippus Baldaeus and Dutch voyages to Asia can be explored through the use of an on-line database (Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries).

This module introduces you to the history of the American Musical and examines some of the issues connected with race, exoticism, gender and national identity as they were articulated in this multimedia entertainment between the late nineteenth century and today. The module will take a chronological but also issue-related approach. Beginning with an overview of the main features of the musical and its relation with opera, operetta and the revue, we will go on to explore the social, cultural and political contexts in which it emerged, developed, and flourished, as well as the ways in which the genre became a crucial cultural arena for the articulation of contemporary social and political concerns and the formation of national identity. We will also follow the trajectory that brought the musical from the stage to the movie set, and the synergy between Broadway and Hollywood, discussing the ways in which music and text engaged with dance, lights, and costumes on stage and on video. This module is offered at two levels that will be taught together. (N.B. Students who take the module in year 2 cannot take the year 3 version)