EN3S25 - Modernism and After 01 Sep 2022 - 31 Aug 2028 | Version 1

Associated Module Information

Module Code: EN3S25
Module Title: Modernism and After
Faculty: Faculty of Business and Creative Industries
Faculty Group: Culture and Animation
Faculty Sub Group: Culture
Module Leader: Diana Wallace
Module Team:
First Intended Intake: SEP 2022 Final Year of Intake: 2027
Date Closed:
Credit Value: 20 Credit Level: 6
Language: English
Percentage of Module Taught in Welsh: 0
Equivalent Module:
HECOS codes:
HECOS Code Weighting:

Document Version Information

Version 1
Valid From 01 Sep 2022
Valid To 31 Aug 2028

Module Aims

The module will study a range of writing, including poetry and prose, from the Modernist period to the present. It will situate these literary texts within the major historical, social, national and intellectual shifts in Britain during the twentieth and early twenty-first century. Students will develop an awareness of the critical and theoretical discourses surrounding these texts.

Content Summary

This module will begin with an examination of Modernism as an early-twentieth century movement in which writers challenged the artistic conventions of the nineteenth century. It will explore how they aimed to ‘Make it New’ in response to the challenges of modernity. Following the reactions against Modernism which developed from the 1930s, the module will then consider the development of ‘postmodernism’ in the latter half of the twentieth century. Students will be introduced to the rich plurality of writing which emerged after the 1960s in response to the development of feminism, decolonisation, and the regionalism which led to devolution. This increasing diversity of class, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and region allowed striking new voices to be heard. Texts will be situated in relation to the historical, cultural, and social contexts of this period, including two world wars, female suffrage and the Women’s Liberation Movement, the end of Empire, and growing concerns about climate change. Students will consider the thematic and formal differences between Modernist and postmodernist texts and will be introduced to key critical concepts, including poststructuralism, feminism, postcolonialism and eco-criticism.

Learning and Teaching Methods

Activity Type Hours
Lecture 18
Seminar 18
Independent Study 80
Directed Study 84
Total Hours Selected 200

Learning Outcomes

# Learning Outcome
LO1 Evidence an awareness of the distinctive thematic and formal features of Modernist and postmodernist writing, displaying this through the techniques of close reading and critical analysis
LO2 Apply an understanding of how texts relate to the historical, cultural, national and intellectual contexts of this period, in sustained and thoughtful written/oral submissions, meeting appropriate standards of expression and presentation at this level of study.

Module Requisites

N/A

Assessment Criteria

Assessment Category Assessment Type Description Duration Word Count Weight (%) Best of? Pass Mark
Synchronous Online Assessment Time-constrained assessment (Online) 1 Time- constrained assessment (Online) 120 N/A 50 No 40
Asynchronous Assessment Essay 1 Students select a question to answer in a critical essay. 0 2000 50 No 40

Assessment Matrix

Assessment Type Learning Outcomes
LO1 LO2
Time-constrained assessment (Online) 1 ✔ ✔
Essay 1 ✔ ✔

Reading List

Set texts will be indicated on a yearly basis but may include a selection of writing from the following: Joseph Conrad, Ezra Pound, H.D.. T.S Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, May Sinclair, D.H. Lawrence, Jean Rhys, George Orwell, Muriel Spark, Dylan Thomas, R.S. Thomas, Mary Renault, Iris Murdoch, Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Sylvia Plath, Craig Raine, John Fowles, William Golding, Doris Lessing, Margaret Drabble, A.S. Byatt, Malcolm Bradbury, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Iain Banks, David Lodge, Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, Angela Carter, Pat Barker, Gillian Clarke, Gwyneth Lewis, Patricia Duncker, Alice Oswald, Andrea Levy, Zadie Smith.

Secondary Reading
Lawrence Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2005)
Jeff Wallace, Beginning Modernism (Manchester University Press, 2011)
Tim Armstrong, Modernism: A Cultural History (Polity, 2005)
Michael Levenson, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Modernism (Cambridge University
Press, 1999)
Bonnie Kime Scott, ed., The Gender of Modernism (Indiana University Press, 1990)
Randall Stevenson, Modernist Fiction: An Introduction (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992)
Peter Brooker, ed., Modernism/Postmodernism (Routledge, 1992)
Tim Woods, Beginning Postmodernism (Manchester University Press, 2010)
John Brannigan, Orwell to the Present: Literature in England, 1945-2000 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)
David Lodge, ‘The Novelist at the Crossroads’ (1971)
Peter Middleton and Tim Woods, The Literatures of Memory: History, time and space in postwar writing (Manchester University Press, 2000)
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1991)
Eileen Pollard and Berthold Schoene, eds, British Literature in Transition: 1980-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2019)
Modernist Journals Project - https://modjourn.org/
Journals: Modernism/Modernity