You'll be trained in research and practice-based methods in literary studies, creative writing or both. You'll work with the University-based Journal of Gender Studies to develop your reviewing skills or preparing your work for publication skills. You'll then present aspects of your research at a conference day.

This innovative module considers a variety of literary texts in relation to current critical and theoretical work on the history of emotions. You will study a number of emotions in their cultural and historical contexts, and how they are represented in Renaissance literature, Romantic poetry, and contemporary fiction.

What fascinates you? You will make an original contribution to research by designing, carrying out and writing up a project on a topic of your choice, supported by your dissertation supervisor.

This module analyses masculinity and femininity in genres central to contemporary popular fiction and film, such as crime fiction, chick and lad lit, war fiction, true crime and the gangster movie. You'll analyse these novels and films using the theoretical perspectives of Bakhtin, Foucault, Butler, Bourdieu and Fiske.

This module focuses on representations of water in contemporary climate fiction. You will explore the capacity of fiction to imagine possible futures, alongside concepts including eco-anxiety, environmental injustice, and sustainability.

You will be introduced to classical and early modern theories of imitation and originality, and modern theories of intertextuality as a starting point for considering how works by Shakespeare and other early modern writers can be understood as intertextual ‘transformations’ in relation to both classical and medieval precursors, and contemporary works of fiction and art.