Postgraduate Autumn modules

Literature

Literature

The Twenty-First-Century British Novel

This description is for the postgraduate level YorkCourse.

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Introduction

We’re now a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century, and critics and theorists are carefully considering how we understand fiction published in this century so far. This course introduces and examines major themes in twenty-first-century British novels, investigating how authors respond to and reflect on what it is to inhabit this cultural era. By discussing a range of key texts across literary genres, students will explore several central preoccupations of contemporary fiction, including climate change, shifting political landscapes, and technological developments. This module will allow students to develop critical literary skills and an appreciation of twenty-first-century fiction through their analysis of key novels and engagement with relevant research and theory. Students will engage with significant debates around contemporary fiction and will investigate what it means to explore the literature of a period while still living in it.

Course Organisation

The teaching period runs over eleven weeks. Each week begins with a one-hour lecture, followed by a one-hour supported group activity, and then a two-hour seminar later in the week. Each week centres on a different theme: The History of the Novel, ‘The Contemporary’, The Historical Novel, BrexLit, Race and Gender, Class and Sexuality, Publication, Cli-Fi, Technology, Global Contexts, and The Future.

Assessment

This module will be assessed by an essay on a topic of your choice relating to the course. For MA/PG students, typically essays are 4000 words in length. Support and feedback on a draft version of this essay will be offered during the course before a reworked piece is due for final submission.

You will be offered one-to-one consultation slots during the course where you will be able to discuss your essay in detail.

Core Reading

Students are asked to read four novels in full for the module:

• Ali Smith, Autumn (2016)
• Bernadine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other (2019)
• David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (2004)
• Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go (2005)

Excerpts from other twenty-first-century British novels, including Hilary Mantel’s Wolfhall (2009) and Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain (2020) will also be made available to students and discussed.

Workload

This module should equate to about 200 hours of study, inclusive of teaching time, individual study, preparing for seminar discussions, research, reading and writing.

Culture

Culture

Stories of Power

This description is for the postgraduate level YorkCourse.

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Introduction

Since the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 we have collectively faced a much darker world. In several countries the politico-economic consensus of the last forty years has collapsed and, generally speaking, a drift to authoritarian and xenophobic politics has come in its place. This module helps explain how we got here, and starts to give an idea of the challenges we face in the future.

It does this from the perspective of institutional political economy. In short, institutional political economy is a framework that holds that politics (and the struggle for power inherent in politics) creates law, and law creates the economic system in which individuals act. The economy (or "market") then is not separate to politics and the state, but intimately entwined with both. The shape of the economy too will continually be subject to change, rather than running on universal laws. Thankfully, this position is in contrast to orthodox economics (so there's no need for number-crunching) and instead draws upon literature from political science, sociology, economics, history, and legal studies, among others.

Course Organisation

This course is primarily be taught through a mixture of lectures and seminars. In addition, popular films and documentaries are used in relevant weeks.

1. Political Economy and Economic Theory

This section serves as an introduction to both political economy and to distinct economic ideologies. The main point is show that the exploration of economic issues need not been abstract, mathematical and scary, but, instead, can be grounded in everyday experience and needs to involve a consideration of politics. This section sets the theoretical backdrop for our consideration of the rest of the course.

2. Crisis and Austerity

This section explores the origins of, and political response to, the Global Financial Crisis. This section sets the historical backdrop for our consideration of contemporary events.

3. Inequality and Corporate Power

Here we explore two well-established trends of political economy that have intensified since 1979 (and perhaps even more so post-2008). Inequality, in its several forms, will be investigated, as will the influence of corporations on politics, and the problematic relationship between capitalism and democracy more broadly.

4. The Free Market, and the Environment

Finally, we look to the future of the political economy. Two main problems are explored. Firstly, we tackle the nature of the global economy and how it has been constructed. Secondly, we explore the political economic challenge of the globe's ecological and environmental problems.

Assessment

This module will be assessed by an essay of 5000 words in length on a topic of your choice relating to the course. You will write a draft version of this essay and receive detailed comments from your tutor before reworking the essay for final submission. The final essay will be due in late May.

Reading

A week-by-week reading list is provided at the start of the course, and a larger annotated bibliography will be available for research essays. The best book for the foundational weeks of the course, and for getting a sense of the content of the course, is H.J. Chang, Economics: The User's Guide.

Workload

This module should equate to about 200 hours of study. You are expected to attend all assigned lectures and seminars, and attendance will be monitored. You will also be offered one-to-one consultation slots during the course where you will be able to discuss your essay in detail.

Full details of the timetable will be given to you at the start of the course.

The remainder of the time should be spent completing individual study/research and ensuring you are fully prepared for lectures and seminars.

Interdisciplinary Studies

Interdisciplinary Studies

Food, Glorious Food

This description is for the postgraduate level YorkCourse.

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Introduction

Food is a central area of life and for life; it is not just about sustenance, but is tied to deep social structures in the form of identity, language, and culture. As a consequence, food provides us a rich and multifaceted topic area through which we can explore the diversity of social meanings.  

This module provides an interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary analysis of food. This analysis is intended to provide students with A) an appreciation of the breadth of knowledge possible of seemingly small areas and B) an intellectual flexibility coming from being able to apply different disciplinary lenses to the same topic.

Course Organisation

This course is primarily taught through a mixture of lectures and seminars. The module is currently divided to focus on three main foods.

1. Bread
2. Chocolate
3. Meat

With each of these foods we'll be exploring the many different things we can see through each of these foods.

Assessment

This module will be assessed by way of a 20-minute research presentation on a food. Work on this presentation will be supported by meetings with all tutors on the course, who will provide detailed comments on a draft version so that you can rework it before presentation. 

Workload

This module should equate to about 200 hours of study. You are expected to attend all assigned lectures and seminars, and attendance will be monitored.  You will also be offered one-to-one consultation slots during the course where you will be able to discuss your presentation in detail.

Full details of the timetable will be given to you at the start of the course.

The remainder of the time should be spent completing individual study/research and ensuring you are fully prepared for lectures and seminars.

Research

Research Extension Modules at the Norwegian Study Centre, University of York

This description is for the postgraduate level YorkCourse.

The research extension module (REM) will be equivalent to 10 ECTs and replace one of the three existing modules thereby allowing students to take more credits in the subject that interests them the most. By doubling the word limit of a research piece demanded for another module, it will give students the opportunity to undertake a substantial piece of independent research. That is, students who want or need to write a dissertation (Bachelor oppgave) in Culture, must concurrently study the Culture module in addition to one other module in that semester.

The combination of a regular 10 ECTs module and a 10 ECTs research extension module will allow the two to be considered as one 20 ECTs module, with one mark given for both, even though they will be treated separately on exam transcripts.

Aims, Objectives and Learning Outcome

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Design and carry out a theoretical and/or empirical study in a specialised area.
• Understand the challenges posed in carrying out a piece of independent research.
• Demonstrate an ability to critique and challenge theoretical ideas which have been proposed.
• Demonstrate progress towards the ability to synthesise and to present complex ideas with clarity.

• Select, limit and question a particular topic.
• Demonstrate skills in presenting their thesis.
• Write acceptable academic English.
• Use appropriate library resources.

Teaching

Contact hours

Tutorials to be scheduled as appropriate. One or two of these may be changed to work in progress seminars.  These will be conducted in addition to the teaching on the relevant normal module.

Teaching programme

Tutorials will serve as opportunities to discuss the content of the research, including things such as issues of research design, practical issues in data collection (if appropriate), as well theoretical background to the project.

In addition, a total of approximately 200 hours of independent work will be required for this specific module.

Students will be responsible, in consultation with their “dissertation supervisor”, for designing a course of study which will allow them to explore a topic area in depth.  This would normally include at least some of the following: a reading list; data to be collected and analysed; short presentations to be made to the supervisor, allowing discussion and feedback on the student's work; a timetable for the completion of various tasks.

In addition there will be an obligatory tour of the library and a programme of research training (amounting to around 10 hours).

Attendance will be an obligatory requirement.

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on formative work

• Feedback will consist of oral comments during tutorials and during the contact hours of the associated module.
• Written comments will be provided on partial drafts of the dissertation, where appropriate.

Summative assessment and feedback

• A 4000-word extension to an existing piece of assessment
  • Weight: 100%
  • Submission: Essays will be due in January if the module is undertaken in the Autumn term or in May if undertaken in the
    Spring term. 
  • Feedback: Students will be sent detailed feedback along with their transcript.