Religion & the Book - ENG00074M

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  • Department: English and Related Literature
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2025-26
    • See module specification for other years: 2022-23

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2025-26

Module aims

This module is intended to give students an in-depth introduction to the inter-relations between books and the religious debates and shifts that were so central to this period. It will significantly expand and develop students understanding of material texts and of the role of print and manuscript across Christian Europe.

Module learning outcomes

By the end of this module, students will be able to demonstrate:

-- a secure understanding of the literature and history of religion in the early modern period.

-- an ability to work with print and manuscript sources, and to interpret them within their material as well as their social, political, and religious contexts.

-- a sound knowledge of the different techniques and methodologies appropriate to the study of material book, literary texts, and historical accounts of religious belief and change.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on all assessed work within the University deadline, and will often receive it more quickly. The purpose of feedback is to inform your future work; it is designed to help you to improve your work, and the Department also offers you help in learning from your feedback. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further you can discuss it with your module tutor, the MA Convenor or your supervisor, during their Consultation & Feedback Hours.

Indicative reading

Erasmus, The Praise of Folly (Penguin Classics, 1994)

William Tyndale, The New Testament 1526, ed. W.R. Cooper (London: The British Library, 2000),

The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559 and 1662, ed. Brian Cummings (OUP, 2011)

The Bible: Authorized King James Version, ed. Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett, Oxford World s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997)

Foxe s Book of Martyrs, ed. John King (Oxford World s Classics, 2009)

Early Modern Catholicism: An Anthology of Primary Sources, ed. Robert Miola (OUP, 2007)

Divine Right and Democracy, ed. David Wootton (Hackett, 2003)

John Milton, The Major Works (Oxford World s Classics, 2008)