WORK PLACEMENT MODULES EGH6025 Language and Literature in the Work Place—Convened by Dr Amber Regis 15 credits (Spring Semester) This module will give you the opportunity to work with an external organisation, applying your research and communication skills to a specific project. You will undertake 100 hours of work with an external partner on an agreed project. At the end of the project you complete a log and record of your activities, and write a reflective essay. NB: You will be allocated to your placement early in Semester 1 (Autumn), but your placement will be worked and assessed in Semester 2 (Spring). The module will be of interest to students who plan to continue to a PhD as you will develop skills of direct relevance to your doctoral research (e.g. working with archives, museums, oral histories, with social media). It will also give you experience of engaging members of the public with academic research. It may also be of interest to students who do not plan to continue to a PhD as it will enable you to undertake valuable work experience and develop your CV. Recent projects have included: Research and web content provider for the Sheffield Arts and Well-Being Network. Social media researcher for Sheffield Archives. Crowd-funding and publishing Route 57. Project assistant at Grimm & Co. a local Children’s literary charity. Project assistant on ‘Gothic Tourism’ with Haddon Hall and Whitby Museum. Charity event organisation with the Women’s Institute. Cataloguing the Keith Dewhurst Collection in the University Library’s Special Collections. Working on the ‘Sheffield Musical Map’ project with Sensoria Festival. Researching and writing columns for the Sheffield Star newspaper commemorating WWI and life in Sheffield in 1914. This year (2015-16) it is anticipated that placements will be available with Renishaw Hall, the University Library’s Special Collections, Grimm & Co., and Sheffield Archives amongst others. For queries and further details of this year's placements, please contact Dr Amber Regis: [email protected] 1 EGH623 Work Placement with Research Essay—Convened by Dr Amber Regis 30 credits (Spring Semester) This module runs in parallel with EGH6025 Language and Literature in the Work Place (see above). As on that module you will undertake a work placement with an external organisation, and complete a log, record, and reflective essay. But in addition, you will undertake a 3000-word research essay related to your work placement. For example: if you undertake a project cataloguing a collection or archive you might write your essay by researching and interpreting part of that collection. In order to undertake the 3000-word essay you will be matched with an appropriate supervisor, meeting with them at regular intervals. NB: You will be allocated to your placement early in Semester 1 (Autumn), but your placement will be worked and assessed in Semester 2 (Spring). As with EGH6025, this module will be of interest to students who plan to continue to a PhD as you will develop skills of direct relevance to your doctoral research (e.g. working with archives, museums, oral histories, with social media). It will also give you experience of engaging members of the public with academic research. It may also be of interest to students who do not plan to continue to a PhD as it will enable you to undertake valuable work experience and develop your CV. In addition, EGH623 gives you the opportunity to undertake research connected to the subject matter of your placement, which may lead directly into your dissertation or other future research. See the module description for EGH6025 for a list of some recent work placements. For queries and details of this year's placements, please contact Dr Amber Regis: [email protected] 2 Research Training Programme (non-credit-bearing) This programme consists of a series of workshops across both semesters designed to help you develop your research skills. Topics covered include: getting the most out of research seminars; designing a research project; researching and writing a dissertation; oral presentation skills. There will also be an additional careers workshop on offer this year. These workshops are taught by a cross-section of academic staff who teach within the School of English. Descriptions of all Literature modules follow overleaf 3 AUTUMN MODULES LIT6330, The Analysis of Film (30 credits), taught by Dr David Forrest, ([email protected]) This module has two basic premises. First, it is designed to be used as a refresher course for students experienced in film study, introducing unfamiliar films whose form and content ramify outwards to others in (or using) similar modes. Thus, a viewing of 'Tales of Hoffman', for instance, would introduce an exploration of music and the operatic in other films. Second, for students unused to film analysis, it will provide some training in detailed interpretation, and introduce film as reportage. The course aims to give some training in preparing programme notes and in writing considered criticism of newly issued films. Video extracts are frequently used in seminars, and students are expected to bring video extracts for discussion, both to illustrate personal commentary and to fulfil the weekly requirement to submit one self-chosen extract to illustrate a point in film history. * Available on MA in English Literature (and pathways) and MA in Creative Writing; compulsory for Film pathway LIT6340: British Poetry in the Long Eighteenth Century: Union, Divergence and Death. (30 credits), taught by Dr Hamish Mathison, ([email protected]) This module examines 'British' poetry written during the long eighteenth century. Following the Union of Parliaments in 1707, national verse was subject to a number of pressures: patriotic, economic, political, cultural and linguistic. The module examines how poets of this period, for example Pope, Dryden, Thompson, Goldsmith, Gray, Ramsay, Macpherson, Fergusson, Burns, Little and others, responded to those pressures. The module will read the creation of verse alongside the emergence of a vibrant print culture in England and Scotland. The emphasis is upon understanding the material conditions amidst and by which poetry is created, marketed and received. * Available on the MAs in English Literature , Eighteenth-Century and Nineteenth-Century Studies. LIT6041 Creative Writing: Fiction 1(30 credits), team-taught The modules will entail a practical writing workshop where students will read, discuss, analyze and critique their own and other students’ writing, as well as learning the fundamentals of close reading, technical analysis and critical judgment of contemporary writers from a practitioner’s point of view. The workshopping will be structured according to a programme of topics, exercises and commissions which will encourage and train students in the basics of fiction writing techniques in the main genres and sub-genres, as well as aid them in the development of their own creative writing to an acceptable and potentially publishable standard. Students will study fiction through appropriate and writer-centred theoretical frameworks – such as story development, issues of class, race, gender in writing, genre conventions, narrative theory – whilst also being encouraged to critique each others’ work, to workshop writing creatively and constructively, and to work with tutors to help prepare work in progress for the main dissertation project later in the year. Students will produce a portfolio of writing based on the workshop commissions as well as a critical essay reflecting on the creative processes involved in their submission. * Only available on Creative Writing pathway LIT6043 Creative Writing: Poetry 1 (30 credits), team-taught; convenor, Prof Simon Armitage ([email protected]) The modules will entail a practical writing workshop where students will read, discuss, analyze and critique their own and other students’ poetry, as well as learning the fundamentals of close reading, technical analysis and critical judgment of contemporary poets from a practitioner’s point of view. The workshopping will be structured according to a programme of topics, exercises and commissions which will encourage and train students in the basics of poetry techniques in the main genres and sub-genres, as well as aid them in the development of their own creative writing to an acceptable and potentially publishable standard. Students will study poetry through appropriate and writer-centred theoretical frameworks – such as form and convention, issues of class, race, language, gender in poetry, narrative, lyric, dramatic poetry– whilst also being encouraged to critique each others’ work, to workshop writing creatively and constructively, and to work with tutors to help prepare work in progress for the main dissertation project later in the year. Students will produce a portfolio of poems based on the workshop commissions as well as a critical essay reflecting on the creative processes involved in their submission * Only available on Creative Writing pathway 4 LIT638, Directed Reading: Topics in Early Modern Literature (15 credits), co-ordinated by Dr Emma Rhatigan ([email protected]) Designed to prepare students for dissertations on early modern topics, this module offers the opportunity to gain more in-depth knowledge about the literature and culture of one of three broadly-defined areas: ‘medieval into Renaissance’; ‘sixteenth century’; ‘seventeenth century’. * Available on the Early Modern pathway LIT6027: