BA Film Studies and English Literature / Course details

Available on programmes: Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies single honours; Joint honours with Portuguese; Minor in Portuguese 

Medium of Language: English and Portuguese

Pre-requisite SPLA52010 or SPLA52030

•  To understand key authors, cultural movements, artistic and cinematic representations of Portugal since 1870, with a view to mapping the nation’s shifting identity through decolonisation and entry into the European Union

•  To enhance the necessary skills for close, contextual and comparative analysis of key literary texts and film images and relevant critical material on these works

•  To work effectively in collaboration with other students, and to sustain written and oral arguments coherently

• Demonstrate knowledge of key themes and developments in Portuguese political and cultural history since 1870
• Significantly develop and expand intercultural understanding and perspectives
• Understand the importance of empire and decolonisation in Portugal’s past and present
• Demonstrate a clear understanding of Portuguese history and cultural expression in relation to broader European contexts and the European Union
• Understand the concept of a literary “canon” and its relation to national politics and socio-economic forces
• Demonstrate familiarity with key principles of theoretical approaches to gender and sexuality and their contribution to a different understanding of Portugal’s past and present

• Develop close reading skills alongside a clear ability to contextualise historically
• Demonstrate the ability and skills to analyse a broad range of media, from literature to film and visual art
• Compare texts across history with a view to thinking thematically and theoretically
• Research, organise and deploy relevant bibliographical materials
• Read, appraise and evaluate a wide range of specific critical materials in English and Portuguese

• Communicate coherently and effectively in writing
• Organise time efficiently and prepare work in advance
• Analyse and write about film and cinematic production deploying appropriate critical frames of reference
• Present work clearly and use referencing systems correctly and efficiently

• Work effectively in a team
• Show enhanced intercultural understanding
• Evaluate material critically and comparatively
• Work to deadlines

Resit Assessment

Maria Manuel Lisboa, Paula Rego's Map of Memory: National and Sexual Politics (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 1998).

Maria Manuel Lisboa, “Madwomen, Whores and Torga: Desecrating the Canon?”, Portuguese Studies, Vol. 7 (1991), pp. 170-183.

David J. Bailey, “Com o odioso guarda-chuva entre os joelhos: Queer Male Desire, Weak Paternity and Kinship Trouble in the Novels of Eça de Queirós”, Modern Language Review, 111 (2016), 413-33.

Alexandro Severino,“Fernando Pessoa: A Modern Lusiad”, Hispania, Vol. 67, No. 1 (1984), pp. 52-60.

Ellen Sapega, “Mining Memory's Archive: Two Recent Portuguese Documentaries about the Second World War”. Unpublished manuscript for consultation only (blackboard).

Engels, The Condition of the Working Classes in England, chapter 1 (available online).

Michel de Certeau, “Walking in the city”, from The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Steven Rendall (London: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 91-111.