BA English Literature and American Studies

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This module will open up nineteenth-century literature to a global perspective. It will examine canonical Victorian writers such as Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins alongside BAME writers writing from other places in the British Empire (including Singapore/China, India, Australia and Canada). It will develop students’ research skills by encouraging them to search through digital archives to uncover exciting new voices which have been left out of the university canon. It will ask them to use their understanding of Victorian literature to engage with contemporary portrayals of empire and race in Manchester museums. It will also enable them to forge connections with students at Hong Kong University studying a similar modules through collaborative tasks, opening up their understanding of Victorian culture and its ongoing relevance to a global perspective. The module will include a mixture of prose fiction, poetry and non-literary material (e.g. maps, newspaper articles, government debates).

The aims of this course are:

- to introduce students to key texts and issues from the Victorian period

- to consider the formal and thematic innovations made by canonical and non-canonical and BAME authors in the Victorian period.

- to consider issues like empire and race as they affect Victorian literature and culture

- to read works in a range of different genres and media, including poetry, fiction, digital archives, maps, government debates.

- to engage with selected critical writings on race and empire
- to develop IT skills through the use of online annotation studios (COVE software developed by North-American Victorian Studies Association) and through creating a podcast. 

- to develop teamwork skills through group projects and collaboration with students at another institution.

- to develop innovation in creative practice through a project engaging with museums and moving beyond essay/exam assessments.

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

- demonstrate a good familiarity with a range of texts from the Victorian period and their contexts;

- demonstrate a critical understanding of how empire and race theory applies to Victorian period texts;

- apply postcolonial theories to Victorian texts across the globe;

- demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the key themes of empire and race

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

- think critically and make critical judgments about imperial and racial concepts;

- analyse course texts in an critical manner;

- identify and outline key problems and issues in the study of Victorian texts across the globe

- reflect critically on how museum exhibits present imperial history

- develop and articulate a reasoned argument for a particular point of view

- evaluate critical arguments advanced by critics working on race and empire.

- plan and execute independent research on museum exhibits in Manchester

- make good use of library, electronic, and online resources pertaining to the course;

- speak and write clearly about empire and race in Victorian literature

- comment on the performance of a peer, identifying strengths and making constructive suggestions for improvement where appropriate;

- retrieve, sift, organise, synthesise and critically evaluate material from a range of different sources, including library, electronic, and online resources;

- produce written work that collects and integrates evidence to formulate/test a critical argument;

- make good use of the latest annotation software (COVE) and of audio recording software

- demonstrate good networking skills through interaction with students at a different institution and across cultures.

- demonstrate good teamwork skills by acknowledging the views of others and working constructively with others;

- develop and complete an effective research project on the presentation of museum exhibits in Hong Kong and Manchester.

• Elleke Boehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830–1914, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
• Deirdre David, ‘Empire, Race and the Victorian Novel’ in A Companion to the Victorian Novel, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002.
• Ross G. Forman China and the Victorian Imagination: Empire Intertwined (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013)
• Nathan K. Hensley, Forms of empire: the poetics of Victorian sovereignty, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.