The core module, Transgression and Dissidence, introduces the course's central themes by focusing on texts that explore the limits of human experience and contravene cultural boundaries. You will explore how literature, through such transgression, has provided opportunities for dissent and resistance, and will consider the extent to which writing has acted as a catalyst for social and political change.Ê

You will then study various conceptual approaches to literature through your choice of option modules, which provide the opportunity to analyse and discuss a range of contentious issues across a number of historical periods and with respect to different genres.Option modules provide opportunities to analyse and discuss a range of contentious issues across a number of historical periods and with respect to different genres. For example, Trauma and Justice interrogates the relationships between traumatic experience, human rights work and life narrative; Sex and Text examines the complex interactions between desire, embodiment and writing; and Mappings and Crossings explores the construction of place and identity in urban and imperial narratives.