Literature, Culture and Heritage
MA PGDip PGCert

Modules

• Literatures and Cultures from the Global to the Local Core

Literatures and Cultures from the Global to the Local (Core)

This module confronts - through literary, musical and artistic mediums - the experience of colonialism and empire. Exploring literary texts and cultural artefacts such as archives, music and oral histories, the module will consider issues of identity, nationalism, migration and transnationalism, taking into account the impact of capitalism and globalisation on world literatures.

Drawing on key theoretical texts, a selection of related talks and films, occidental and oriental music and an engagement with local heritage sites, the module will interrogate the experience of the colonised by entering into a discussion about postcolonial thought, literature and world music which ‘writes back’.

Students will draw upon theorists such as Homi Bhabha, Benedict Anderson, Frantz Fanon, Elleke Boehmer, Paul Gilroy and Frederic Jameson to understand matters of how space and place are negotiated and reimagined in a postcolonial world.

• Gothic Spaces Core

Gothic Spaces (Core)

An immersive view on the Gothic, and the production of imagined and literary places. Starting with Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto and its relationship to his Gothic castle, Strawberry Hill House, this module will consider the construction of literary places in and through literature, and the ways in which engagement with literature can offer meaningful and imaginative experiences to literary pilgrims and visitors to these places.

Side-stepping the anthropoid or megafaunal monsters that can dominate teachings of the Gothic, this module shines light on the murky ‘background’ of Gothic texts (both textual and contextual) to understand how features like landscape, atmosphere, domestic spaces and historical externalities are integral in constituting what we know and feel as a Gothic ambience in texts.

This module will also offer students the chance to consider the broader role of literature in the production of cultural heritage spaces, and the ways in which diverse audiences can be offered new readings of familiar texts and places

• Popery to Pragmatism: Catholicism in English Literature 1688-1960 Core

Popery to Pragmatism: Catholicism in English Literature 1688-1960 (Core)

Spanning the Papist Acts of 1688 to the Catholic literary revival of the mid twentieth century, this module is designed to give students an understanding of the influence and contribution of Catholicism to modern English Literature.

Beginning with a focus on local literary figures, such as Alexander Pope and Horace Walpole, the module expands in chronological and geographic scope in order to interrogate how the changing political and religious identities of the period manifested in and influenced British writings of the modern period.

The module will look at writings by authors of Catholic, Protestant and no faith in order to build a holistic and nuanced picture of Catholicism’s lasting impact on British culture.

• Making the Past: Narrative, Representation, Interpretation Core Option 1

Making the Past: Narrative, Representation, Interpretation (Core Option 1)

In this module you'll think critically about how the kinds of historical narratives produced and consumed within society can exercise power, by legitimating or delegitimating particular world views or political projects, and by affording some histories representative space while others are excluded.

The module will open with an evaluation of the kinds of texts produced by professional historians, considering in particular the influence of national and Eurocentric nature of some historical frameworks.

Then you'll learn about historical narratives as they emerge from film, fiction, museums, art, video games and other entertainment forms.

The aim of this module is to allow you to think about the different ways in which historical knowledge is produced and consumed. Specifically, we suggest you consider:

• How narrative forms structure the presentation of historical knowledge
• The connections and differences between fictional and non-fictional historical forms
• The role and practice of storytelling in public historical contexts
• How and why some histories feature prominently in the historical record, while others are silenced
• The ways in which the re-telling of some historical narratives, or their silencing, can have political implications.
• Heritage Spaces: Makings and Meanings Core Option 1

Heritage Spaces: Makings and Meanings (Core Option 1)

This module examines the relationships between the heritage sector and issues such as identity, nostalgia, social inclusion and the normalisation of cultural values.

Drawing on links with professional expertise in the field, the module looks closely at techniques for staging, curating, designing and story telling about the past.

You will be asked to consider what ‘authenticity’ means in the context of heritage sites and what type of ‘experience’ of the past are provided at such sites for audiences.

The module has a strong vocational focus, giving you the opportunity to engage with - and test - models of the presentation of historical knowledge through theoretical and practical consideration of a number of prominent heritage sites and spaces of various kinds, some in the West London area near St Mary’s.

These sites include:

• Strawberry Hill House
• Ham House
• Orléans House
• Hampton Court Palace
• Marble Hill House
• Richmond town centre
• Ham House

You will observe and critique their current presentation to the public, engaging with issues such as the constructed narrative of the building/site; its ‘preferred’ meanings and significance, how particular spaces within it are presented in light of that narrative and to consider alternative constructions of the past which might be offered through its physical remains.

You will also attend a taught session at The National Archives as a research resource for aspects of 'local' history, with support training in various record series.

• Dissertation Core Option 2

Dissertation (Core Option 2)

You will produce a 15,000 word essay on a topic of your choice (to be decided in collaboration with your supervisor).

• Creative Portfolio Core Option 2

Creative Portfolio (Core Option 2)

You will conduct a work-based creative project in collaboration with Strawberry Hill House.