Course info

This module offers an innovative, research-led approach to critically examining themes of gender, sex, and criminality in the Victorian period. Active participants in practice-based research collaboration, students will explore a range of canonical texts in combination with a diverse and rich array of archival, digitised online resources. In doing so, this module reinforces the digital research skills acquired at HE4 and HE5 and develops these to an advanced level, while introducing students to hands-on archival research. Students will consolidate their understanding of the generic conventions of Victorian popular fiction through a close examination of a range of contemporary materials such as literary magazines, newspaper articles and visual imagery; such sources will contextualise and enrich interpretation of literary works published throughout the nineteenth century. With advanced research skills and methods embedded within the teaching delivery, the module will consider how this kind of research may fill the textual gaps of the canonical writings, concluding with an examination of how the Victorians are re-imagined in the twenty-first century. Finally, students will develop their own areas of research interest in relation to the key themes explored on the module, presenting a record of their ongoing research findings which will culminate in an original creative research project.