2024/25 Undergraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL3008 Writing Modern Sexualities

20 creditsClass Size: 28

School of English

Module manager: Professor Katy Mullin
Email: k.e.mullin@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2024/25

Module replaces

ENGL3410 Modernist Sexualities

This module is not approved as a discovery module

Module summary

This module investigates how twentieth century literature engaged with emerging theories about sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity. We will read literary texts alongside quasi-scientific writing about sex and gender to explore how both heterosexual and queer / LGBTQ+ subjectivities became the focus of creative experiments. Through seminars and workshops, we will work together to understand how experimental forms of writing responded to the challenge of subjects considered to be taboo or even obscene.

Objectives

Writing Modern Sexualities aims to create a historically informed and critically sophisticated understanding of literatures of the twentieth century. As a specialist research module, it is designed to enhance students’ appreciation of the relationship between experimental form and risky content. Through lectures, workshops, and weekly seminar discussion, the module will show how writers responded to and helped advance new thinking about sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

1. Identify the historical development of theories of sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
2. Show how literary texts engaged with these theories and were influenced by them.
3. Evaluate relevant criticism and scholarship about twentieth century literature and the history of sexuality.

Skills Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

4. Conduct independent research, gathering information from a range of sources, and engaging in good academic practice in referencing their sources.
5. Produce independent arguments demonstrating advanced proficiency in critical thinking and writing skills.

Syllabus

Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module

Teaching methods

Delivery type	Number	Length hours	Student hours
Lecture	2	1.00	2.00
Practical	2	2.00	4.00
Seminar	10	1.00	10.00
Private study hours			184.00
Total Contact hours			16.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			200.00

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Formative feedback will be provided weekly in seminars and in response to weekly seminar preparation, informally captured through a shared document. Feedback on the first assessment will be formative for the second assessment.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Source Analysis	Analysis (500 words)	10.00
Essay	Essay (3,500 words)	90.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

The first assessment requires students to analyse a historical source about sexuality / gender identity and show how a literary text engages with it. Feedback will be formative for the second assessment, an extended essay, which will require sustained interdisciplinary engagement between historical sources and literary texts.

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 22/05/2024

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