2024/25 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue

ENGL5635M Imagining Multicultural Britain in the 21st Century

30 creditsClass Size: 15

Module manager: Professor John McLeod
Email: j.m.mcleod@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable

Year running 2024/25

Module replaces

ENGL5105M Caribbean and Black British Writing

This module is not approved as an Elective

Module summary

This module explores the literary and cultural representation of Britain as a multicultural nation since 2000. By engaging with literary fiction, poetry, and film, it explores the imaginative transformation of Britain as a hub of cultural, racial, and ethnic variety, and analyses the new creative forms and texts born from Britain’s diverse communities. It also examines the ways in which multicultural texts pursue significant decolonial work in the face of enduring nationalisms, racism, and prejudice.

Objectives

This module aims to acquaint students with the major literary, cultural, and conceptual activities that have fashioned a vision of Britain as a multicultural nation. Its objectives include:
• introducing students to the key creative texts which articulate Britain’s multiculture.
• exploring how these creative endeavours have contributed to the decolonial imagining of the nation as a multicultural hub.
• learning about seminal conceptual, political, and theoretical models of ‘multiculture’ and ‘multicultural’ in scholarly research, and using these in textual analysis.
• analysing how multicultural texts forcefully challenge entrenched and exclusionary ideas about race, nation, and prejudice in Britain at large.

Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
1. Evaluate key literary and cultural imaginings of Britain’s multiculture since 2000.
2. Engage critically with conceptual models of ‘multiculture’ and how these can be applied to the analysis of cultural texts.
3. Show a sophisticated appreciation of the ways in which literary and cultural texts may contend with prevailing ways of imagining the British nation since 2000.

Skills Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
4. Analysing closely and critically specific literary and cultural texts at an advanced level, in a clear, concise, focused, and structured manner.
5. Generating ideas and demonstrating originality when responding critically to cultural and conceptual materials.
6. Sourcing relevant research materials and resources in order to strengthen the quality of engagement with primary materials.

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
Seminar	10	2.00	20.00
Private study hours			280.00
Total Contact hours			20.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)			300.00

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

All students will be offered the opportunity to submit a short ‘unassessed’ piece of essay work (1750 words) concerning the essay assignment they have identified, in order to receive feedback from the tutor about the quality of its academic content and its mode of delivery. This feedback will be given in two ways: as a written report on the ‘unassessed’ assignment and in a one-to-one meeting with the student where they can ask any further questions and seek advice about the development of their assignment. This ‘unassessed’ piece may constitute an early draft of the longer formally submitted assessed essay.

Methods of assessment

Coursework

Assessment type	Notes	% of formal assessment
Essay	4000-word assessed essay on a self-chosen topic.	100.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)		100.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 29/01/2024

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