School of English
Module manager: Dr Anna McFarlane
Email: a.mcfarlane1@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2023/24
Please note: this module is restricted to Level 3 students on BA programmes with English.
This module is not approved as a discovery module
The high-level objectives of the module are to provide students with critical skills with which they can discuss the issues surrounding the fictional representation of futures in which an idea of the human has been replaced or modified. The module will seek to analyse how cultural representations imagine such posthuman subjects and societies, with a particular focus on questions of science, technology and ethics.
Students will have developed:
- Appreciation of cultural and social debates around questions of technological innovation, body adaptation and genetic modification;
- The ethical considerations surrounding the above as they relate to representing individuals and societies;
- the ability to use written and oral communication effectively;
- the capacity to analyse and critically examine diverse forms of discourse;
- the ability to manage quantities of complex information in a structured and systematic way;
- the capacity for independent thought and judgement;
- critical reasoning;
- research skills, including the retrieval of information, the organisation of material and the evaluation of its importance;
This module will analyse a range of novels and fiction feature films that focus on an idea of the future in which the human has been modified, transgressed or supplanted. It will consider questions of imagining culture in utopian or dystopian forms, and will have specific concentration on questions of scientific/technological innovation and development, body adaptation, genetic modification, and the ideas of the individual and community that result from this. It will stress the worth of the creative imagination and the value of the aesthetic in such processes, asking how we think ‘beyond the human’ to imagine future worlds.
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meetings | 5 | 1 | 5 |
| Seminar | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Private study hours | 185 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 15 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
Reading, seminar preparation, essay writing.
- Seminar contribution
- Feedback on 1st assessed assignment.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Essay | 2750 words | 66.7 |
| Essay | 1750 words | 33.3 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 4/28/2023
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team