Look at a carefully selected range of examples to understand where and how theory, text and performance intersect. You will explore what an interdisciplinary approach to cultural studies offers us combining skills from the study of English and media to investigate this new field.

Gain a detailed overview of research methods including qualitative and quantitative methods. You will understand the ways in which media and cultural studies research can be carried out.

Explore key features and phenomena of literature in the 18th century. You'll study topics such as the rise of the novel form, the development of the Gothic, and the early Romantic movement in Britain. Focusing on new literary emergences, this module will explain these in historical terms as you draw on key theoretical and critical debates on the period.

Study a selection of literature of the 20th century and examine how people wrote about some of the key events of the period, such as WWI, WWII, post-war austerity and the Cold War. You'll understand key terms such as modernism and postmodernism. You'll consider texts that focus on the idea of alienation and dystopia and the place of the individual in society. You'll also explore why writers of the period turned to imagining the future in order to express their concerns with the present moment.

Explore and unpack the idea of 'black' writing as a complex notion by studying texts published in Britain over a long historical period. You'll practise effectively communicating critical insights into the historic marginalisation of black voices in English (especially British) literature, and/or understand the importance of such voices, past and present, in contemporary society through working on simulated live-briefs.

Explore some of the features of professional working practices within the media and cultural industry sectors. During this module you will have the opportunity to work on a practice-based project and learn from visiting tutors who are working in areas such as online marketing, publishing, television and radio production. You will also undertake a series of online-workshop reflective tasks covering aspects of a range of professional skills to help you identify your strengths, develop your skills and prepare you for your future career.

Understand the way that humanities disciplines and skills intersect with a range of professional working contexts. You will complete 36 hours of live-brief learning to gain first-hand experience of planning, delivery and evaluating a professional working brief set by an industry partner organisation. You will work as a group across 10 weeks alongside a tutor to design, deliver, present and evaluate the brief to industry standards. As well as conducting a reflective case study of your brief, you will complete a CV, cover letter, LinkedIn profile and undertake a recorded mock interview.

Explore issues of context - what it is, where it comes from and what its relation is to other forms of information. You will develop strong research skills by taking a theoretically informed approach to contextual study of literature.

Gain an understanding of `postcolonial' literature and the conceptual and critical vocabulary you will need to read and analyse texts from formerly colonised regions of the world.

You will demonstrate a full range of skills, knowledge, and competencies developed over three years of study. This module provides an opportunity for you to choose and explore a field of study that has particularly engaged your interest.

This module will introduce you to the growing area of game studies and will give you diverse methodological tools to approach video games as texts that need a multi-angle approach. Regardless of your gaming background, you will be encouraged to engage with a regular gaming practice and to adopt a reflective and critical approach toward your experiences of play and spectatorship. This module will provide you with the methodological and critical tools to focus on game mechanics and narratives, but also signs, semiotics and politics. In addition to reflecting upon workshops involving play sessions and analytical discussions, this module will include consideration of the game industry and its intricacies.

Gain a critical overview of the historical, social, technological and cultural context surrounding digital media such as mobile devices, software apps and computer games. This module explores definitions and interpretations of the term 'digital reality' and how it is used in contemporary culture. You will be encouraged to critically engage with the issues surrounding digitally mediated experiences, especially in relation to interactivity, creativity, community and embodiment.

Examine the ways artificial intelligence and robots are replacing human personnel in automobile manufacture, banks and even social care. You'll explore a series of critical questions, such as: how will society deal with joblessness and the social trauma of transformational change? Can workers re-invent themselves in an increasingly uncertain world? How will society ensure that its innovations are designed ethically and responsibly? And can technological change help to reduce inequalities while nurturing prosperity, well-being and health benefits?

This module draws on recent social theory and on the work of Pierre Bourdieu as a means of examining how identities of class and gender are represented in contemporary media culture. You will use ethnographic case studies to look at the ways audiences consume and interact with lifestyle texts.

Gain a critical introduction to celebrity studies and literature on film stardom. It also explores their recent cross-overs, hybridisation and yet continuing distinction in the contemporary world. Media celebrity gives focus to television, radio and new media; the dynamics of contemporary celebrity and the theory, analysis and research necessary to make sense of contemporary media celebrity. Particular use is made of the journal Celebrity Studies to explore the cutting edge of developments in ideas and research and methods. Historical contexts of film stardom are addressed yet the key focus is on recent developments of such stardom and research exploring its contemporary dynamics

This interdisciplinary module will offer new ways to think about cities. You'll consider the history of urbanization, and the emergence of new spaces of leisure, commerce and interaction. We will think about how new media emerged in cities and explore debates about the transformation of material and symbolic spaces and places that media technologies engender. This module will place the new media debate in historical context and assesses key transformative moments in media history and the implications this has for our understanding of the cityscape. You'll understand how the history of urbanisation is bound up with the development of media technologies and in turn how the entertainment demands of urban populations drove the development and organisation of cities.

This module will consider the impact of digital technologies on the making, marketing and distribution of musical works. You'll study the shift from analogue to digital modes of recording and the rise of digital formats and streaming services. You'll also examine how music and digital technologies have together driven innovation and creativity in the development of the media technologies employed to capture, distribute and market music.

Explore 'race' as a mechanism used to justify oppression, slavery and genocide. But what exactly is `race'? How do racisms manifest and change over time? How can we challenge racial discrimination within the media and wider society? These are some of the important questions that this module critically investigates. You will examine and understand the historical and contemporary significance of `race', ethnicity and culture before beginning to apply your knowledge to different aspects of popular culture such as film, TV, social media, advertising and fashion, music, and sport.

Explore the significances of diverse space media on discursive processes of 'worlding', or the generation of understandings of our world and new worlds out in the cosmos. Questions about 'who space is for' and 'who is excluded from actual and imaginary space explorations' will be key to developing a critical approach to space media. You'll engage with the public communication of space to ensure that the potentials of space are available to everyone.

Examine the complex relationship between media and sport at both the industry and audience level. You will understand the role sports coverage plays across print, broadcast and online media in all contexts: local, regional, national and global.

This module will examine how stories told in a range of media forms can drive social change. You'll engage with complex social issues and find out how stories can raise awareness and bring about attitudinal changes in audiences. You'll learn how characters can be used to create empathy and offer multiple perspectives on social problems. You'll also learn how to structure stories, the role of narration and how to craft compelling messages for different audiences.

The spread and normalisation of surveillance encourages us to ask if surveillance is the primary form of contemporary governance. You'll examine the impact of surveillance on our identities and lives with specific concerns about issues of privacy, the inability to 'forget', and the need to self-surveil and 'share' as part of normal citizenship.

Gain an understanding of the cultural connections between Africa and the African Diaspora through the analysis of a range of key literary works. Through close reading and analysis of the modules primary texts and the interrogation of postcolonial theoretical debates, you will be encouraged to explore the intersections and tensions between issues of race, gender, identity, education and language within the contexts of slavery, colonialism, migration and exile.

Study the autobiographical branch of creative non-fiction.You will complete a number of creative writing exercises and regular workshops to help you refine your work with feedback from fellow students and tutor feedback in class, online, verbally, and in writing. This module will see you read a range of exemplary works of autobiographical non-fiction with a critical eye to begin making connections between the techniques and approaches of published works and your own.

Engage with debates about masculinity which took place during the long 18th century. You will read a range of literary texts, including novels and poetry and focus on important models of 'manliness' which were prevalent in the period. This module will encourage you to situate texts in relation to historical context, and also to engage with theory.

Study a selection of American plays from the 1920s to the 1990s, focusing on the ways in which they dramatise the relationship between public issues and private concerns. This module investigate the ways in which American drama stages the enduring conflict between the search for individual happiness and the making of social and political bonds in a society based on an ideology of competitive individualism. The module will provide opportunities to refine your skills in collaborative work, oral presentation, guided research, and independent study.

Understand how writers and film-makers have imagined city spaces and identities in a range of postcolonial locations. Through an exciting range of literary and cinematic texts, and drawing on theories of urban space, place, and postcoloniality, you will explore issues that are of central importance to the world many of us live in today, including migrant labour, asylum seekers, refugees, and illegal immigrants; crime, conflict, and policing; memory, history, and urban space; class, gender, race, sexuality, and the postcolonial city amongst others.

Explore the development of the Gothic from its literary origins in the mid-18th century through to the mid-20th century. You will analyse the literary and cultural properties of Gothicism as it has shifted and diversified over this period and you will be encouraged to engage with Gothic novels alongside a range of forms across a wide cultural and historical spectrum. This module will also introduce you to theoretical and critical methods of analysing the Gothic such as Freud's concept of the uncanny and Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection.

Explore the development of 20th-century fiction by women with particular reference to the genre of romantic fiction. You will study a selection of literary fictions by women from this period and examine how a number of writers have modified and transformed the conventions of romantic fiction.

Study the Renaissance tragedy with a particular focus on the sub-genre of revenge tragedy. You'll explore canonical works such as Hamlet, but also less familiar examples of the genre such as 'The Revenger's Tragedy'. You'll understand and analyse the plays in relation to the culture in which they were produced.

Examine the relationships between writing and the Northern Ireland conflict (1966-1998). You will consider the ways in which writing responds to serious and prolonged political and social crisis and how it offers insights into issues normally considered to be purely within the realm of party or national politics. This module will enable you to understand the way literature negotiates the tensions between the demands of artistic integrity and independence and the pressures to speak out or to contribute towards the resolution of violent political division. You will also look at texts produced after 1998, a time of somewhat uncertain `peace and reconciliation'.

By reflecting on learning acquired through work placements, this module will focus on promoting self-awareness of your ‘career story’. You will look at how you evaluate your current skills, explore the future possibilities in your career development and navigate pathways through those chosen possibilities. This module will enable you to become ‘cartographer’ of your own future experience. You will embark upon a minimum of 80 hours work placement, supported by reflective exercises, and build expertise and confidence through a range of assessments designed by the course team and employer partners. Conceptualised and designed by digital specialists, the module is purposefully created to be delivered and experienced online – reflecting the increasingly distributed nature of work communications and embracing digital environments as an integral aspect of how employees and the self-employed progress their careers.