The final year will allow you to consolidate the command of the Spanish language you will have obtained during your year abroad, as well as deepening your understanding of Spanish literature, cinema and politics. Modules in international media and communications studies will allow you to explore the political issues arising from, among other things, cultural policy and media coverage of conflict. You will also undertake a dissertation project under the close supervision of a member of staff with knowledge of your chosen area.
Spanish 3
This advanced module will be your final step towards fluency, training you in a more formal, sophisticated register of spoken and written Spanish.
We'll continue to use a wide range of authentic Spanish texts to further deepen your knowledge and confidence at this advanced level. We'll look at how the texts are put together so that you may use these skills within your written and spoken Spanish, taking you to the highest level of proficiency.
Advanced Spanish Translation
This module offers coaching and practice in high-level translation from Spanish to English. You will work with a variety of texts over the semester, exploring different registers in Spanish and English, and equivalences between source and target languages. You will be required to reflect on the process of translation through annotations on specific translation decisions which will be part of the given task each week. You will also be given a brief for each translation and asked to research the target publication/context for their translation and specify ways in which the target context may differ from the original.
Spanish American Narrative and Film
This module looks at key 20th century Spanish American novels and short stories and considers issues such as race, gender, sexuality and the conflict of cultures. You will be trained in using a broad range of tools of narrative and rhetorical analysis so as to engage in debates about literary representation and aesthetics, and will hone your use of these through a programme of research tasks, seminar presentations, group discussions, and written assignments.
The Radicalisation of Nationalism in Modern Latin America: Cuban Revolution in Continental Perspective
This module is concerned with the emergence, nature and evolution of the Cuban Revolution. You will consider the Revolution in question within a wider historical and ideological context: the Latin American tradition of an increasingly radical nationalism. Dating from the 19th and early 20th century this is a time when there was a need to engage in serious and collective nation-building. The module therefore examines how the Cuban Revolution went on to influence the subsequent radicalisation of that tradition, shaping a range of political manifestation. For this module you will have one two-hour seminar each week.
Dissertation in International Media and Communications Studies
This module gives students the opportunity to work independently on a chosen subject area of their choice, with an appropriate supervisor.
Visual Culture
The major theoretical approaches to understanding images have included art history analysis, semiotics, psychoanalysis and discourse analysis, and the module explores each of these theoretical ways of 'decoding' images. We will ask asks how making affects meaning and how images can be seen as tools of critical theory in media culture. The module looks at a wide range of images from fine art, photography, print media, television and film, science and advertising. Student cover many themes, such as 'what is an image?', 'what is the relation between language and images?', 'what is the relation between image and thought?' The module ends on the open question of what visual literacy might be and mean in a visual culture.
Contesting Culture
This module examines the contested nature of culture in a variety of contexts. Beginning with a definition of culture that includes the arts and media, but broadening out to consider cultural practices in a range of situations, the module asks the key questions: who defines and controls culture and for what purposes and, conversely, what kinds of opportunities exist for cultural and creative resistance?
Auditory Cultures: Sound, Listening and Everyday Life in the Modern World
This module introduces students to the cultural and social role of sound and listening in everyday life. Scholars have argued that, since the Enlightenment, modern societies have privileged sight over the other senses in their desire to know and control the world. But what of hearing? Until recently, the role of sound in everyday life was a neglected field of study. Yet Jonathan Sterne argues that the emergence of new sound media technologies in the nineteenth century - from the stethoscope to the phonograph - amounted to an 'ensoniment' in modern culture in which listening took centre stage.
Beginning with an examination of the relationship between visual and auditory culture in everyday life, this module introduces a variety of cultural contexts in which sound played an important role, including:
- how people interact with the sounds of their cities
- how new sound technologies allowed people to intervene in everyday experience
- why some sounds (such as music) have been valued over others (such as noise)
- the role of sound in making and breaking communities
- the role of sounds in conflict and warfare
- the importance of sound in film and television from the silent era onwards.
We use a variety of sound sources, such as music and archival sound recordings, in order to understand the significance of sound in everyday life from the late eighteenth century to the present.
Global Cinema
Almost every country has a cinema industry. Yet what’s shown, and why, varies wildly.
We’ll look at how films outside Hollywood are made, distributed and received globally, and how these reflect local, regional and international trends.
We’ll ask how these cinemas:
- reflect past and current international film industries setups and audiences’ tastes
- are driven by local cultural specifics and global changes
- might benefit different institutions and structures in society
We will also try to untangle categories such as national cinema, transnational cinema and world cinema, as well as to make sense of different filmic traditions, genres and modes around the world. Who creates these categories and who do they serve?
With an entire global cinema to draw from, the focus will narrow in any year to particular regions, filmic genres or movements.
This module is worth 20 credits.
Teaching Film and Media Studies for Undergraduate Ambassadors
This module is part of the nationwide Undergraduate Ambassadors Scheme, which works with universities to provide academic modules that enable students to go into local schools to act as inspiring role models. You will split your time between the university-based seminar and your allocated school, where you will be placed in an appropriate department as a teaching assistant. You will design and deliver a teaching project aimed at improving pupil understanding of selected aspects of media studies. You will be supported by the module convenor, the education specialist on campus, and the school's contact teacher. The module typically includes fortnightly seminars and seven half-days spent in school. Placements are in secondary schools and Sixth Form or FE colleges.
Public Cultures: Protest, Participation and Power
Explore the relationship between public space, politics and technology using overlapping and interdisciplinary fields, including:
- cultural studies
- cultural geography
- digital studies
- urban sociology
- cultural politics
You will engage in debates about the changing nature and uses of public space, with an emphasis on urban environments and digital space.
A range of protest movements will also provide case-study material and offer a central focus for your theoretical and practical explorations of the role of new technologies in:
- controlling space
- resisting control
- enabling new forms of civic participation.
This module is worth 20 credits.
Gender, Sexuality and Media
Examine how issues of gender and sexuality relate to media and popular culture.
Using the intersectional fields of feminism, queer theory, and media and cultural studies we'll ask some crucial questions such as:
- How are gender and sexuality represented in media and popular culture?
- How do media and cultural industries structure gender and sexual inequalities?
- How are identities and practices of media audiences and users gendered and sexualised?
- How can gender and sexual norms be challenged in creative and radical ways?
This module is worth 20 credits.