BA (Hons) Drama

ACT4004
Self and Character 20 credits

This module is all about preparing actors to work in a profession with certain innate dangers to personal mental and physical health. The process of adopting a character and enacting a role can mean that actors have to negotiate some very personal feelings and experiences. Giving students tools to do this is in a healthy and sustainable way is what this module is all about. This module will include 2, 2 hour talks that introduce our School and programme level employability related opportunities and support, including details of the optional placement year.

DRA4001
Devising Toolkit 1: Improvisation and Creativity 20 credits

The module identifies and explores the dynamics between the key elements of performance through the medium of improvisation, fundamental to all forms of ‘live’ theatre and performance. The module places the study of theatre and performance within a contemporary context by exploring the discourse of, and tension between, naturalism and non-naturalism in 20th century performance theory and practice.

PER4001
The Body in Performance 20 credits

This module positions all performance practice as the product of its own specific cultural setting. Aiming to resist a Western-centric approach, the module explores performances from different cultures whilst providing a context and awareness of the key issues and debates surrounding intercultural/cross-cultural theory and practice. It problematises the issues of theatre, culture and ideology: the politics and problems of cultural contact and exchange.

PER4002
Devising Toolkit 2: Ensemble Practice 20 credits

This module will focus on developing the skills necessary to work in a successful ensemble context, exploring the practice and examining the creative processes involved in the crafting and devising of performance work. Through workshop study, a creative understanding of the physical and mental processes necessary in performance presentation will be established.

PER4003
Theatre Criticism 20 credits

The module is all about going to the theatre to see exciting new work, analysing the performances and their critical reception, and then writing your own theatre reviews for a range of platforms and publications. You will read and evaluate professional critics' writing on significant productions from theatre history and assess and decode the cultural politics at play in theatre's public and critical reception.

DRA4003
Theatre Making and Collaborative Practice 20 credits

This module will explore how group collaboration can enable theatre makers to co-create contexts for their performances. Through the development of critical and creative methods of close reading, students will analyse dramatic texts and collaborate to construct the physical environments of their performance and the characterisations that drive dramatic action.

PER5001
Performance Skills 20 credits

This module will enhance the development of a number of performance skills (such as the use of the voice and the exploration of specific movement techniques) necessary for the successful creation of contemporary performance. Through workshop study, students will embark on a creative exploration of physical and mental processes engaging thus with the notion of Performer Training as a systematic and rigorous process.

PER5002
Performance Practices 20 credits

This module encourages students to find their creative voice through the exploration and application of a specific performance practice. Students will develop and practically interrogate the skills and understandings that establish specific forms of contemporary performance practice as both skilled activities and culturally significant artistic statements.

PER5005
Theatre Residency 20 credits

This module addresses collaborative and interdisciplinary practice in partnership with a professional visiting theatre company. It is a practical and studio-based module that emphasises the development and presentation of student-led work and collaboration across year groups.

PER5007
Performance Making 20 credits

This module explores practically the work of major practitioners and introduces key theories that have impacted upon contemporary performance making. Through practice and contextual study, students will explore the implications of ideological, cultural and social codes for contemporary performance makers.

PER5003MX
Site Specific Performance

Outdoor, off-campus, real-world performance-making informed by research-led seminar-based explorations of an exciting and diverse range of performative case studies and influential theories. This module gives students the opportunity to study independently and work together to open up for themselves a whole new way of seeing the world as a site for theatre.

SSC500
Stage 2 Professional Development, Placement Preparation and Identifying Opportunities 0 credits

This module is for students in the School of Society and Culture who are interested in undertaking an optional placement in the third year of their programme. It supports students in their search, application, and preparation for the placement, including developing interview techniques and effective application materials (e.g. CVs , portfolios, and cover letters).

PER5008MX
Play and Games for Performance 20 credits

This module will introduce students to practical methods for designing games and play structures for participatory performances that invite audiences to become actively involved in the work. In addition to learning new tools for designing and facilitating play, students will be prompted to consider playfulness from a theoretical perspective, recognising the connection between the play of mimesis and theatrical performance.

CRM5003MX
Harm in the 21st Century 20 credits

This module explores the global challenges of harmful behaviours and activities in contemporary society by considering specific areas of concern for criminologists. By drawing on real-world examples in everyday life, the module examines how social problems and issues have arisen due to processes of globalisation that have changed the social, political and economic landscape of the 21st century.

CRM5009MX
Crime, Harm and Culture 20 credits

The module aims to provide students with a critical appreciation of harm and crime by exploring relevant issues from film, television, music, fiction literature and art. By applying a criminological lens to different forms of popular culture, students will be able to examine a variety of media forms in terms of its content and its contemporary political, social and economic context using different theories and concepts.

ENG5002MX
Gothic Fictions: Villains, Virgins and Vampires 20 credits

This module looks at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels to trace the variety and scope of literary contributions to the Gothic. It begins by discussing the origins of the Gothic novel, then moves to the heyday of the genre in the revolutionary 1790s, on to authors writing in the early and mid-nineteenth century, through to the decadence of the 1890s.

ENG5013MX
‘Hurt Minds’: Madness and Mental Illness in Literature 20 credits

This module considers changing attitudes towards, and a variety of theories of, the mind, examining how different cultures have understood ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ mental states. It will look at how the experience and treatment of mental illness has been represented in fiction. The mind is at its most fascinating when it behaves outside of expected social norms. By considering a variety of literary texts over several centuries, this module explores shifts in the definition, understanding, evaluation, and management of exceptional mental states.

ENG5017MX
Writing Genre Fiction 20 credits

This module takes students into in-depth engagement with prose fiction writing in various genres, with possibilities including fantasy, science-fiction, period/historical, young adult fiction, horror, comedy, romance, crime, and thriller. The module is taught through lecture, seminars, and workshops where students are asked to submit and feedback to peers and tutors on a regular basis.

LAW5019MX
Law in Context: Commerce and Intellectual Property 20 credits

This module focuses on the work of commercial lawyers in practice in helping businesses to trade. It analyses a range of contractual agreements dealing with the manufacture, sale, supply and distribution of goods, assets and services in general and intellectual property in particular.

PIR5014MX
Voter Behaviour and Effective Election Campaigning 20 credits

This module undertakes an advanced examination of contemporary trends and developments in theories of electoral behaviour globally; then more specifically the relationship between electoral rules, electoral systems and election outcomes; the evolution of campaign techniques, and the role, mechanics, and accuracy of opinion polls in modern electoral politics. These global understandings are applied directly to the case of British politics.

PIR5013MX
Politics Beyond Parliaments 20 credits

This module analyses the role of civil society and the public sphere in democratic governance and in democratization from a variety of theoretical perspectives.

SSC600
School of Society and Culture Placement Year

Students have the opportunity to gain work experience that will set them apart in the job market when they graduate by undertaking an optional flexible placement year. The placement must be a minimum of 24-weeks (which can be split between a maximum of two different placement providers) and up to a maximum of 48-weeks over the course of the academic year. The placement is flexible and can be undertaken virtually, part or full time and either paid or voluntary. This year allows them to apply and hone the knowledge and skills acquired from the previous years of their programme in the real world.

DRA6001
Advanced Skills in Dramaturgy, Composition and Performance 20 credits

Working in self-selected groups students will choose an out of copyright play as their source material to generate a performance outcome. The module will advance students' performance and dramaturgical skills and support the development of original performance material suitable to the constraints and parameters of the group's chosen venue.

PER6001
Performance Research 40 credits

Students will plan and conduct a research enquiry relevant to the application, practice and study of performance (including acting, dance, theatre, live art, and cross-form practices). Through lectures, workshops and tutorial guidance, students develop appropriate ways of collecting, analysing, documenting and organising material to present and evidence their research process and findings.

PER6003
Professional Placement and Practice 20 credits

In this module students will be asked to identify a specific professional working relationship, for example mentor/project/ liaison or context, to work in. This initiative should reflect the students' personal development planning aims and needs and support their career ambitions and life-long learning.

PER6004
Festival Practices 20 credits

This module will support students’ entry into the wide field of the creative industries through the planning and development of a professional quality performance product, commensurate to professional practice. Working solo or in small companies, students will engage with mentoring and feedback processes and locate their practice within the context of the contemporary performance practice and Festival platforms.

PER6002MX
Applied Drama

This module offers students access to community-based professionals and work-based experiences with a meaningful employability focus. Through seminars and independent practice students learn the skills to work with and for community groups, using performance-making as a means to address real-world problems and social issues.

ENG6005MX
American Crime Writing 20 credits

This module considers the development of twentieth-century American crime fiction from hard-boiled detectives, to myths of the mafia, and postmodern reinventions of the genre. This module will explore the cultural contexts of American crime writing, prevailing conventions of the genre, as well as challenges to those conventions.

ENG6008MX
Features Journalism Workshop 20 credits

This module offers students an in-depth experience of professional writing. We will explore technique in features and literary journalism; music reviews, opinion columns and longer immersion features as well as other contemporary works of non-fiction feature writing, both short- and long-form, from sub-genres including profiles and interviews, autobiography and columns, travel writing, and reportage. We will learn to research and produce our own works of professional nonfiction and critically evaluate them.