Students will participate in interactive sessions introducing them to English studies at university level. These sessions will give students a taster of the specialised module options available at degree level. Sessions can cover any of the themes listed according to your preference.
Students will participate in interactive sessions introducing them to English studies at university level. These sessions will give students a taster of the specialised module options available at degree level. Sessions can cover any of the themes listed below according to your preference:
Explore Banned Books
An interactive session examining formerly banned books: why were they banned? What does this tell us about the society of the time? Students will also learn how to create a Zine (a short self-made booklet, often on a controversial topic). This session introduces students to the kinds of texts studied on Gender, Sexuality and Culture at BCU, once banned for their depictions of sex and relationships.
Explore C19th Feminism
Were the suffragettes purely progressive? And what really limited women in the C19th? Come and learn about two academic books on literature that challenge simple assumptions about history.
Explore Crime Fiction
Crime fiction is one of the bestselling forms of genre fiction globally. In this session, students explore the conventions that continue to drive this popularity and how key elements such as detection and resolving disorder are at the heart of reading itself.
Explore Victorian Fiction and AI
What can we learn about AI by reading Victorian fiction? Is 'writing' now just a trick of machine inputs and outputs? Students will learn about how Victorians thought about machinery, including how Lewis Carroll imagined a writing machine that's eerily similar to 21st-century AI.
Explore the Power of Language
Join us for an interactive workshop on the varied and exciting applications of English Language and Linguistics. Students will gain an understanding of real-world language use and some of the methods used to analyse it. This will include: what to do with English Language; how language is central to AI and other emerging technologies; how language works to construct identities; and how we can resist harmful narratives in media language.