Module description
This module invites the students to consider Britain’s shift from an empire to a nation. In popular accounts of Post-War Britain that continue to circulate in TV, film, and literature, this period unfolds in a tidy narrative that moves through the development of the welfare state, the end of austerity, and an unparalleled period of affluence, understood as a period of consensus, pierced by the crises of the 1970s and the development of Thatcherism. This module will trace a more complex and uneven story of dissensus and contestation, in part by foregrounding voices and perspectives that are usually left out of the received story of the period. Considering film, theatre, music, television, novels, and poetry, we will examine the way in which processes of automation, circulation, mediation, militarisation, incarceration, and bordering were, and continue to be, shot through with anxieties about race, gender, and labour power.
Assessment details
KEATS discussion forum participation (5 x 250 word critical reflections) spread across the semester (15%) and one 2,500 word End Semester essay (85%)
Educational aims & objectives
This module reconsiders national narratives by placing them in a global context, paying close attention to the impact of anticolonial, feminist, and labour struggles on cultural production. The course builds on aspects of critical theory developed in Introducing Literary Theory, as well as developing methods of historical analysis that will be familiar from Writing London. It will enable students to articulate key debates in Cultural Studies, such as the relationship between economic systems and cultural production, the role of popular culture in social life, and the tensions between representation and political struggle. The knowledge and skills developed through this module form a bridge to level 6 modules that deal with contemporary or political culture (for example, "Activist Texts," "Vernacular Theory," and "Identity in Contemporary Britain"), as well as the Dissertation, providing students with a firm grounding in reading complex, unusual, and under-studied texts.
Learning outcomes
Students will
• Become familiar with key historical developments that shaped the economic, political, and cultural life of Britain in the second half of the 20th century.
• Encounter and engage with a range of materials, including television, pamphlets, posters and legal documents, as well as film, theatre, novels, and poetry.
• Develop an understanding of how multiple overlapping and contesting currents determine the cultural and political character of a given period.
• Communicate reading and research effectively, through seminar discussions and posts on the KEATS forum
• Develop and sustain an argument, drawing on appropriate resources (to be demonstrated through final essay).
Teaching pattern
Weekly one hour lecture and one hour seminar classes