Module Directory

This module examines the social criticism and subversiveness of writing in the form of the essay and the manifesto.

To consider the structure of the module as a whole, students are encouraged to think about the essay as a tool to develop, explore, and reflect on fundamental questions, and the manifesto as a means to answer those questions. The essayist, as Montaigne puts it, "speak(s) as one who questions and does not know..." (Montaigne C 237); the manifesto writer knows the answer and conveys it with force.

The aims of this module are:

• To provide students with a ground in the history of the essay.


• To explore issues related to the selected essays and to be able to relate those issues to the politics, social contexts and ideological debates of their times, and subsequently.


• To stimulate students to develop skills in written communication through essay writing, and through oral communication and debate in seminars.


• To encourage students to think and write in both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary ways.

By the end of this module, students will be expected to be able to:

1. Be able to demonstrate a familiarity with, and an understanding of the material considered on the module, specifically the history of the essay.


2. Be able to draw connections between a diverse range of written forms produced in different historical periods.


3. Be able to distinguish critically between different methodological and disciplinary approaches to the issues in question.


4. Be able to write in an informed, critical and argumentative manner on the material covered by the module.

Skills for your Professional Life (Transferable Skills)

1. Define the task in which they are engaged and exclude what is irrelevant.


2. Seek and organise the most relevant discussions and sources of information.


3. Process a large volume of diverse and sometimes conflicting arguments.


4. Compare and evaluate different arguments and assess the limitations of their own position or procedure.


5. Write and present verbally a succinct and precise account of positions, arguments, and their presuppositions and implications.


6. Be sensitive to the positions of others and communicate their own views in ways that are accessible to them.


7. Think 'laterally' and creatively (i.e., to explore interesting connections and possibilities, and to present these clearly rather than as vague hunches).


8. Maintain intellectual flexibility and revise their own position based on feedback.


9. Think critically and constructively.

In the autumn term, we will study the essay as a critical tool to explore and interrogate one`s own certainties. `Essay` here does not refer to the sort of thing you typically write for an undergraduate module. The essay, rather, is a distinct literary genre that has played an important role in the humanities and social sciences ever since its invention by Michel de Montaigne in the 16th century. Essays may mask themselves as innocent excursions but, as with Jonathan Swift's `A Modest Proposal` or George Orwell`s `Politics and the English Language`, the essay can rapidly overturn accepted opinions and provoke the questioning of values. In addition to studying some classic essays, students will get a chance to contribute to the genre by writing an essay of their own.

In the spring, we will turn our attention to the manifesto. Manifestos typically denounce dominant trends and/ or accepted conventions, question the grounds of prevailing, ideas, behaviours and practices, and involve a call and/or a programme for action. But they can take many forms. Manifestos, like Marx and Engels` `The Communist Manifesto`, are written to inspire action and overthrow existing social and working institutions, while the `How to be Idle`' manifesto proposes we abandon work itself and thereby challenges the incessant demands in our society that we devote our lives to paid labour. Mirroring the autumn term, after studying some of the most historically influential manifestos, students will get to write their own manifesto on a subject of their choosing.

To prepare for this module, suggested introductory reading:

Orwell, George. 'Politics and the English Language' [1946]. In The Penguin Essays of George Orwell, 354-367. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1994.

Nussbaum, Martha C. (2010) Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press

This module will be delivered via:

• One lecture per week.
• One seminar per week which functions as a writing workshop.