LT228-5-AU-CO:
Rights and Wrongs: Literature and Campaigns to Change the Law
2024/25
Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies
Colchester Campus
Autumn
Undergraduate: Level 5
Current
Thursday 03 October 2024
Friday 13 December 2024
15
09 February 2021
Requisites for this module
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This module provides an opportunity to learn about the nineteenth-century precursors in social reform of the more recent campaigns concerning rights and ethical matters (such as animal rights, class politics, feminism, vegetarianism, green issues, alcohol abuse, pacifism).
The literary engagement with explicitly political issues - the literary forms, images and rhetorical strategies employed and the demands on the reader - will be analysed, with reference to theoretical debates on the possible relationships between the aesthetic and the political and to archival research.
The module explores the literary engagement with rights and reforms in the nineteenth century, focusing on the following four areas of interest:
1. the literary engagement in the nineteenth century with human rights, with a particular focus on slave narratives (exemplified by the History of Mary Prince) and the abolition of slavery;
2. literary responses to the nineteenth-century campaigns to extend the franchise, with reference to women’s enfranchisement, adult suffrage and Chartism.
3. nineteenth-century animal rights and welfare, vegetarianism and anti-vivisection, with reference to the work of such writers as Frances Power Cobbe, Percy Shelley, Wilkie Collins, Ouida, Gertrude Colmore and Anna Sewell;
4. nineteenth-century temperance and Salvation Army movements, representations of the care and control of the self and others, with reference to the writings of George Bernard Shaw, Anne Bronte and George Eliot.
At the end of the module, students will be able to:
1. demonstrate an understanding of the diverse strategies for campaigning for rights relating to different groups in the long nineteenth century;
2. evaluate the literary forms, images and rhetorical strategies employed in the texts studied;
3. apply knowledge of nineteenth-century ethical, moral and political issues derived from analysis of literary texts studied on the module;
Please see Talis for the essential and recommended reading for this module
Anticipated teaching delivery for 2020-21: Weekly 1 hour lecture + 1 hr seminar + portfolio exercises
We will offer a mixture of tailored online, digital, and campus-based teaching where it may be possible and as appropriate, along with personalised one-to-one consultation with academic staff.
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‘Introduction: Undisciplining Victorian Studies’ (2020)
Victorian Studies, 62(3). Available at:
https://doi.org/10.2979/victorianstudies.62.3.01.
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Peterloo (2018) film official trailer (no date). Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlvLWaueD_o.
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Suffragette (2015) film official trailer (no date). Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=056FI2Pq9RY.
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Harriet (2019) official film trailer (no date). Available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqoEs4cG6Uw.
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Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (no date). British Library. Available at:
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/mary-wollstonecraft-a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman.
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Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (no date). British Library. Available at:
http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106644.html.
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Nelson, C.C. (ed.) (2004b) Literature of the women’s suffrage campaign in England. Peterborough, Ont: Broadview Press.
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Anand, A. (2015b) Sophia: princess, suffragette, revolutionary. London, United Kingdom: Bloomsbury.
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Sewell, A. (2011)
Black Beauty: his grooms and companions?: the autobiography of a horse. Edited by K. Guest. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Available at:
https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=524063&site=ehost-live.
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Gina M. Dorré (2016)
Victorian fiction and the cult of the horse. London: Routledge. Available at:
http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351875905.
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Cosslett, T. (2006)
Talking animals in British children’s fiction, 1786-1914. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Available at:
http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781315241852.
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Felix Holt, The Radical, by George Eliot. (no date). Available at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/40882/40882-h/40882-h.htm.
The above list is indicative of the essential reading for the course.
The library makes provision for all reading list items, with digital provision where possible, and these resources are shared between students.
Further reading can be obtained from this module's
reading list.
Assessment items, weightings and deadlines
| Coursework / exam |
Description |
Deadline |
Coursework weighting |
| Coursework |
Poster Report (1,500 words) |
|
25% |
| Coursework |
Essay (2,000 words) |
|
55% |
| Coursework |
Online Portfolio: Discussion forum posts (submitted to Moodle) |
|
15% |
| Practical |
Participation |
|
5% |
Exam format definitions
- Remote, open book: Your exam will take place remotely via an online learning platform. You may refer to any physical or electronic materials during the exam.
- In-person, open book: Your exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer to any physical materials such as paper study notes or a textbook during the exam. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, open book (restricted): The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may refer only to specific physical materials such as a named textbook during the exam. Permitted materials will be specified by your department. Electronic devices may not be used in the exam.
- In-person, closed book: The exam will take place on campus under invigilation. You may not refer to any physical materials or electronic devices during the exam. There may be times when a paper dictionary,
for example, may be permitted in an otherwise closed book exam. Any exceptions will be specified by your department.
Your department will provide further guidance before your exams.
Overall assessment
Reassessment
Module supervisor and teaching staff
Prof Katharine Cockin, email: k.m.cockin@essex.ac.uk.
Professor Katharine Cockin
LiFTS General Office – email: liftstt@essex.ac.uk
Telephone 01206 872626
Yes
Yes
Yes
No external examiner information available for this module.
Available via Moodle
No lecture recording information available for this module.
* Please note: due to differing publication schedules, items marked with an asterisk (*) base their information upon the previous academic year.
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