Reading Victorians aims to stimulate an interest in, and knowledge of, a topic that is self-evidently key to both understanding Victorian literature, and the wider practice of Victorian studies and literary studies more generally; it aims to bring together the historical and the literary in the study of the Victorians and reading, but it also ends to contextualize the way Victorians are read today, both inside and outside the academy. A wide range of Victorian texts, plus historical work on Victorian book culture, will be included, but also there will be extensive use of evidence from contemporary reading groups, work on research into the mental health implications of reading the Victorians, plus popular contemporary conceptions of the Victorians – together, these will form the intellectual heart of the module, which is to understand the complex relationship between Victorian literature and culture and the practice of reading both in its nineteenth-century and contemporary ma nifestations.

(LO1) Students will have the ability to read, analyse, interpret and compare with competence and independence a wide variety of literary and other texts

(LO2) Students will have an advanced knowledge and systematic understanding of the political and ideological aspects of literary texts and how they can be situated within appropriate cultural and social contexts

(LO3) Students will have a critical appreciation of the ways in which texts can be situated within literary history, including issues of genre, influence, and creation and reception

(LO4) Students will have an advanced knowledge and critical awareness of current and new literary, critical and theoretical debates, plus knowledge of work in other disciplines and outside the academy

(LO5) Students will have a comprehensive and practical understanding of techniques for accessing electronic and bibliographic sources

(LO6) Students will have the ability to use scholarly referencing and bibliographic conventions appropriate for advanced literary scholarship

(LO7) Students will have research skills enabling critical evaluation of different research methodologies and selection of appropriate methodologies

(LO8) Students will have research skills to deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively in order to generate new and independent research

(S1) Students will have a systematic knowledge and critical awareness of current debates and new insights within the field of literature and its contexts, including those from other disciplines and outside the academy

(S2) Students will have advanced critical and analytical skills in relation to diverse forms of discourse

(S3) Students will have advanced literacy, interpersonal and communications skills, and the ability to present sustained and persuasive written and oral arguments

(S4) Students will have the ability to autonomously design and self-direct a research project that brings together historical and contemporary approaches

(S5) Students will have the ability to comprehensively understand and apply a variety of theoretical and practical approaches to literature

(S6) Students will have the ability to handle complex information and argument in a critical, creative and self-reflective manner

(S7) Students will have practical research skills to retrieve information, assemble bibliographic data, and critically evaluate, sift and organize material independently

(S8) Students will have the ability to use IT and other relevant tools and resources to present written and oral work to a professional, scholarly standard

(S9) Students will have advanced skills and experience in selecting and using electronic and/or archival resources for planning and undertaking research and writing

(S10) Students will have organisational skills in managing time and workloads, and in meeting deadlines

• The module syllabus will cover a variety of Victorian and contemporary texts, which may include fiction, poetry, historical sources on reading practices, contemporary memoirs, evidence from reading groups, and popular re-writings of the Victorians.

• Library resources will be available through the module reading lists and the VLE.

• Students are expected to read the specified primary texts for each seminar, and to undertake further independent study as appropriate, both in preparation for seminars and for the assessment, which requires students to identify and analyse a relevant non-fictional text.

• Teaching on this module is undertaken through 2 hour seminars which take place fortnightly.

• Each student will have 2 x individual feedback session lasting 30 minutes, the first likely to be on their formative assessment, the second likely to be a preparation for the summative assessment.

• The majority of all students’ learning time on this module is in self-directed study and independent research. This will likely include reading widely in the fields relevant to this subject area, researching appropriate resources in this field of study, acquainting themselves with relevant theoretical and practical approaches to reading the Victorians, and developing individual research ideas.

• Attendance at seminars will be recorded in line with SotA policy on attendance.

Seminars planned to be delivered face-to-face, but will pivot to remote synchronous delivery if necessary (due to Covid-19)