Cold War Cultures: Literature, Film & Theory in Post-War Europe - ENG00019M

«Back to module search

  • Department: English and Related Literature
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: M
  • Academic year of delivery: 2025-26

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2025-26

Module aims

·To introduce the advanced study of the new cinemas of post-war Europe.

·To explore the historical, cultural and intellectual interrelations between these cinemas and contemporary literary culture.

·To place these interrelations in the context of the political reconstruction of post-war Europe and the rise of the Cold War.

·To develop an appropriate critical, historical and theoretical framework for the analysis of individual literary and film texts.

·To develop individual and collaborative skills of argument and presentation.

Module learning outcomes

Subject content

  • The textual and contextual analysis of post-war European film and literature; a grasp of the formal and technical questions raised by individual texts; an understanding of the broader aesthetic and political implications of these issues; a grasp of the critical field currently engaged in this area of research.

Academic and graduate skills

  • The capacity to identify relevant models of critical and theoretical analysis and to use them to produce sophisticated textual and contextual readings; the ability to carry on individual research in this field, to present it in seminars and to discuss it with seminar members.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark
Essay/coursework 100

Module feedback

You will receive feedback on all assessed work within the University deadline, and will often receive it more quickly. The purpose of feedback is to inform your future work; it is designed to help you to improve your work, and the Department also offers you help in learning from your feedback. If you do not understand your feedback or want to talk about your ideas further you can discuss it with your module tutor, the MA Convenor or your supervisor, during their Feedback & Consultation Hours.

Indicative reading

Films by Rossellini, Fellini, Visconti, Rosi, Bertolucci, Bresson, Godard, Truffaut, Fassbinder, Schl ¶ndorff; literary works by Boito, Lampedusa, Moravia, Levi, Bernanos, Roch ©, Fontane, Boll, Grass.