English and drama
Fantasy
Module code: Q3208
Level 6
30 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Lecture, Workshop
Assessment modes: Portfolio, Project
This module is about creating our own portals into other worlds. Through combination of craft workshops, and lectures from across the faculty, we’ll explores fantasy’s power to estrange, enchant, and illuminate. How does fantasy blur with adjacent genres like science fiction, horror, or romance? Is fantasy fiction a peripheral subgenre, or the mainstream of literary and cultural production, from ancient myths and folktales to today’s blockbuster dragons and superheroes? When we enter fantasy worlds, are we escaping the real world, or discovering new ways to understand the real world? With its frequent obsessions with kings and nobles, Chosen Ones, and fallen empires, is fantasy an inherently conservative or reactionary genre -- or can fantasy be a force for radical change? We’ll explore all kinds of fantasy, from epic ‘secondary world’ fantasy, to urban fantasy, dark fantasy, magic realism, and tales of the everyday with just an extra edge of dreaminess.
Module learning outcomes
- Write an original short story, or equivalent creative work, that demonstrates both imaginative scope and technical craft.
- Write with an awareness of audience and audience expectations, including how they are shaped by genre, tone, mood, diction, and characterisation / narrative voice.
- Reflect critically on their own creative practice within the wider context of fantasy literature and culture.
- Provide constructive peer-review feedback to fellow students.
- Evaluate and improve writing through feedback, editing, and proof-reading to approach work of a publishable and/or professional standard.