This course explores two key questions: firstly, how are literature and culture informed by the energy sources that power them, from oil to gas to solar? Secondly, how do contemporary genres, from Science Fiction to Fantasy to Utopianism to the Weird, shape the way we understand energy and our relationship to it, both in the present and the future? The course ranges from the vast engines of a Death Star to the solar utopias of activism to gain a sense of how we think energy, and how it shapes us.

5x1hr lectures which may be taught concurrently with ENGLIT4128 as scheduled on MyCampus; 10x90min seminars over ten weeks. This is one of the MLitt options in English Literature and Fantasy and may not run every year. The options that are running this session are available on MyCampus 

ENGLIT4128 

None

30% mid-term essay (1500 words)

60% final essay (3500 words)

10% seminar contribution

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

Seminar contribution is time-bound and cannot be reassessed.

This course aims to:

■ Explore the ways in which energy shapes culture; 

■ Engage with the ways in which energy past and future is imagined across various media from books to films and TV to games;

■ Familiarise students with the narrative affordances of different popular genres, including Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopia;

■ Consider how genre shapes the way that we articulate our energy futures from popular culture to advertising to radical politics.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Evaluate the relative capabilities of different popular genres for constructing narratives of cultural change;

■ Analyse the construction of future narratives, reflect on their mechanics and identify narrative change and variation across various media;

■ Interrogate the values and assumptions behind opposing visions of the future, and how they relate to energy and are shaped by popular genre;

■ Conduct advanced critical work that brings pop culture, advertising, and political documents into conversation with perspectives from the Energy Humanities.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.