This module offers you the opportunity to develop your understanding of nineteenth-century literature in its cultural-historical context. The module allows you to study different genres and examines these texts as a form of social commentary. The module will train you in thinking, reading and writing critically and analytically, as well as enhance your awareness of the cultural-historical context for the texts in question. You will have an opportunity to improve your ability to work in small groups and present your thoughts in oral and written form.Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and moving through the century to the fin de siècle, the module invites you to consider selected examples of fiction, drama and poetry as responses to some of the century’s most pressing social questions. For example, you will encounter the genre of sensation fiction and consider how it reflects cultural concerns around changes in family law. Furthermore, the module allows you to study plays by writers such as Shaw and Wilde, asking you to compare the aims and agendas of social realism and naturalism with those expressed by proponents of fin-de-siècle aestheticism. Alongside the formal aspects of these texts and ‘mission statements’ by various writers, you will examine important themes and debates of the period, such as urbanisation and industrialisation, madness, class, gender and sexuality. For this purpose, a range of critical and contextual writings from the nineteenth century supplements your reading of the primary texts. Alongside the nineteenth-century texts, you will also read examples of neo-Victorian writing to consider how contemporary artists have critically engaged with the nineteenth-century’s history and cultural heritage. The weekly lectures will provide an introduction and set the context for group and individual work. Interactive exercises and group projects will focus on close reading and analysis of the assigned literary and contextual texts. You will also be asked to engage with recent scholarly debates on the material in question.Module materials encourage critical examination of issues to do with cultural representations of identity, such as class, gender or sexuality. In this way, the module content also promotes equality and diversity.