Skip to content

Teaching Responsibility

LJMU Schools involved in Delivery:

Humanities and Social Science

Learning Methods

Lecture

Seminar

Workshop

Module Offerings

5047CW-JAN-MTP

Aims

1. To encourage the student to expand their thinking about the possibilities and challenges of writing fiction within the fantastical genres of fantasy, horror, science  fiction, the New Weird, dystopian or liminal fiction;
2. To inspire enthusiasm for these genres of writing and an appreciation of their continuing social, political and economic importance;
3. To enable students to adopt a wide range of reading strategies, applied to their own creative work and the work of others.
4. To develop students' ability to contextualise their work within the writing traditions studied on the module;
5. To consider and reflect upon the literary and theory traditions of fantastical writing and how this intersects and supports creative practice.

Learning Outcomes

1.
Demonstrate an understanding of a chosen 'fantastic' genre (fantasy, science fiction or horror) through analysis and reference to literary, cinematic, artistic, and/or analytical/theoretical texts.
2.
Show a critical awareness of the context in which writing is produced and how fantastical writing relates to that of predecessors and contemporaries.
3.
Have a nuanced critical awareness gained from contextualizing their own writing within a cultural, generic and historical framework.
4.
Recognise generic restraints and conventions but also question them in order to produce innovative solutions to artistic problems and to explore the nature of creativity.
5.
Produce creative work consistent with or that pushes the boundaries of the conventions of their chosen genre.
6.
Move beyond received ideas, familiar representations, and stale or cliched ideas/expressions.

Module Content

Outline Syllabus:
Students will study the published work of key fantasy, horror and science fiction writers and look at the ways in which these genres have interbred, changed and cross-pollinated with other genres to open up the current wide field of fantastic fiction, cinema and comic book art. Students will be encouraged to research and develop their own story worlds in order to generate original creative work.
Module Overview:
The module will engage students in the study of fantasy, horror and science fiction literature and related arts. This has proven the most popular genre amongst undergraduate students and the module provides an opportunity for experimentation with a range of writing styles leading to specialisation in one genre area. Students will produce original, creative work informed by their studies, and present it to their classmates and tutors for formative feedback and further development.

Assessments

Essay

Portfolio