Course Details in 2025/26 Session

Module Title	LH Extreme Fictions
School	Eng, Drama, & Creative Studies
Department	Film and Creative Writing
Module Code	09 29731
Module Lead	Richard House
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 2
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	Students registered to the BA English programme must have taken the Creative Writing pathway modules available at both Level C and Level I
Contact Hours	Seminar-20 hours Guided independent study-180 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	What - and which - works overstep moral and ethical boundaries, not only to offend good public taste, but to challenge political and social contexts? This module will take a look at different categories and classifications of obscenity from early satirical poems to contemporary fiction. From Aretino's Sonnets ('I Modi' for which his Venetian publisher was burned at the stake), to the excesses of de Sade' s libertines, to the urgent representations of sexual and social behaviours during the AIDS crisis, and on to more contemporary writing. We will be looking at explicit, controversial, and banned texts and examine the contexts, political and social, within which these texts were originally presented. We will also look at developing technologies - the printing press and new digital technologies, and at forms of presentation - from hand-bound volumes, pamphlets, and protest flyers, to online platforms. Our main questions will be about representation - what can, and what can't be expressed in a world which has embraced 'post-truth'. PLEASE NOTE: much of the required reading and screening contain explicit material, including acts of sexual degradation and violence. If you are unable, for any reason, to read, view, write or discuss these challenging texts and films you are advised NOT to choose this option.
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: Engage with and debate the qualities, repercussions and significance of core texts within social, political and historical contexts. Explain and consider the concept of the ‘obscene’ and ‘extreme’ within literature. Develop and sustain scholarly arguments surrounding censorship, banned texts and controversy. Demonstrate, through an original creative work, an engagement with theories and techniques encountered on the module.
Assessment	29731-01 : Creative Work (2500 words or 150 lines poetry) : Coursework (75%) 29731-03 : Reflective essay : Coursework (25%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessments: A creative work of 2,500 words (prose), or 150 lines (poetry) (75%) which respond to or reinterpret one of the core texts, supported by a 1,500-word reflective essay (25%). Reassessment: A creative work of 2,500 words (prose) or 150 lines (poetry) (75%), which respond to or reinterpret one of the core texts, supported by a 1,500-word reflective essay (25%) Extenuating circumstances only
Other
Reading List