Students will study three core modules plus three optional modules and an education-focussed dissertation. Core modules include:
Shakespeare and Pedagogy (includes 4 full days onsite over Easter)
Research Skills and Methods (delivered on-site in Semester 1, 2 hours per week or online)
Plays and Poems of Shakespeare A
Full module descriptions are available below.
On-site study is in Stratford-upon-Avon. Distance learning students can choose to study through a combination of on-site modules and online distance learning modules (please note that it is not possible to combine these methods of study within a single module). The schedule of delivery allows access to all modules through a range of modes over any three-year period, although some are not available to study via distance learning.
Core modules
You will study three core modules:
Shakespeare and Pedagogy (on-site and distance learning students)
This module is an opportunity to explore the history, philosophy and pedagogy of ‘teaching Shakespeare.’ You will consider the different elements of Shakespeare’s work that are taught and the methods and resources used to teach them. You will have the chance to prepare practical teaching activities and assess learning outcomes. The Pedagogy module is taught collaboratively by the Royal Shakespeare Company Education department and the Shakespeare Institute. (One part of this module is delivered as an intensive block over 4 days, scheduled to coincide with the Easter holidays (the remainder is taught online in April/ May).
Please note: because of the nature of this module you will need to attend classes in Stratford-upon-Avon and it cannot be delivered solely via distance learning.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay
Plays and Poems A
You are encouraged to engage with, and to see the relationship between, the plays and poems Shakespeare wrote in the sixteenth century, in which the dominant genres were comedies and histories, with tragedy an emergent presence towards the end. The module will cover the first half of Shakespeare’s career in chronological order, from 1591 to 1600. Learning is via student presentation and response, with a preliminary lecture on each study day. This module can be studied as a standalone module or with Play and Poems B.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay
Research Skills (on-site and distance learning students)
This module will provide students with essential research skills training applicable in the fields of Shakespeare studies. It will train students in the use of databases, resources, and methods related to literary, historical, performance, and educational analysis. The work undertaken in this module will help inform the direction and methodology of student research during the MA, particularly in the dissertation stages.
Assessment: Two written assignments
Optional modules
You will then choose three optional modules from a range which typically includes:
History of Shakespeare in Performance (on-site and distance learning)
This module will consider trends of acting and directing Shakespeare from the Restoration to the present day, and will exploit the Stratford archives to undertake studies of individual actors and directors from the eighteenth century onwards. Subjects of study might include Colley Cibber, David Garrick, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, Laurence Olivier, Peter Brook, John Barton and Sam Mendes. There will be opportunities to analyse and interpret primary evidence and to consider the cultural context(s) of performance. Plays studied include some or all of Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay
Shakespeare and Early Modern Playhouse Culture (on-site and distance learning)
Early modern dramatists typically wrote with particular companies, performance spaces and audiences in mind. This module therefore approaches Shakespeare through the culture of the early modern playhouse. Our central aims will be to ask how the social, cultural, spatial, professional and technological make-up of venues such as the Globe and Blackfriars shaped early modern drama by Shakespeare and others, and to consider the significance of the playhouse to wider early modern culture and society. Using a range of methods drawn from literary criticism, cultural history, theatre history, sensory and affect studies, textual studies and material theatre, we will examine plays in relation to the conditions of playing at outdoor amphitheatres and indoor candlelit venues, always keeping in mind the social dimensions of play-making, involving countless interactions amongst playgoers, actors, musicians and other company members. We will give particular consideration to playhouse sensations, stage technologies, effects and spectacle, audience expectations, actorly skill, company practices, music, documents of performance, and repertory, among other topics. A range of plays by Shakespeare will be studied in direct conjunction with other early modern drama both canonical and less familiar.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay
Shakespeare's Legacy (on-site and distance learning)
This module considers the adaptation and appropriation of Shakespeare’s plays, persona, and possessions from 1660 to the present day, paying particular attention to how changes and developments in theatre practice, aesthetic tastes, social concerns, political events, the heritage industry, and commercial markets have shaped the history of Shakespeare’s ‘afterlife’. The module looks at trends broadly chronologically, focusing on particular examples as it traces how the plays (and other Shakespeariana) were received and reinterpreted in light of different artistic, intellectual, and commercial movements from the late seventeenth to early twenty-first centuries. The distinction between ‘adaptations’, ‘appropriations’, ‘translations’, and ‘versions’ will be questioned, and you will be invited to consider the extent to which the different adaptations you read or see rely upon the original Shakespearian text for context and meaning.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay or 3,000-word creative writing project and 1,000-word reflective commentary
Textual Studies in Shakespeare (On campus and distance learning)
What do we mean when we refer to ‘the text of Shakespeare’? This module investigates the production of the text in the theatre and in print, explores controversies surrounding the interpretation of this material, and introduces students to the techniques of editing. Topics include: the relationship between a modern edition of a play and the earliest printed texts; the nature of the printing process that first made the plays available to readers of books; the characteristics of Shakespeare's dramatic composition; the treatment of the text in the theatre (including censorship, revision and adaptation); and Shakespeare as a collaborator. Plays studied usually include: Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, Sir Thomas More, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, King Lear, Measure for Measure, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Timon of Athens.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay
Performing Shakespeare in Asia (distance learning only)
Shakespeare is by far the most produced and adapted western playwright in East Asian theatre cultures. Approaches to translating, performing and re-writing his plays have changed over time, and are now at their most diverse and experimental. Correlatively, connections and relationships between Asian and Anglophone performance histories have also matured. Using translated and annotated archival recordings, this module examines the historical contexts and theatrical concerns of East Asian Shakespeare performances, relating them comparatively to Anglophone and European textual and performance histories. It is jointly taught by the National University of Singapore and The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham as a distance learning module.
Assessment: 1,500-word assignment (40%), 3,000-word research paper (60%)
Shakespeare and Theatre Practice (on-site but available to DL students)
This module will provide you with experiential knowledge that will inform the way that you interrogate and interpret performance evidence in a variety of media. Through a series of workshops and performance assignments, you will explore three different systematic approaches to performing the language of Shakespeare: the first approach is rooted in the verse and text work of John Barton, Peter Hall, Cicely Berry and Patsy Rodenburg; the second approach explores the legacy of Stanislavski in Shakespearean performance; the third approach brings the work of key movement practitioners to a creative examination of Shakespeare’s text.
Assessment: Two performance assignments and a 2,000-word research paper, or a 4,000-word research paper
Plays and Poems B
You are encouraged to engage with, and to see the relationship between, the plays and poems Shakespeare wrote in the seventeenth century, in which the dominant genres were tragedies and tragicomedies. The module will cover the second half of Shakespeare’s career in chronological order, from 1601 – 1613. Learning is via student presentation and response, with a preliminary lecture on each study day.
Assessment: 4,000-word essay
Dissertation
All students will complete the programme with a dissertation. The dissertation is an opportunity for you to extend ideas encountered in the 'Shakespeare and Pedagogy' module. Thus the dissertation will have a primary focus on methods, materials, or the philosophy/sociology/history of 'teaching Shakespeare'. It is possible, therefore, that a student (particularly if a practising teacher or lecturer) may be undertaking a practical project and the dissertation will be a report and assessment of the project. There should be some element of originality in the research and the research may make a contribution to the field of study. You will report the research in a dissertation of 15,000 words in appropriate academic English. In designing, carrying out and writing up the study, you will be supported by a supervisor.
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