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

The standard assessments for this course are:

■ 30% mid-term essay (1500 words)

■ 60% final essay (3500 words)

■ 10% seminar contribution

If required, for instance where a disability prevents a student from undertaking a specific method of assessment, the following alternatives are available:

■ Written self-evaluation reflecting on seminar contribution or Written response to seminar material in advance or after seminar as an alternative to the seminar contribution.

■ There is no alternative to the mid-term essay, but extensions to the deadlines can be offered as reasonable adjustment (students should follow the usual process for extensions).

■ There is no alternative to the final essay, but extensions to the deadlines can be offered as reasonable adjustment (students should follow the usual process for extensions).

Further reasonable adjustments may be provided where necessary. Students are encouraged to consult with the course convenor.

It is the default expectation that all courses will offer opportunities for reassessment or deferred assessment. Where it is not possible to offer this in some assessment components, the grade achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade, and any exceptions for this course are described below.

[No exceptions]

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.