EL6060 - Victorian Sensation Fiction

In two-hour seminars you will participate in discussion and small-group tasks, and apply your knowledge to a variety of Victorian fiction. Through lectures and supplementary materials you will develop knowledge of the development of sensation fiction in the nineteenth century. Through required reading of texts and recommended contextual reading you will reflect independently and critically on the conventions and meanings of sensation fiction.

Your tutor will place texts and other historical and cultural material on Blackboard to allow you to extend your knowledge of the period. In addition you will have access to PowerPoint slides from lectures and material to help you with your reading and prepare for seminar discussion. Preparation handouts accompanying the weekly reading assignments will be available in advance of our meetings, through Blackboard.
Your module tutor’s expertise in the literature and culture of the Victorian period will help you explore the period’s culture through lectures and seminars. In addition your tutor will help you in office hours and on email/Teams/Blackboard, to discuss any queries or concerns you have and to help you in your research for seminars and assessment.
Your tutor will provide feedback on your presentation, as well as your first piece of assessment. Feedback on both of these assessments will feed forward to help you develop your skills for the second assignment.
You have a designated Guidance Tutor. The academic side of the Guidance Tutor’s role includes:
• monitoring your ongoing academic progress
• helping you to develop self-reflection skills
• directing you to services which can help you with your academic skills (e.g. Library’s Skills Plus)
The Guidance Booklet, which you receive at the start of your first year, includes structured materials designed to help you develop your self-reflection skills. These materials underpin the academic side of the regular Guidance meetings, helping you to learn how to best use the feedback you receive on your assignments, how to build on your strengths, and improve in the areas where you could perform better.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. A critical understanding of Victorian Sensation Fiction and its historical, political, and cultural contexts.
Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
2. An enhanced ability to analyse literary texts in relation to their contexts and to present an argument in written form.
3. An enhanced ability to undertake research in electronic and non-electric forms.
4. Enhanced skills in oral presentation.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
5. An awareness of the global and colonial contexts of Victorian Britain and its relevance to contemporary debates.

There are three pieces of assessment, one formative and two summative.

The formative assessment will be a 5-10 minute seminar presentation on one piece of secondary criticism relevant to the module. You will be assessed on both the critical content of your presentation and on your skills in delivering that information in a clear and accessible way.

(MLOs: 1, 3, 4).

The second assessment will be an essay of 1,500 words, worth 40% of the module grade. You will write a critical analysis of a ‘real’ Victorian sensation.

(MLOs: 1, 2, 3, 5.)

The third and final assessment is an essay of 2,500 words worth 60% of the module grade. You will be provided with a list of possible topics or you are welcome to devise a topic of your own.

(MLOs: 1, 2, 3, 5.)

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After the Gothic came Sensation Fiction with its tales of ‘murder, blackmail, illegitimacy, impersonation, eavesdropping, secrets, bigamy, and detectives’ (Hughes, 1980). Here was a genre designed to prey upon the nerves and send a shiver down the spine of its reader.

This module will survey the ‘Sensation Mania’ of the 1860s which saw Victorian readers develop a voracious appetite for chilling narratives that seemed to threaten the growing respectability of the novel form. We will examine how a variety of sensation narratives participated in contemporary debates over sexuality, morality, race and class, providing readers with alternative ways of thinking about identity. While we will devote the majority of our attention to the key novels that established the genre of sensation fiction, additional consideration will be given to the historical contexts in which this literature was read and enjoyed, including the first penny papers, tabloid journalism, serial publication, circulating libraries, notorious criminal trials, and divorce law reform.