English and drama

Word & Image

Module code: Q3286
Level 5
15 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Workshop
Assessment modes: Coursework

Word and Image is a cross-period, interdisciplinary module rooted in materiality (the physical properties of a cultural artefact), theory, history, and the archive.

Through research and writing practice, we will investigate ways that writing (poetry, fiction, theoretical texts, captions, and titles) can address itself to images.

We will explore visual arts that take literature for their inspiration: illustrations, history paintings, and visual adaptations of textual narratives.

We will examine cases in which word and image are composed together as a single work in, for example, concrete poetry, illuminated books, and graphic narratives.

Authors and artists studied may include Catherine Anyango, William Blake, Joseph Conrad, the Pre Raphaelites, and Nick Sousanis, and we will trace such key themes as framing, reproducing, and silencing through their work.

The module is suitable for students new to the visual arts as well as those with prior knowledge.

Module learning outcomes

• Develop a critical and creative vocabulary for writing about images.
• Ability to place the making of texts and images in a historical context.
• Show knowledge of the ways in which different writers have addressed images, how images have responded to writing, and how the literary and visual arts have been combined in single works.
• Critically evaluate the way in which writers and artists have worked with texts and images, and how critics have explored their relationship.