English and drama

The Age of Adolescence: Reading 20th Century Youth Culture

Module code: Q3287E
Level 4
15 credits in autumn semester
Teaching method: Lecture, Seminar
Assessment modes: Coursework

This module will explore representations of adolescence from the early 20th through to the early 21st century in theory, literature, film and popular culture. You’ll look at the ways in which the adolescent morphs into the teenage consumer in the 1950s in novels such as Colin MacInnes’s Absolute Beginners.

You’ll also consider the adolescent as a site of cultural fantasy and cultural fears in relation to class, race, gender and sexuality. You’ll look at the adolescent’s relationship to radical politics, subculture, utopia, nostalgia. You will use representations of the adolescent as a modern constructed identity to teach the skill of close reading, and historical contextualisation in texts that range from Willa Cather to Spring Breakers.

Module learning outcomes

• Demonstrate knowledge of the history of, and an ability to evaluate, 20th-21st century fiction, film and theory.
• Develop an understanding of the construction of the categories of the adolescent and the teenager in literature, film and theory.
• Analyse literature, film, and other discourses, and to dissect rhetoric and understand meanings.
• Develop an argument from close reading and data interpretation.