• To examine closely a range of Shakespeare’s plays and the socio-cultural and historical contexts in which they were originally produced and performed.
• To develop an understanding of the ways that Shakespeare’s drama engages with a range of Elizabethan and Jacobean socio-cultural issues.
• To encourage students to read Shakespeare’s plays alongside other contemporary documents and sources, and to become familiar and confident with sourcing this material.

(LO1) Students will gain the ability to write well-constructed prose, reflecting appropriate scholarly knowledge and independent response within a sustained argument.

(LO2) Students will gain the knowledge of one or more specific literary periods and the language and genres associated with it/them.

(LO3) Students will gain the ability to demonstrate research and evaluative skills that support wider literary or linguistic analysis, criticism and/or data collection.

(LO4) Students will gain the ability to demonstrate in-depth knowledge of a selection of Shakespeare’s plays and an informed sense of their relationship to their cultural and historical contexts.

(S1) Communication (oral, written and visual) - Academic writing including referencing skills

(S2) Information skills - Critical reading

(S3) Research skills - All Information skills

Workshop topics may typically include: Sex and Gender; Power and Performance; Belief and Superstition; Race and Culture; Travel and Trade.

Primary texts may typically include:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Twelfth Night
Richard II
Henry IV 1 and 2
Hamlet
Macbeth
Othello
Antony and Cleopatra
Pericles
The Tempest

This module will be taught by 1 x weekly 1-hour tutorial (small group) and 2 x weekly 1-hour workshop (whole cohort) online or on campus as circumstances permit. If on campus the second workshop may be delivered as a 2-hour session every other week.