Key facts

Overview

The English Literature Summer School focuses on a variety of significant literary figures and movements and provides insights into seven centuries of English literature

Description

The academic programme consists of

• a daily lecture programme given by leading scholars and distinguished speakers
• study in small seminar groups with specialist tutors

Graduate applicants choose two seminars from:

• Chaucer: Sacred and Profane
• Shakespeare and his Sources
• The English Romantic Poets
• Jane Austen
• Victorian Fiction
• Modernist Fiction
• Contemporary British Fiction

Undergraduate students take two mandatory courses, Critical Reading and Shakespeare on Stage and Screen

Each seminar has two two-hour meetings per week, and classes will usually contain no more than 12 students

Contact hours

The programme provides a minimum of 46.5 contact hours, comprising

• 22.5 hours of lectures (15 lectures lasting c.1.5 hours each)
• 24 hours of seminar meetings (12 per course)

Social programme

A range of optional excursions and social events will be offered throughout the summer school. These are likely to include: a walking tour of Oxford, after-dinner talks, a book club, and weekend excursions to sites of literary and/or historical interest.

Please note that most of these activities incur additional costs, which are payable by students in Oxford

Programme details

Seminar options

GRADUATE COURSES

Chaucer Sacred and Profane

This course will explore the poetic ingenuity of the Canterbury Tales by asking: why is there so much religious material in Chaucer’s secular tales, and why is Chaucer’s treatment of the church and religious practices of his day steeped in bodily humour? We shall study a mix of Chaucer’s more and less familiar Canterbury Tales: the Miller’s, the Pardoner’s, the Summoner’s, and the Nun’s Priest’s. Our final ‘Canterbury Tale’ is the anonymous ‘Canterbury Interlude’. A riotous work inserted uniquely into a 15th-century manuscript, it describes how Chaucer’s ‘company’ arrive at Canterbury and what happens at the shrine and in the pilgrims’ inn.

Tutor: Dr Helen Barr is Fellow and Tutor at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she teaches Old and Middle English, English Language, and Shakespeare.

Shakespeare and his Sources

This seminar will focus on the texts and performance histories of four plays: Macbeth, Hamlet, The Winter’s Tale and The Merchant of Venice. For each one we shall explore the influence of Shakespeare’s sources, consider the theatrical, literary and social contexts in which it was written, and examine some key recent interpretations on stage and screen.

Tutor: Dr John O’Connor is Visiting Senior Lecturer at Cornell University, USA, and was formerly Principal Lecturer in English at Westminster College, Oxford. He has also taught at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Jane Austen

In this course we shall be reading the work of Jane Austen with close critical attention in order to explore the qualities that have kept her novels among the world's favourite fiction for nearly two hundred years. We shall explore the structure and analyse the style of the six major novels, and extracts from some of the early works and fragments. We shall focus on the English language of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the narrative voice, focalisers and perspective, irony, dialogue, characterisation, and elements of style such as lexis and syntax.

Tutor: Dr Sandie Byrne is University Lecturer in English Literature and Director of Studies in English and Creative Writing at Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. She was formerly Fellow and Tutor in English at Balliol College, Oxford, and Chair of English at the University of Lincoln.

The English Romantic Poets

The ‘Romantic’ period saw one of the great flowerings of creativity in England, particularly in poetry, alongside a great radicalisation of politics. This course will consider the major poets of the period in their intellectual context, exploring their formal innovations and interests in older traditions, and their new ideas of selfhood and politics. We shall focus on the works of William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, and John Keats, with opportunities to explore the works of Walter Scott, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Robinson, John Clare, and others.

Tutor: Dr Tom MacFaul is Fellow and Departmental Lecturer in English at Merton College, Oxford.

Victorian Fiction

The great Victorian novelists produced searching analyses of their society, exploring with pathos, passion and humour its often contradictory values – social aspiration, romantic yearning, moral fervour and religious doubt. Dealing with such issues in compelling narratives, Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Thomas Hardy showed how the lives of individuals were enmeshed in the cultural forces of the age. On this course we shall examine three of their masterpieces: Great Expectations, The Mill on the Floss and Tess of the d’Urbervilles. As well as discussing the books’ central themes, the course will pay close attention to their structure and use of language.

Tutor: Dr David Grylls is a tutor for Oxford University Department for Continuing Education and a Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford. His publications include books on Charles Dickens, George Gissing and Victorian parent-child relationships. He reviews contemporary fiction for the Sunday Times and critical books for the Times Literary Supplement.

Modernist Fiction

The broad range of Modernist fiction was pivotal in introducing ideals of innovation and retrenchment into English writing. Modernist authors shared a commitment to challenging prevailing narrative techniques, while realigning their work with literary traditions. By examining the key novel, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, and short story collections, James Joyce’s Dubliners and Katherine Mansfield’s Collected Stories, in the context of other Modernist works, this course will demonstrate the premises motivating the Modernist endeavour, showing how they differed from their predecessors, and the effect their writing had on succeeding fiction.

Tutor: Dr John Ballam is Director of the Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing at Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. His research specialism is in the late-Victorian and Modernist periods.

Contemporary British Fiction

This course will explore the vitality and variety of 21st-century British fiction. Dominant themes – fascination with the past, concerns about the future, and response to diversity and change in British society – will be traced. Favoured stylistic approaches, from pastiche to near-documentary, will be examined. A selection of outstanding novels of recent years will be discussed in order to display the individual, exciting and innovative ways in which prominent British novelists are writing. We shall focus on Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child, David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Marina Lewycka’s Two Caravans, Sarah Waters’s The Night Watch, and Ian McEwan’s Solar.

Tutor: Peter Kemp is the Chief Fiction Reviewer for the Sunday Times and a Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford.

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES

Critical Reading

Close critical analysis is the basis of the study of literature. We shall look at a selection of texts from the 19th to 21st centuries, both poetry and prose, paying attention to aspects of language and form, and using key concepts and terms of the critical idiom, in order to develop and hone the skills required for an attentive, effective, critical analysis of literary texts.

Tutor: Dr Sandie Byrne is University Lecturer and Director or Studies in English Literature and Creative Writing at Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. She was formerly Fellow and Tutor in English at Balliol College, Oxford, and Chair of English at the University of Lincoln.

Shakespeare on Stage and Screen

In this seminar we shall explore the many different ways in which Shakespeare can be performed on stage and screen. While referring to a wide range of titles, we shall focus our discussion on interpretations of three plays - Twelfth Night, Henry V and Macbeth. Viewing extracts which feature actors as diverse as Kenneth Branagh, Denzel Washington, Laurence Olivier and Judi Dench, we will explore some key differences between stage and screen Shakespeare, consider the variety of approaches taken by directors, and compare different interpretations of the same play or role.

Tutor: Dr John O’Connor is Visiting Senior Lecturer at Cornell University, USA, and was formerly Principal Lecturer in English at Westminster College, Oxford. He has also taught at the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Certification

• All students who complete the programme will receive an `attendance certificate`
• Those seeking credit at their home institution will receive a `detailed certificate` which details contact hours (for lectures and seminars), an assessment of their contribution to seminar discussions, grades achieved, and private study hours

Please note that, as Oxford University does not offer credit for this summer school, those wishing to obtain credit from their home institution for attending this programme must make appropriate arrangements with that institution in advance

Level and demands

Who is the programme for?

Main (graduate) programme

• Graduates with a subject-relevant academic background
• Teachers in high schools and colleges
• Professionals with an interest in study at university level

Undergraduate strand

• Senior undergraduates with at least two years` study of English literature at university level

Overview

This is an intensive programme of study taught to an informed international audience

Applicants should be confident that they are academically and linguistically prepared for such a programme

Participants are expected to

• undertake preparatory reading in advance of the programme
• attend all lectures and relevant seminar sessions
• be actively engaged with their seminar topics
• submit an assignment of 2000-3000 words in length for each course taken
• undertake approximately 96 hours of private study during the programme (elements of private study will include: reading and other preparation between seminar meetings, work in the library, writing papers, etc)

English language requirements

As students are expected to participate fully in seminar discussions and are required to produce written work it is important that applicants can demonstrate an appropriate level of proficiency in the four language skills – listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Applicants for whom English is not their first language must provide evidence of their competency in the form of an original certificate or a certified copy that is not more than two years old. These applicants must satisfy one of the following requirements:

• IELTS – minimum overall score of 7.0, with not less than 7.0 in each of the four components
• TOEFL iBT (internet-based) – minimum overall score of 100, with not less than 25 in each of the four components
• TOEFL PBT (paper-based) – minimum overall score of 600, with a Test of Written English (TWE) score of at least 4.5

For further information on language qualifications:

• Click here for IELTS
• Click here for TOEFL

However, non-native speakers of English who have successfully completed a full-time course of higher education in an institution where English is the language of instruction or who have significant business and professional experience in an English-speaking environment may not need to provide a certificate of English language qualification. Please contact the Programme Administrator for further details.

Disabled students (including those with mobility difficulties)

The aim of Oxford University Department for Continuing Education (OUDCE) is to treat all students equally and welcomes applications from people with disabilities. Individuals` needs are taken into account as far as possible, providing reasonable adaptations and assistance within the resources available. We ask that people let us know of any disability or special need (confidentially if required) so that we can help them participate as fully as possible.

When applying for OUDCE`s college-based summer schools, prospective students with mobility difficulties or visual or hearing impairments may want to make preliminary enquiries to the Programme Administrator, as the age and layout of these colleges often makes them user-unfriendly (although adaptations are often possible). Oxford, as an ancient city, tends to be difficult to navigate for people with disabilities. The number of very old buildings, designed in an age less sensitive to issues of disability, makes access to much of the city centre difficult. However, OUDCE will do as much as it is able to make study with the department possible.

Applicants should contact us if they will have problems gaining access to a bedroom or a teaching room that is located on upper or basement floors, or to the college dining hall (which is reached via a flight of stairs).

Accommodation

Location

Founded in 1314, Exeter College is one of the university`s oldest colleges and is situated in the heart of Oxford.

Students who choose to be resident on the summer school will have a single study bedroom in Exeter College and will take meals in the college dining hall.

Bedrooms are located up the four to nine floors of a staircase; bath and/or shower and toilet facilities on each staircase are shared.

A very limited number of rooms have private bathroom facilities (shower room and toilet) and these are available for an enhanced fee. Early application for these rooms is essential - ie by the first gathered field deadline of 1 February 2013.

Students cannot be accommodated at Exeter College either prior to or beyond their programme dates. Family members and/or friends who are not enrolled on this summer school cannot be accommodated in college.

Students who choose to attend the summer school on a non-resident basis are responsible for finding their own accommodation. Information on accommodation in Oxford can be found on the internet at:

• Conference Oxford
• Oxford Rooms
• Visit Oxfordshire

Please be aware that demand for accommodation in Oxford during the summer months is high

Exeter College has rooms which can be taken on a self-catering basis roughly one mile away from the main college site. For further information please contact the Assistant Steward by email: accommodation@exeter.ox.ac.uk

Libraries

• Students will be enrolled as readers at Oxford University`s main reference library, the Bodleian
• They will also have access to the English Faculty and Continuing Education Libraries

IT facilities

All students will be eligible to use the PCs and laser printer in Exeter College's computer room, which may be accessed 24 hours a day

Laptops: Cabled and wireless internet access

• For resident students, cabled internet access is available in all bedrooms - but not wireless
• For all students, wireless access is available in communal areas of the college

Payment

Programme fees

• Resident in Exeter College (standard room - with shared bathroom facilities) - £2,625
  Fees include tuition; access to IT facilities and libraries; accommodation, and meals in hall (except lunch on Saturday and Sunday)

• Resident in Exeter College (room with private bathroom facilities) - £2,875
  Fees include tuition; access to IT facilities and libraries; accommodation in a room with private bathroom facilities (shower room and toilet), and meals in hall (except lunch on Saturday and Sunday)

• Non-resident - £1,160
  Fees include tuition; access to IT facilities and libraries; the programme`s formal opening and closing receptions and dinners

Successful applicants who accept our offer of a place on the summer school will be invoiced for the appropriate programme fee once they have been enrolled on the programme.

Students are required to pay the full fee within 30 days of their invoice date. Late applicants (see 'Apply for this course', below) are required to pay the full fee within 7 days of their invoice date. Places will not be held for students whose fees are not paid in full by the due date. In no circumstances will students be admitted to the summer school unless all fees have been paid in full.

Cancellations

All enrolments are subject to OUDCE's Terms and Conditions for Course Registration and Fee Payment

If you wish to cancel you must inform the Programme Administrator by email at ipenglit@conted.ox.ac.uk

OUDCE reserves the right to alter details of any course should illness or any other emergency prevent a tutor from teaching, and to cancel a course or seminar if exceptionally low enrolment would make it educationally unviable.

The status of this course will be reviewed on 15 April 2013. If it is likely that individual seminars or the course may be cancelled, all those affected will be notified in writing within seven days, and possible options clearly explained.

If students have not heard from OUDCE by 22 April 2013, they should assume that the course and their seminars will be running; there is no need to contact us to confirm. They may wish to delay finalising their travel arrangements until after this date.

Applicants are very strongly recommended to take out vacation cancellation insurance, and should consult their travel agent and/or insurer for information and advice. Please note that OUDCE does not provide any insurance cover.

Apply for this course