EN3VW-Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury

Module Provider: English Literature
Number of credits: 20 [10 ECTS credits]
Level:6
Terms in which taught: Autumn term module
Pre-requisites:
Non-modular pre-requisites: English Part 1
Co-requisites:
Modules excluded:
Current from: 2023/4

Module Convenor: Dr Madeleine Davies
Email: m.k.davies@reading.ac.uk

Type of module:

Summary module description:

Virginia Woolf is a crucial reference point for women’s writing and feminist criticism.  This module provides students with knowledge and understanding of selected novels and essays by Virginia Woolf, and explores key issues including her challenges to concepts of boundaries, hierarchies, sex, sexuality and difference, and her attention to debates concerning the social, political, cultural and economic marginalisation of women in the early years of the Twentieth Century. The module emphasises Woolf’s novels, but seminars are also devoted to her critical essays and ‘political’ writing. Discussion of ‘Bloomsbury’ ethics and art weaves throughout the module. The debates included in the module connect with pacifism, the writing of the city, psychoanalysis, the challenge to heteronormativity, the body, and the tension between female creativity and procreativity.

Aims:

This module is designed to provide students with knowledge and understanding of the novels of Virginia Woolf in their Bloomsbury and Modernist contexts and to develop critical awareness of a range of impulses circulating in her work. Students will acquire an understanding of the selected texts, and will become familiar with a variety of critical readings of them.

Assessable learning outcomes:

By the end of the module students will be able to:

• exercise skills of close textual analysis, and demonstrate an understanding of the texts selected for study


• select, extend and challenge established critical readings of Woolf.


• engage with the socio-cultural and political debates positioned in Woolf’s writing.


• form a strong sense of the historical context of the inter-war period


• construct and express coherent critical arguments in the Portfolio assessment.

Additional outcomes:

Written communication skills will be developed, together with critical, interpretative and analytical abilities. Students will also learn to use IT resources efficiently. A ‘Woolf Walking Tour’ in London early in the module helps students to understand the ‘geography’ of the texts as well as to develop a socio-cultural and historical knowledge of Woolf’s city-scapes. 

The seminar preparation documents and ongoing announcements regarding sources of information will be published on Blackboard and the Portfolio link will also be made available here. All work will be assessed and graded online. A Woolf-related ‘Box of Broadcasts’ is also available on Blackboard and a Talis reading list is linked to the ‘Virginia Woolf’ module site. Students are expected to use the VLE consistently throughout the module.

Outline content:

The module addresses selected novels, essays, and short stories of Virginia Woolf.  These will be read critically in the context of related developments associated with Modernism and with modernity.  Central to the module will be ideas involved in Woolf’s challenge to narrative convention, her interrogation of patriarchal values (and the narrative expression of them), her re-perception and relocation of time and ‘space’, and her re-inscription of notions of hierarchies and boundaries.  Her relations with artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant and the critics including Lytton Strachey and Roger Fry will be discussed, as appropriate, in the light of her literary approaches and techniques.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods:

The module is taught through one three hour seminar per week, for which students are required to do preparatory reading. Formative assessment is via feedback on the early stages of the Portfolio; the feedback will also be ‘feedforward’, designed to help students enhance the contents of the developing Portfolio (to b submitted by or on the final day of the term in which the module is taught). This supplies students with a ‘formative’ opportunity to enhance their work. W ith the consent of the module convenor, students may also undertake a placement through which they will learn how to apply the knowledge and skills gained in studying for this module in a professional context outside the University.

Contact hours:

	Autumn	Spring	Summer
Seminars	30
Tutorials	0.5
Guided independent study:	169.5
Total hours by term		0	0
Total hours for module	200

Summative Assessment Methods:

Method	Percentage
Portfolio	100

Summative assessment- Examinations:

Summative assessment- Coursework and in-class tests:

Summative Assessment Methods (100%) - work which always contributes towards the overall module mark:

The Portfolio consists of four elements: divided into two assessment deadlines: 

Assessment 1: submission of Section 1 of the Portfolio by the Friday of Week 5 of the term in which the module is taught. This submission is worth 20% of the overall mark for the module.

Assessment 2: submission of sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Portfolio by the final Friday of the term in which the module is taught. This submission is worth 80% of the overall mark for the module. 

The Portfolio therefore consists of the following elements:  

• a 1000 word survey of secondary critical material (submitted at the end of Week 5 of the term in which the module is taught and worth 20% of the overall mark for the module)


• A 1500-word piece of independent research on ‘Bloomsbury’. Topics will be supplied, for example: Bloomsbury art (including post-impressionism); Bloomsbury philosophy (Moore, Russell, Bergson); Bloomsbury politics (Socialism and pacifism); Bloomsbury literature (the writers of Bloomsbury – Forster, Strachey, Eliot). Students are also free to choose their own ‘Bloomsbury’ topic, with the agreement and advice of the module convenor. For students undertaking a work placement, a report written to the same length, relating the placement to the emphases of the module, will replace this section. Submitted on the final Friday of the term in which the module is taught and, together with sections 3 and 4, producing 80% of the mark for the module. 


• A 2500-word critical essay. Questions will be provided. Submitted on the final Friday of the term in which the module is taught and, together with sections 2 and 4, producing 80% of the overall mark for the module. 


• A full bibliography for elements 2 and 3. Submitted on the final Friday of the term in which the module is taught and, together with Sections 2 and 3, producing 80% of the overall mark for the module. 

Formative assessment methods:

Students will submit their developing Portfolio for formative feedback by Week 7 of term. They will submit this work using a Word document attached to an email. The module convenor will provide full feedback on the contents of the Portfolio-in-progress, providing ‘feedforward’ to enhance the summative submission. This formative stage will encourage students to begin preparing the Portfolio in a timely manner and it will provide them with an opportunity to act on the feedback.

Penalties for late submission:

The Support Centres will apply the following penalties for work submitted late:

• where the piece of work is submitted after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): 10% of the total marks available for that piece of work will be deducted from the mark for each working day (or part thereof) following the deadline up to a total of five working days;
• where the piece of work is submitted more than five working days after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline): a mark of zero will be recorded.

The University policy statement on penalties for late submission can be found at: https://www.reading.ac.uk/cqsd/-/media/project/functions/cqsd/documents/cqsd-old-site-documents/penaltiesforlatesubmission.pdf
You are strongly advised to ensure that coursework is submitted by the relevant deadline. You should note that it is advisable to submit work in an unfinished state rather than to fail to submit any work.

Assessment requirements for a pass:
A mark of at least 40% overall.

Reassessment arrangements:

Re-assessment in August. The Portfolio must be resubmitted by the end of the third week in August.

Additional Costs (specified where applicable):

1) Required text books: Students will need to buy the primary texts for the module, that is, those texts used for seminar discussion. All the individual essays are contained within a single volume which is a required purchase and there are four additional novels to buy. The library holds some copies and electronic versions but students generally prefer to own their primary texts. The library has significant sticks of secondary reading materials and students do not need to buy these books.

2) Specialist equipment or materials: 

3) Specialist clothing, footwear or headgear: 

4) Printing and binding: 

5) Computers and devices with a particular specification: 

6) Travel, accommodation and subsistence: 

Last updated: 30 March 2023