Duplicate of Crime in Law, Literature and Culture

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• explain what literary and cultural depictions of themes such as justice, desert, power and inequality bring to bear on law and policy;
• form your own independent view on relevant law and policy in the light of a range of critical perspectives;
• critically analyse a broad range of texts including legislation, case law, fiction and drama, and connections between them;
• interpret, analyse and critically comment upon the decisions and reasoning in criminal case law.
• evaluate critically the specific criminal law and policies studied comment on and evaluate arguments put forward by others;

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• understand the character and use of 'principles': their interpretation, arguments surrounding them, their effects and wider impacts;
• read texts 'critically', that is to say, to understand the subtext of a piece of writing, whether in a legal, literary or some other context;
• conduct research and better organise and manage your time and personal (intellectual) resources.
• critically analyse texts and contexts in such a way that will help to broaden your analytical skills more form your own independent view of relevant law, policy and critique;

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• literary, cultural and critical themes as they apply to criminal law.
• criminal legal rules both in England & Wales and other jurisdictions on violence and sex;

The themes studied on this module include: consent, rape and rape 'myths', victim-blaming, sadomasochism, sexually transmitted infections, metaphors of sexuality and violence. These are considered in the light of a number of critical perspectives including liberalism, feminism, psychoanalysis, post-colonialism, language analysis.

In examining the above themes, legal texts studied include: statutes such as the Sexual Offences Act 2003, the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, as well as legal cases (mainly English) on crimes of violence and sex.

Non-legal texts discussed alongside the legal ones include films, visual arts, and modern and classical literature.

Teaching will be by ten 2-hour seminars across a single semester (20 hours total).

As part of the learning activities you are expected to prepare for the individual seminars to the appropriate level as instructed by the module coordinator. You are expected to prepare and deliver a group presentation.

Preparation for and participation in weekly seminars will develop:

• Knowledge and understanding of relevant law, literature and critical perspectives;
• Your ability to evaluate relevant case law, literature and critical perspectives to assess the underlying concerns about norms;
• Effectiveness in working both individually and also in a group towards a common end.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Essay

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback: Written feedback on a standard form, as well as a mark.
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.