This seminar engages with theories on culture, narrative, and mediation. Active class participation is required.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course on August 30th will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

This course is a review and examination of the developing field of ecocriticism in literary studies, and how ecocriticism itself as a way of examining environmental narration and imaginative literature is facing a crisis of its own.

We will look into the notion of “environment” and how literary texts portray and work with environments for narrative purposes.  We will consider environments in a  broadened sense, including not only  the purely physical, but also the digital environment and other non-physical environments such as  light, time, the human psyche and language itself.  How do writers navigate the relationship between narration and environment in its various manifestations.

We are likely to read fiction that allows us to explore the nature of storytelling in the midst of environmental crisis.  These works may include Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees; Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang; James Bradley’s Clade; as well as Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice; Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; Memory of Water by Emmi Igtaranta; Oil on Water by Helon Habila; and Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad.  We may also read essays in the anthology Solastalgia, edited by Paul Bogard; a collection of short creative works by thirty four writers on our emotions in the face of disappearing worlds.

We may also read some theory and philosophy now being written on the subject as applied to literature; books such as The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han; Facing Gaia by Bruno Latour; as well as tracts on the environmental crises such as The Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf and A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in The Fate of Civilization by John Perlin, as well as essays by theorists Donna Haraway and Hito Steyerl. 

The final reading list will be posted later.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on the main linguistic and cultural areas of the Americas.

This research project is linked to the course ENS506G From Gothic Beginnings to Twentieth Century Fantasy and Romance: The British Historical Novel 1764 to 1950.

The course introduces students to the development of the British historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century. Its origins will be traced back to what is seen as the first Gothic novel as well as examining in some detail Walter Scott’s Waverley, which generally is referred to as the first historical novel. The course then outlines the development of the historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century and students read selected texts from this time period. Within this framework, the course explores the way that history has been used by writers across a variety of genres, such as romance and adventure. The course will also include discussions of history in television and film where relevant, along with discussions of relevant theories by both historians and cultural theorists.

The research project involves writing a research paper of 6500-7500 words (75%) and a short essay of 1800-2500 words (25%) OR writing a longer research essay of 8000-10000 words (see below on course assessment). For the short essay, students choose from a list of essay topics given out to students in ENS506G (or come up with their own topic, see below). For the research paper, students choose a topic of their own (or with the teacher’s help); please note that the teacher needs to approve your topic of choice.

The teacher will meet with the students registered for this course on a regular basis to discuss the research paper. Dates to be confirmed.

What does it mean to say that a word or sentence has a meaning? How do we characterise that meaning and how can we study it? How can we encode meanings within a linguistic resource or annotate them in a corpus? These are some of the questions considered in this course, which is intended as a selective survey rather than a comprehensive overview and which draws on a range of research papers in theoretical, experimental and computational linguistics.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on main trends in literature and film in different parts of the Americas.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This course will introduce the key methods of psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience in research on language. We will discuss how the brain processes meaning and syntax, in addition to topics such as bilingualism, speech production, language development and comprehension of indirect language (such as irony). At the end of the course students will get insights into recent research on the genetics of language.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Following up on The British Historical Novel 1764-1950, this course (though also independent of the previous course) traces the development of the British historical novel from the second half of the 20th century to the present day. It explores the way that history has been used by writers of the period across a variety of genres. Historical theory by historians and cultural theorists is also looked at in some detail, where relevant.

NB. The course is linked to the undergraduate course ENS607G The British Historical Novel since 1950; students in ENS225F attend classes in ENS607G. Also, the teacher will meet with the students registered for this course two or three times during the term (online if necessary) to discuss the research paper and students’ progress. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course on August 30th will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

This course is a review and examination of the developing field of ecocriticism in literary studies, and how ecocriticism itself as a way of examining environmental narration and imaginative literature is facing a crisis of its own.

We will look into the notion of “environment” and how literary texts portray and work with environments for narrative purposes.  We will consider environments in a  broadened sense, including not only  the purely physical, but also the digital environment and other non-physical environments such as  light, time, the human psyche and language itself.  How do writers navigate the relationship between narration and environment in its various manifestations.

We are likely to read fiction that allows us to explore the nature of storytelling in the midst of environmental crisis.  These works may include Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees; Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang; James Bradley’s Clade; as well as Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice; Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; Memory of Water by Emmi Igtaranta; Oil on Water by Helon Habila; and Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad.  We may also read essays in the anthology Solastalgia, edited by Paul Bogard; a collection of short creative works by thirty four writers on our emotions in the face of disappearing worlds.

We may also read some theory and philosophy now being written on the subject as applied to literature; books such as The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han; Facing Gaia by Bruno Latour; as well as tracts on the environmental crises such as The Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf and A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in The Fate of Civilization by John Perlin, as well as essays by theorists Donna Haraway and Hito Steyerl. 

The final reading list will be posted later.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on the main linguistic and cultural areas of the Americas.

This research project is linked to the course ENS506G From Gothic Beginnings to Twentieth Century Fantasy and Romance: The British Historical Novel 1764 to 1950.

The course introduces students to the development of the British historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century. Its origins will be traced back to what is seen as the first Gothic novel as well as examining in some detail Walter Scott’s Waverley, which generally is referred to as the first historical novel. The course then outlines the development of the historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century and students read selected texts from this time period. Within this framework, the course explores the way that history has been used by writers across a variety of genres, such as romance and adventure. The course will also include discussions of history in television and film where relevant, along with discussions of relevant theories by both historians and cultural theorists.

The research project involves writing a research paper of 6500-7500 words (75%) and a short essay of 1800-2500 words (25%) OR writing a longer research essay of 8000-10000 words (see below on course assessment). For the short essay, students choose from a list of essay topics given out to students in ENS506G (or come up with their own topic, see below). For the research paper, students choose a topic of their own (or with the teacher’s help); please note that the teacher needs to approve your topic of choice.

The teacher will meet with the students registered for this course on a regular basis to discuss the research paper. Dates to be confirmed.

What does it mean to say that a word or sentence has a meaning? How do we characterise that meaning and how can we study it? How can we encode meanings within a linguistic resource or annotate them in a corpus? These are some of the questions considered in this course, which is intended as a selective survey rather than a comprehensive overview and which draws on a range of research papers in theoretical, experimental and computational linguistics.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

MA thesis in English.

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on main trends in literature and film in different parts of the Americas.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This course will introduce the key methods of psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience in research on language. We will discuss how the brain processes meaning and syntax, in addition to topics such as bilingualism, speech production, language development and comprehension of indirect language (such as irony). At the end of the course students will get insights into recent research on the genetics of language.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Following up on The British Historical Novel 1764-1950, this course (though also independent of the previous course) traces the development of the British historical novel from the second half of the 20th century to the present day. It explores the way that history has been used by writers of the period across a variety of genres. Historical theory by historians and cultural theorists is also looked at in some detail, where relevant.

NB. The course is linked to the undergraduate course ENS607G The British Historical Novel since 1950; students in ENS225F attend classes in ENS607G. Also, the teacher will meet with the students registered for this course two or three times during the term (online if necessary) to discuss the research paper and students’ progress. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

MA-thesis in English.

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

In the courses Communication channels I and Communication channels II, the basics of methods for the dissemination of cultural material in the humanities and social sciences are presented. Communication channels I is in the fall semester, while Communication channels II is in the spring semester. 

In Communication channels I, the students are working with a) text and images in the first half of the semester and b) short documentaries in the second half of the course. Each subject weighs 50% in the course. Concerning a) Students will receive training in article writing and discourse analysis on the one hand and use of images and image analysis on the other.  Concerning b) Students work on making short documentaries. It includes basic training in screenwriting, shooting and editing, and students work in groups on a documentary, according to a specific theme. 

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Analysis of texts and images
2. An article with an image on a specific theme for publication, about 800 words.
3. A group project where students work on a short documentary that is shown at the end of the course. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course. The course is not taught remotely.

In the course Communication channels II during the spring semester the students work with the following communication methods: a) oral presentation and b) exhibitions of cultural and historical material. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects.

The students will work with the basics of oral presentation and practice in smaller and larger groups. Basic issues regarding the organization of conferences and seminars and their management will also be reviewed and a conference is held where all students present their projects. Digital communication will also be integrated into this section. Following is a section about exhibitions with connection to digital communication. The basics of exhibitions and different ways of presentation will be discussed.  The basics of digital communication will be covered, what are the main channels, advantages and disadvantages, and what rules apply to the presentation of texts on the web.

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Lecture at a conference and other projects in that context
2. Exhibition analysis and a practical project in connection with exhibitions organized by the City History Museum (Borgarsögusafn)
3. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course.

The course is not taught remotely.

This seminar engages with theories on culture, narrative, and mediation. Active class participation is required.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course on August 30th will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

This course is a review and examination of the developing field of ecocriticism in literary studies, and how ecocriticism itself as a way of examining environmental narration and imaginative literature is facing a crisis of its own.

We will look into the notion of “environment” and how literary texts portray and work with environments for narrative purposes.  We will consider environments in a  broadened sense, including not only  the purely physical, but also the digital environment and other non-physical environments such as  light, time, the human psyche and language itself.  How do writers navigate the relationship between narration and environment in its various manifestations.

We are likely to read fiction that allows us to explore the nature of storytelling in the midst of environmental crisis.  These works may include Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees; Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang; James Bradley’s Clade; as well as Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice; Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; Memory of Water by Emmi Igtaranta; Oil on Water by Helon Habila; and Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad.  We may also read essays in the anthology Solastalgia, edited by Paul Bogard; a collection of short creative works by thirty four writers on our emotions in the face of disappearing worlds.

We may also read some theory and philosophy now being written on the subject as applied to literature; books such as The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han; Facing Gaia by Bruno Latour; as well as tracts on the environmental crises such as The Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf and A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in The Fate of Civilization by John Perlin, as well as essays by theorists Donna Haraway and Hito Steyerl. 

The final reading list will be posted later.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on the main linguistic and cultural areas of the Americas.

This research project is linked to the course ENS506G From Gothic Beginnings to Twentieth Century Fantasy and Romance: The British Historical Novel 1764 to 1950.

The course introduces students to the development of the British historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century. Its origins will be traced back to what is seen as the first Gothic novel as well as examining in some detail Walter Scott’s Waverley, which generally is referred to as the first historical novel. The course then outlines the development of the historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century and students read selected texts from this time period. Within this framework, the course explores the way that history has been used by writers across a variety of genres, such as romance and adventure. The course will also include discussions of history in television and film where relevant, along with discussions of relevant theories by both historians and cultural theorists.

The research project involves writing a research paper of 6500-7500 words (75%) and a short essay of 1800-2500 words (25%) OR writing a longer research essay of 8000-10000 words (see below on course assessment). For the short essay, students choose from a list of essay topics given out to students in ENS506G (or come up with their own topic, see below). For the research paper, students choose a topic of their own (or with the teacher’s help); please note that the teacher needs to approve your topic of choice.

The teacher will meet with the students registered for this course on a regular basis to discuss the research paper. Dates to be confirmed.

What does it mean to say that a word or sentence has a meaning? How do we characterise that meaning and how can we study it? How can we encode meanings within a linguistic resource or annotate them in a corpus? These are some of the questions considered in this course, which is intended as a selective survey rather than a comprehensive overview and which draws on a range of research papers in theoretical, experimental and computational linguistics.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on main trends in literature and film in different parts of the Americas.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This course will introduce the key methods of psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience in research on language. We will discuss how the brain processes meaning and syntax, in addition to topics such as bilingualism, speech production, language development and comprehension of indirect language (such as irony). At the end of the course students will get insights into recent research on the genetics of language.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Following up on The British Historical Novel 1764-1950, this course (though also independent of the previous course) traces the development of the British historical novel from the second half of the 20th century to the present day. It explores the way that history has been used by writers of the period across a variety of genres. Historical theory by historians and cultural theorists is also looked at in some detail, where relevant.

NB. The course is linked to the undergraduate course ENS607G The British Historical Novel since 1950; students in ENS225F attend classes in ENS607G. Also, the teacher will meet with the students registered for this course two or three times during the term (online if necessary) to discuss the research paper and students’ progress. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course on August 30th will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

This course is a review and examination of the developing field of ecocriticism in literary studies, and how ecocriticism itself as a way of examining environmental narration and imaginative literature is facing a crisis of its own.

We will look into the notion of “environment” and how literary texts portray and work with environments for narrative purposes.  We will consider environments in a  broadened sense, including not only  the purely physical, but also the digital environment and other non-physical environments such as  light, time, the human psyche and language itself.  How do writers navigate the relationship between narration and environment in its various manifestations.

We are likely to read fiction that allows us to explore the nature of storytelling in the midst of environmental crisis.  These works may include Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees; Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang; James Bradley’s Clade; as well as Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice; Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; Memory of Water by Emmi Igtaranta; Oil on Water by Helon Habila; and Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad.  We may also read essays in the anthology Solastalgia, edited by Paul Bogard; a collection of short creative works by thirty four writers on our emotions in the face of disappearing worlds.

We may also read some theory and philosophy now being written on the subject as applied to literature; books such as The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han; Facing Gaia by Bruno Latour; as well as tracts on the environmental crises such as The Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf and A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in The Fate of Civilization by John Perlin, as well as essays by theorists Donna Haraway and Hito Steyerl. 

The final reading list will be posted later.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on the main linguistic and cultural areas of the Americas.

This research project is linked to the course ENS506G From Gothic Beginnings to Twentieth Century Fantasy and Romance: The British Historical Novel 1764 to 1950.

The course introduces students to the development of the British historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century. Its origins will be traced back to what is seen as the first Gothic novel as well as examining in some detail Walter Scott’s Waverley, which generally is referred to as the first historical novel. The course then outlines the development of the historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century and students read selected texts from this time period. Within this framework, the course explores the way that history has been used by writers across a variety of genres, such as romance and adventure. The course will also include discussions of history in television and film where relevant, along with discussions of relevant theories by both historians and cultural theorists.

The research project involves writing a research paper of 6500-7500 words (75%) and a short essay of 1800-2500 words (25%) OR writing a longer research essay of 8000-10000 words (see below on course assessment). For the short essay, students choose from a list of essay topics given out to students in ENS506G (or come up with their own topic, see below). For the research paper, students choose a topic of their own (or with the teacher’s help); please note that the teacher needs to approve your topic of choice.

The teacher will meet with the students registered for this course on a regular basis to discuss the research paper. Dates to be confirmed.

What does it mean to say that a word or sentence has a meaning? How do we characterise that meaning and how can we study it? How can we encode meanings within a linguistic resource or annotate them in a corpus? These are some of the questions considered in this course, which is intended as a selective survey rather than a comprehensive overview and which draws on a range of research papers in theoretical, experimental and computational linguistics.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

MA thesis in English.

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on main trends in literature and film in different parts of the Americas.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This course will introduce the key methods of psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience in research on language. We will discuss how the brain processes meaning and syntax, in addition to topics such as bilingualism, speech production, language development and comprehension of indirect language (such as irony). At the end of the course students will get insights into recent research on the genetics of language.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Following up on The British Historical Novel 1764-1950, this course (though also independent of the previous course) traces the development of the British historical novel from the second half of the 20th century to the present day. It explores the way that history has been used by writers of the period across a variety of genres. Historical theory by historians and cultural theorists is also looked at in some detail, where relevant.

NB. The course is linked to the undergraduate course ENS607G The British Historical Novel since 1950; students in ENS225F attend classes in ENS607G. Also, the teacher will meet with the students registered for this course two or three times during the term (online if necessary) to discuss the research paper and students’ progress. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

MA-thesis in English.

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

In the courses Communication channels I and Communication channels II, the basics of methods for the dissemination of cultural material in the humanities and social sciences are presented. Communication channels I is in the fall semester, while Communication channels II is in the spring semester. 

In Communication channels I, the students are working with a) text and images in the first half of the semester and b) short documentaries in the second half of the course. Each subject weighs 50% in the course. Concerning a) Students will receive training in article writing and discourse analysis on the one hand and use of images and image analysis on the other.  Concerning b) Students work on making short documentaries. It includes basic training in screenwriting, shooting and editing, and students work in groups on a documentary, according to a specific theme. 

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Analysis of texts and images
2. An article with an image on a specific theme for publication, about 800 words.
3. A group project where students work on a short documentary that is shown at the end of the course. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course. The course is not taught remotely.

In the course Communication channels II during the spring semester the students work with the following communication methods: a) oral presentation and b) exhibitions of cultural and historical material. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects.

The students will work with the basics of oral presentation and practice in smaller and larger groups. Basic issues regarding the organization of conferences and seminars and their management will also be reviewed and a conference is held where all students present their projects. Digital communication will also be integrated into this section. Following is a section about exhibitions with connection to digital communication. The basics of exhibitions and different ways of presentation will be discussed.  The basics of digital communication will be covered, what are the main channels, advantages and disadvantages, and what rules apply to the presentation of texts on the web.

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Lecture at a conference and other projects in that context
2. Exhibition analysis and a practical project in connection with exhibitions organized by the City History Museum (Borgarsögusafn)
3. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course.

The course is not taught remotely.

This seminar engages with theories on culture, narrative, and mediation. Active class participation is required.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course concerns the diverse connections between culture and language, as seen from the perspective of cultural history, social sciences and linguistics. Ancient and modern world languages will be introduced and their origins, influence and effects investigated. Written and spoken language will be discussed: what sorts of things are written, why and how? Rules and alternate perspectives on the nature of langauge will be considered, raising the question of how we understand man with respect to thought and language.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course on August 30th will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

This course is a review and examination of the developing field of ecocriticism in literary studies, and how ecocriticism itself as a way of examining environmental narration and imaginative literature is facing a crisis of its own.

We will look into the notion of “environment” and how literary texts portray and work with environments for narrative purposes.  We will consider environments in a  broadened sense, including not only  the purely physical, but also the digital environment and other non-physical environments such as  light, time, the human psyche and language itself.  How do writers navigate the relationship between narration and environment in its various manifestations.

We are likely to read fiction that allows us to explore the nature of storytelling in the midst of environmental crisis.  These works may include Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees; Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang; James Bradley’s Clade; as well as Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice; Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; Memory of Water by Emmi Igtaranta; Oil on Water by Helon Habila; and Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad.  We may also read essays in the anthology Solastalgia, edited by Paul Bogard; a collection of short creative works by thirty four writers on our emotions in the face of disappearing worlds.

We may also read some theory and philosophy now being written on the subject as applied to literature; books such as The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han; Facing Gaia by Bruno Latour; as well as tracts on the environmental crises such as The Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf and A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in The Fate of Civilization by John Perlin, as well as essays by theorists Donna Haraway and Hito Steyerl. 

The final reading list will be posted later.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on the main linguistic and cultural areas of the Americas.

This research project is linked to the course ENS506G From Gothic Beginnings to Twentieth Century Fantasy and Romance: The British Historical Novel 1764 to 1950.

The course introduces students to the development of the British historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century. Its origins will be traced back to what is seen as the first Gothic novel as well as examining in some detail Walter Scott’s Waverley, which generally is referred to as the first historical novel. The course then outlines the development of the historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century and students read selected texts from this time period. Within this framework, the course explores the way that history has been used by writers across a variety of genres, such as romance and adventure. The course will also include discussions of history in television and film where relevant, along with discussions of relevant theories by both historians and cultural theorists.

The research project involves writing a research paper of 6500-7500 words (75%) and a short essay of 1800-2500 words (25%) OR writing a longer research essay of 8000-10000 words (see below on course assessment). For the short essay, students choose from a list of essay topics given out to students in ENS506G (or come up with their own topic, see below). For the research paper, students choose a topic of their own (or with the teacher’s help); please note that the teacher needs to approve your topic of choice.

The teacher will meet with the students registered for this course on a regular basis to discuss the research paper. Dates to be confirmed.

What does it mean to say that a word or sentence has a meaning? How do we characterise that meaning and how can we study it? How can we encode meanings within a linguistic resource or annotate them in a corpus? These are some of the questions considered in this course, which is intended as a selective survey rather than a comprehensive overview and which draws on a range of research papers in theoretical, experimental and computational linguistics.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on main trends in literature and film in different parts of the Americas.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This course will introduce the key methods of psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience in research on language. We will discuss how the brain processes meaning and syntax, in addition to topics such as bilingualism, speech production, language development and comprehension of indirect language (such as irony). At the end of the course students will get insights into recent research on the genetics of language.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Following up on The British Historical Novel 1764-1950, this course (though also independent of the previous course) traces the development of the British historical novel from the second half of the 20th century to the present day. It explores the way that history has been used by writers of the period across a variety of genres. Historical theory by historians and cultural theorists is also looked at in some detail, where relevant.

NB. The course is linked to the undergraduate course ENS607G The British Historical Novel since 1950; students in ENS225F attend classes in ENS607G. Also, the teacher will meet with the students registered for this course two or three times during the term (online if necessary) to discuss the research paper and students’ progress. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

All MA students in English are required to complete this seminar where they discuss relevant approaches to theory and research, their own research projects, preparing to introduce their findings at conferences and whorkshops, in Iceland or abroad. Evaluation is by participation: 2 short assignments and a presentation of a paper related to the student's coursework or final essay.

This course covers the nature of vocabulary acquisition: how vocabulary develops, is learned and taught. Various factors will be analyzed in detail, including, the role of pronunciation, word frequency, various learning strategies for vocabulary growth and considerable attention will be drawn to current research methodology in Vocabulary Acquisition. Students will review research as well as conduct a mini study.

Taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 am (2. and 3. year students only)

You are the perfect candidate if you have a burning desire to write fiction or poetry, and enjoy reading good books.

Aims include:

1. To sharpen awareness and improve skills through exercises in writing, and especially through revision

2. To provide practical criticism of work-in-progress in a workshop setting, along with advice about revisions and improvisation.

In addition to invoking the muse, students will learn practical writing skills such as organization, structure, characterization and dialogue. The course will also involve the examination of the work of key novel and short story writers, and poets. Throughout the course, students will develop their own work as well as improving their critical skills. Students will complete a short story or a small collection of poems by the end of the course.

Attendance requirement is 100% - you must attend one 1-hour presentation and one 2-hour workshop session per week. Not suitable for distance students.

Students who fulfil the prerequisites will be signed up. Sign up is on first come first served bases and there are 6 seats reserved for MA students and 6 seats reserved for BA students. Any unfilled seats for the course on August 30th will be offered to students on the waiting list. 

What does Sunset Boulevard, double entendres, self-censorship, the Coen Brothers, and #metoo have in common? They all reveal that Hollywood is not quite the fantasy it poses to be.

A very real place and industry within Los Angeles, California, Hollywood has led in film production since the beginning of narrative film, yet its magic is created within the bland and sometimes devastating concrete lots, sound stages and offices of producers and agents.

This course aims to explore the reality of Hollywood and how it has functioned over time, to examine and critique its presentation and reputation through film and media. The course includes critical viewings of films that are based on both the myth and reality of Hollywood as well as critical readings on historical context, news/gossip, and the history of American narrative film.

Only 35 seats are available for ENS352M. Once the course is filled please contact Nikkita (nhp1@hi.is) to be added onto a waiting list in case a spot opens up.

This course is a review and examination of the developing field of ecocriticism in literary studies, and how ecocriticism itself as a way of examining environmental narration and imaginative literature is facing a crisis of its own.

We will look into the notion of “environment” and how literary texts portray and work with environments for narrative purposes.  We will consider environments in a  broadened sense, including not only  the purely physical, but also the digital environment and other non-physical environments such as  light, time, the human psyche and language itself.  How do writers navigate the relationship between narration and environment in its various manifestations.

We are likely to read fiction that allows us to explore the nature of storytelling in the midst of environmental crisis.  These works may include Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees; Edward Abbey’s The Monkey Wrench Gang; James Bradley’s Clade; as well as Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice; Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk; Memory of Water by Emmi Igtaranta; Oil on Water by Helon Habila; and Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad.  We may also read essays in the anthology Solastalgia, edited by Paul Bogard; a collection of short creative works by thirty four writers on our emotions in the face of disappearing worlds.

We may also read some theory and philosophy now being written on the subject as applied to literature; books such as The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han; Facing Gaia by Bruno Latour; as well as tracts on the environmental crises such as The Darkness Manifesto by Johan Eklöf and A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in The Fate of Civilization by John Perlin, as well as essays by theorists Donna Haraway and Hito Steyerl. 

The final reading list will be posted later.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on the main linguistic and cultural areas of the Americas.

This research project is linked to the course ENS506G From Gothic Beginnings to Twentieth Century Fantasy and Romance: The British Historical Novel 1764 to 1950.

The course introduces students to the development of the British historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century. Its origins will be traced back to what is seen as the first Gothic novel as well as examining in some detail Walter Scott’s Waverley, which generally is referred to as the first historical novel. The course then outlines the development of the historical novel up to the middle of the 20th century and students read selected texts from this time period. Within this framework, the course explores the way that history has been used by writers across a variety of genres, such as romance and adventure. The course will also include discussions of history in television and film where relevant, along with discussions of relevant theories by both historians and cultural theorists.

The research project involves writing a research paper of 6500-7500 words (75%) and a short essay of 1800-2500 words (25%) OR writing a longer research essay of 8000-10000 words (see below on course assessment). For the short essay, students choose from a list of essay topics given out to students in ENS506G (or come up with their own topic, see below). For the research paper, students choose a topic of their own (or with the teacher’s help); please note that the teacher needs to approve your topic of choice.

The teacher will meet with the students registered for this course on a regular basis to discuss the research paper. Dates to be confirmed.

What does it mean to say that a word or sentence has a meaning? How do we characterise that meaning and how can we study it? How can we encode meanings within a linguistic resource or annotate them in a corpus? These are some of the questions considered in this course, which is intended as a selective survey rather than a comprehensive overview and which draws on a range of research papers in theoretical, experimental and computational linguistics.

This course will examine the ways in which medieval literature has influenced modern English Literature & Culture and how that influence is being adapted in the digital age. The course will focus on Norse Mythology and investigate how these narratives have become entwined in the fabric of modern western culture. From JRR Tolkien and Neil Gaiman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

The enchanted worlds that Scottish writer J. M. Barrie created for Peter Pan, “the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up,” have been variously transformed by the author and others – not least the Disney Company and translations into most of the world’s languages. In this course we will examine some of the changes that Barrie’s characters and places have undergone through the passage of time through the prism of basic ideas and terms from adaptation theory. This is an intensive 6-week course with continuous assessment.

This is an overview course that introduces major theories of second language acquisition and how they influence language instruction. We will examine research on the cognitive, linguistic, individual, social and educational factors that affect the language learning process and language attainment. The role of input on language learning will be examined as well as the development of reading and writing skills in a second language. 

MA thesis in English.

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

This seminar provides a historical and cross-cultural overview on main trends in literature and film in different parts of the Americas.

Recent years have seen an increased focus on data collection and statistical analysis within the humanities. This is particularly apparent in growing branches such as psycholinguistics, cognitive literary studies and experimental philosophy, to name a few. The push towards quantitative methods occurs at a time where the validity and reliability of well-established statistical methods are called into question in other fields, with increased demands of replicability and open access as well as data protection and responsibility. In this course, students explore the value of quantitative methods in their field while getting training in the collection and analysis of data. A diverse set of research methods will be introduced, ranging from surveys to corpus analysis and experiments in which participants’ response to stimuli (such as words, texts or audio-visual materials) is quantified. Basic concepts in statistics will be reviewed, enabling students to know the difference between descriptive and inferential statistics, understand statistical significance and interpret visual representations of data in graphs. The course will be largely practical and students are expected to apply their knowledge of data collection and analysis under the instructor’s guidance. Students will work on a project within their own discipline but will also explore the possibility of cross-disciplinary work. Open source tools such as R Studio will be used for all assignments but no prior knowledge of the software or statistics in general is required. The course is suitable for all students within the humanities who want to collect quantitative data to answer interesting questions and could therefore be a useful preparation for a BA or MA project.

This course will introduce the key methods of psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience in research on language. We will discuss how the brain processes meaning and syntax, in addition to topics such as bilingualism, speech production, language development and comprehension of indirect language (such as irony). At the end of the course students will get insights into recent research on the genetics of language.

This is an overview course that introduces major research methods in second language acquisition and teaching. Qualitative and quantitative research methods will be explored and their role in interpreting second language development. Student will examine real studies, develop a research plan, and conduct a pilot study. 

Long before contemporary analyses of human-induced environmental degradation, Indigenous and feminist authors wrote stories that resisted hierarchies of the human over other lifeworlds. This course will use the themes, "feminism" and "environment" to study the works of women writers such as Leslie Marmon Silko, bell hooks, Willa Cather, Maria Lugones and Muriel Rukeyser whose writings deepen and problematize both terms. 

Together we will ask, how have colonial histories impacted which authors are seen as "environmental" or "feminist"?  How does environmental protection materialize in the works of these authors? Further, what does environmental literature mean and how could debates in feminist theory help us answer such questions?

Following up on The British Historical Novel 1764-1950, this course (though also independent of the previous course) traces the development of the British historical novel from the second half of the 20th century to the present day. It explores the way that history has been used by writers of the period across a variety of genres. Historical theory by historians and cultural theorists is also looked at in some detail, where relevant.

NB. The course is linked to the undergraduate course ENS607G The British Historical Novel since 1950; students in ENS225F attend classes in ENS607G. Also, the teacher will meet with the students registered for this course two or three times during the term (online if necessary) to discuss the research paper and students’ progress. 

Filled with suspense, murder, and mayhem as well as macabre beings and strange events, Gothic fiction emerged in the later part of the eighteenth century. Despite increasing criticism of the genre in the early nineteenth century, Gothic fiction morphed and proliferated during the Victorian Era, both in England and America, with aspects of it cropping up in various subgenres of literature during this period. Sometimes controversial, it has remained popular, owing largely to its unsettling plots and terrifying-- or terrified-- characters. Making the familiar strange and the strange stranger, this writing explores topics such as alienation, technology, taboo, human psychology, romance, and religion, to name a few. It also examines “Otherness” by depicting beings, groups, or identities that society wishes to repress or disavow, thus forcing readers to confront and occasionally even to challenge their fears. In this course, we will delve into the afore-mentioned subjects by focusing on select Gothic texts of the Romantic Period by British novelists such as Ann Radcliffe (The Italian), Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey), and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and by American writers such as Washington Irving (“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Fall of the House of Usher”).  

A favourite author of and inspiration to Jane Austen and keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, Frances Burney (1752-1840) was an eighteenth-century English novelist and playwright who is also known as Fanny Burney. Burney lived in France during the Napoleonic Wars and her French husband Alexander D’Arblay had supported the French Revolution, a political theme covered in her novel The Wanderer. Her novel Camilla (1796), sold as a subscription, earned her an incredibly large sum that enabled her to buy a house for her family. Throughout her life, Burney kept journals that serve as a record of her time in the eighteenth-century court, eighteenth-century artistic and intellectual high society, and of her time in France. Burney’s work engages with issues of class, inheritance, charity, and political struggles in France and Britain. We will read Burney’s novels and extracts from her letters and diaries. This course will cover the social, political, economic, and protofeminist commentary in Burney’s work, her narrative style, details of her life, and her influence on other novelists, such as Austen.

Why are we terrified and fascinated by monsters? Why do they disgust us and at the same time excite our desire? What does monstrosity as the ultimate form of otherness teach us about human identity and society? How do cultural ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nationhood, and class spawn our notions of monstrosity? In this course we will grapple with these questions by looking at a sampling of grotesque, transgressive, hybridized, disfigured, and otherwise hideous forms of being in Middle English literature: monstrous races, werewolves, ghosts, giants, demons, gods, and fantastic beasts. We will read widely across genres, including chivalric romance, travel writing, fables, hagiography, religious texts, lyric poetry and more. Critical readings will be drawn from a variety of perspectives (deconstruction, post-humanism, psychoanalysis, gender criticism, ecocritical theory) to reflect the complex and multidisciplinary nature of the topic.

The European intellectual tradition is characterized by the strong links between academia and society. Many of the most important European thinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries worked outside of the universities – and many of those who did pursue an ordinary academic career also were public commentators frequently intervening in political discussion of the day and in some cases gaining considerable influence. In this course we present a selection of European thinkers who have been important both as scholars and as public intellectuals. We read and discuss samples of their work and look at critical discussion of their ideas. We also reflect on the time and place of the "European" – to what extent their work is quinessentially Eurocentric and to what extent awareness of cultural contingency emerges.

This class will focus on film and television adaptations, with scripts derived from short stories, canonical works, popular and pulp fiction, as well as graphic novels and comics.

In this course we will focus on various literary works and corresponding adaptation theories relating to film adaptations and current television series. Key issues and concepts in this course  will be taught in relation to Modernism/Postmodernism and Origin/Intertextual play in Adaptation Theory and Cinema semiotics.

Course requirement:
Apart from the obligatory course text Adaptations and Appropriation by Julie Sanders, we will read significant articles on adaptation as well as selected short stories (provided by the tutor) that have undergone the transition process and been adapted to into films. Students are encouraged to participate in discussions in class.

MA-thesis in English.

MA students are permitted to complete a total of 15 credits in supervised research projects. A project is selected in consultation with a teacher at the MA level, and that teacher must approve the sudent's research plans before he or she is permitted to register for a study of this kind. Research projects should either be an extension of a course or courses that students have already completed in the MA program or be within their special field of interest.

In the courses Communication channels I and Communication channels II, the basics of methods for the dissemination of cultural material in the humanities and social sciences are presented. Communication channels I is in the fall semester, while Communication channels II is in the spring semester. 

In Communication channels I, the students are working with a) text and images in the first half of the semester and b) short documentaries in the second half of the course. Each subject weighs 50% in the course. Concerning a) Students will receive training in article writing and discourse analysis on the one hand and use of images and image analysis on the other.  Concerning b) Students work on making short documentaries. It includes basic training in screenwriting, shooting and editing, and students work in groups on a documentary, according to a specific theme. 

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Analysis of texts and images
2. An article with an image on a specific theme for publication, about 800 words.
3. A group project where students work on a short documentary that is shown at the end of the course. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course. The course is not taught remotely.

In the course Communication channels II during the spring semester the students work with the following communication methods: a) oral presentation and b) exhibitions of cultural and historical material. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects.

The students will work with the basics of oral presentation and practice in smaller and larger groups. Basic issues regarding the organization of conferences and seminars and their management will also be reviewed and a conference is held where all students present their projects. Digital communication will also be integrated into this section. Following is a section about exhibitions with connection to digital communication. The basics of exhibitions and different ways of presentation will be discussed.  The basics of digital communication will be covered, what are the main channels, advantages and disadvantages, and what rules apply to the presentation of texts on the web.

There are no exams in the course. Instead, students work on projects, individual and group projects. They are the following:

1. Lecture at a conference and other projects in that context
2. Exhibition analysis and a practical project in connection with exhibitions organized by the City History Museum (Borgarsögusafn)
3. Digital communication will be integrated into both aspects. Emphasis is placed on common themes and group work in the course.

The course is not taught remotely.