Short stories are read and enjoyed the world over, but what makes for a great story? In this course we shall read and discuss a wide range of classic and contemporary tales from around the globe to discover how different writers have used such techniques as structure, characterisation, theme and image to tell their stories. All texts will be read in translation if the original language is not English.
Alfred Hitchcock is perhaps most famous director of all time. While audiences loved the thrills, glamour and humour of his films, French critics and directors regarded him as a leading 'auteur', theoreticians discussed ways in which his work illustrated key concepts such as the 'male gaze', and biographers debated the personal sources of the darker side of a body of work that remains endlessly influential, with Sight and Sound proclaiming Vertigo the greatest film of all time in 2012. This course explores a range of approaches to a selection of Hitchcock's most important films.
We will explore the themes of poverty, politics, gender and ethnicity in London at the end of the 19th century/start of the 20th century through the eyes of writers of fiction, but also through the testimony of their non-fiction contemporaries - social investigators, government officials, journalists and philanthropists.