Modules
Courses / Modules / ENGL1091 World Dramas

World Dramas

When you'll study it
Semester 2
CATS points
15
ECTS points
7.5
Level
Level 4
Module lead
Alireza Fakhrkonandeh
Academic year
2025-26

Module overview

In this module, you will learn how to approach dramatic texts in a way that takes into consideration their place in the world as a complex political, economic, and cultural network. We will focus on questions such as:

  • What is the difference between reading a play and watching a play?
  • How do playwrights adapt popular stories and how do they create new work designed specifically for stage?
  • How can film accommodate texts written for live performance?
  • How will we approach a play differently if we take the world, rather than a community or a nation-specific setting, as its context?
  • How can our engagement with non-Western dramas help us reconsider our ways of seeing, judging and living in the world we know?

This module will explore some of the most important ideas behind the development of theatre as an art form, both in English-speaking countries and beyond. It will enable you to understand the basic principles of dramatic composition, such as narrative, style, and structure, and it will introduce you to critical and theoretical methods for analysing dramatic texts on page, on stage, and on screen.