This course is designed to help students explore British popular fiction, i.e. the texts that are not
studied in traditional literature history classes, as they stand outside the canon. It is the aim of
this course to teach students to critically examine and analyse the significance and cultural impact
of texts they would normally consider leisure reading. Also, the course poses questions such as:
What is the difference between high and low culture? What is the place of popular fiction within
literature? Can popular fiction be analysed in the same manner as literature? What is genre and how
is it significant for popular fiction?