Handbook home
Popular Fiction (ENGL30007)
Undergraduate level 3Points: 12.5Not available in 2025
About this subject
Overview
| Fees | Look up fees |
|---|
Welcome to the shadow side of literature! Popular fiction has huge cultural reach and significance, and it is the site of long-standing and fierce debates about the psychological (and bodily) impact, social utility, and aesthetic merit of stories. In this subject, students will read a range of contemporary and recent popular texts, written by professional authors, fans, and artificial intelligence, while learning about the historical and institutional contexts that produced them. Students will think about the gendering of popular fiction, and learn to apply multiple critical approaches and theoretical frameworks - from the positive (pop fiction as the true culture of the people) to the negative (mass-produced fiction as mechanism of patriarchal and authoritarian control).
Intended learning outcomes
On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:
- Articulate and evaluate multiple critical/theoretical approaches to popular fiction.
- Analyse contemporary works of popular fiction in relation to historical context, theoretical frameworks, and/or social and institutional contexts.
- Describe the role of institutions and gatekeepers in the definition, production and transmission of popular fiction.
- Frame and persuasively communicate critically-informed arguments about popular fiction as a category and/or about individual works of popular fiction.
Generic skills
At the completion of this subject, students should gain the following generic skills;
- Be able to apply new research skills and critical methods to a field of inquiry
- Develop critical self-awareness and shape and strengthen persuasive arguments
- Communicate arguments and ideas effectively and articulately, both in writing and to others.
Last updated: 1 February 2026