Audio Visual DVD player, TV, 'Blackboard'
The Blackboard virtual learning environment will be available (where relevant) to support this module. Details will be supplied in the module handbook.

Essay (75%) 2,000 words
Students negotiate their own topic for coursework essay, based on guidelines and the help of their tutor. Normally the essay topic area will be related to the presentation topic
Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Individual Presentation 25% (10 minutes approx.)
Students will negotiate their own topic for presentation based guidelines and with help of the tutor.
Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 4

This module will explore the cultural production and consumption of leisure in terms of a range of leisurescapes, including the carnival, fairs and wakes, pleasure gardens, expositions, resorts, amusement parks, theme parks, heritage sites, the countryside, the home, cyber and shopping spaces. The module will trace and document the origins and development of these sites in order to contextualise them within their broader historical, social and cultural contexts - as parts of an emergent and developing leisure industry. It will situate them in relation to theories of leisure and leisure space and in relation to processes such as globalisation, commercialisation, commodification, rationalisation and privatisation. As well as an exploration of these sites generally, a focus will be given to specific examples such as the Potteries Wakes, Vauxhall and Tivoli Pleasure Gardens; the 1851 Great Exhibition; Coney Island's amusement parks; the Disney theme parks; Alton Towers; the Mall of America and the internet. Looking at biographical examples such as these helps students to see how prime source accounts and specific ethnographies may be used to assist in an understanding of such places. This in turn may help students to understand the role and importance of field research. These examples are of local as well as national and international sites in order to enable students to experience such sites at first hand as a basis for their own work as well as to foster an exploration of the relationship between the local and the global.

The module will comprise:
12 x 2 hour workshop sessions
These will combine a number and mix of learning strategies, where appropriate, including, lectures, screenings and discussion.

Borsey, P (2006) A History of Leisure: The British Experience since 1500, Palgrave
Cunningham, H. (1980) Leisure in the Industrial Revolution, Croom Helm
Crouch, D. (ed) (2005) The Media and the Tourist Imagination, Routledge
Edensor T (ed) (2000) Reinventing Stoke: Popular Culture in the Potteries, Staffs Uni Press
Kasson, J.F. (1978) Amusing the Millions Hill and Wang
Rojek C. (1995) Decentring Leisure, Sage
Wolf, M.J. (1999) The Entertainment Economy, Times Books