BA (Hons) English

• Designed to ensure a range of real-world, professional skills. For example, we have modules that provide professional skills relating to scriptwriting, journalism, and publishing. There is also an optional placement year to gain professional experience before graduating.

• Develop a range of valuable skills, including critical and creative thinking and excellent communication, presentation and project management skills.
  

• Benefit from a tailored programme of Careers events and opportunities. As an English graduate you will be a compelling candidate for all kinds of jobs including teaching, marketing, journalism, publishing, and museum work.

• Boost your career prospects by working with a publishing house, literary agent, arts organisation or magazine on our work-based learning module or extra-curricular internships.

• Personalise your degree by choosing from a wide variety of optional modules in literary studies and creative writing, or widen your horizons by taking specialist modules in other subjects in the school.

• Learn from internationally recognised research-active staff.

• Receive free set texts for all core modules throughout the three years.

• Benefit from assessment through coursework, with no written exams.

• Make the most of a rich cultural life with The Arts Institute programme and the University’s links with local cultural organisations, like The Box and Theatre Royal.

• We’re very proud of our National Student Survey (NSS) 2020 return – 94% of students agreed staff are good at explaining things, and 94% said that the course is intellectually stimulating.*

• Year 1

• In your first year, you'll study historical, theoretical, and aesthetic approaches to literary analysis. You’ll read literature which investigates the making of the modern world; engage with exciting theories of reading such as eco-criticism, psychoanalysis and Marxism; and, if you choose, try your hand at creative writing in a wide range of genres including prose, poetry, drama and professional writing. You will also learn key research and essay-writing skills.

  Core modules

  • Gods, Monsters, and Heroes: Myths and Legends in Literature (ENG4001)

    This immersive module provides an important grounding for new students studying English and Creative Writing. Based around some of the earliest written texts that underpin Western literature, the module engages with a number of issues to enable students to gain an understanding of the historical development of literature and the ways in which texts relate to each other over the centuries.

  • Writing and the Modern World, 1600-1700 (ENG4002)

    This module considers ‘modern’ ways of writing, thinking, trading, seeing, and relating to others in the seventeenth century. The literature of this period first explores ideas central to our own time and place, and is crucial both to understanding literary history and to understanding ourselves. The course will be structured through four key narratives, traced through a chronological selection of texts: authority, modern ideas of gender, global capitalism and modern print culture

  • The Craft of Writing I: Prose Fiction and Non-Fiction (ENG4003)

    This module introduces students to the key concepts and issues in creative writing through the practise of workshops. We will read classic contemporary works of fiction and nonfiction including autobiography, travel writing, poetry sequences, essays and reportage. We will produce our own works, and critically evaluate and contextualise them.

  • Writing and the Modern World, 1700-1800 (ENG4005)

    This module considers the further development of modern ways of writing, thinking, trading, and seeing in the eighteenth century. This period is crucial to understanding literary history and ourselves. The module explores four key themes:- the beginnings of human rights and democracy in the eighteenth century - modern ideas of gender which originate in the eighteenth century - imperialism & the transatlantic world - eighteenth-century reading practices and the development of new genres.

  • Critical Theory (ENG4006)

    This module will introduce some key critical theories relevant to the study of English literature. It will familiarise students with a range of theoretical perspectives and enable them to develop an understanding of different ways of reading literature, and its wider contexts.

  • Rewritings: Contemporary Literature and its Histories (ENG4007)

    This module will examine how and why modern and contemporary authors have rewritten or reworkedinfluential literary texts of the past. Students will engage with a range of different literary forms,including fiction, poetry, drama and, where appropriate, film. By investigating the impulses behind suchintertextual acts, students will explore the ways in which literature engages with the cultural politics ofits times, focusing particularly on issues of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class and aesthetics. This module will include 2, 2 hour talks that introduce our School and programme level employability related opportunities and support, including details of the optional placement year.

• Year 2

• In your second year, you’ll take core modules in Romantic and Victorian literature, studying these key periods from an interdisciplinary perspective, and engaging with debates in philosophy, science, psychology, politics, art, gender and race. You will then select from a wide range of specialist modules, including a range of specialist literary, creative, and work-based options. You’ll also have the opportunity to branch out beyond literary studies, if you wish, and take specialist modules in other subjects in the School.

  Core modules

  • Romanticism (ENG5001)

    In this module literary Romanticism, in its rich and problematic diversity, is introduced and explored through a consideration of imaginative conceptions of the individual in writing between 1790 and 1830. The study ranges through a selection of texts in verse – lyric and narrative – and prose - essayistic, theoretical and fictional.

  • Victorian Literature and Culture (ENG5009)

    This module aims to introduce students to the Victorian period through an examination of literature read in conjunction with a range of other contemporary cultural documents including scientific, sociological, psychological, political economic and aesthetic texts.

  • Stage 2 Placement Year Preparation (SSC500)

    This module is for students in the School of Society and Culture who are interested in undertaking an optional placement in the third year of their programme. It supports students in their search, application, and preparation for the placement, including developing interview techniques and effective application materials (e.g. CVs , portfolios, and cover letters).

  Optional modules

  • Gothic Fictions, Villains, Virgins and Vampires (ENG5002)

    This module looks at eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novels to trace the variety and scope of literary contributions to the Gothic. It begins by discussing the origins of the Gothic novel, then moves to the heyday of the genre in the revolutionary 1790s, on to authors writing in the early and mid-nineteenth century, through to the decadence of the 1890s.

  • American Novel (ENG5003)

    This module will explore the development of the novel in America from its beginnings in the eighteenth century through to the twentieth century. As part of this module, students will consider changes in the novel form with particular reference to America’s literary history.

  • The Impact of Publishing (ENG5004)

    The module will provide an introduction to some of the key concepts in publishing history. It will look at the ways that knowledge has been captured, stored, retrieved, disseminated, policed and suppressed. It will consider how the development of different writing and printing technologies changed the understanding of the self and the self in relation to the world. It will discuss the creation, production, publication, distribution and reception of texts within their cultural, economic and technological contexts.

  • Rakes, Rascals and Rudeness in the Eighteenth Century (ENG5008)

    The eighteenth century was styled as an age of politeness and elegance. However, the literature of the period is obsessed with impoliteness in many forms. This module considers various manifestations of this obsession, and the relationship between politeness, manners and rudeness during the period.

  • Dramatic Writing for Stage, Screen and Beyond (ENG5011)

    This course explores a wide range of dramatic writing and dramatic writing theory, integrating critical reading with creative writing projects. Class time will be spent discussing published authors/texts/productions, writing/reading theories, compositional processes, practical exercises, and student work.

  • Hurt Minds': Madness and Mental Illness in Literature (ENG5013)

    This module considers changing attitudes towards, and a variety of theories of, the mind, examining how different cultures have understood ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ mental states. It will look at how the experience and treatment of mental illness has been represented in fiction. The mind is at its most fascinating when it behaves outside of expected social norms. By considering a variety of literary texts over several centuries, this module explores shifts in the definition, understanding, evaluation, and management of exceptional mental states.

• Optional placement year

• Core modules

  • School of Society and Culture Placement Year (SSC600)

    Students have the opportunity to gain work experience that will set them apart in the job market when they graduate by undertaking a 48-week optional placement year. This year allows them to apply and hone the knowledge and skills acquired from the previous years of their programme in the real world.

• Final year

• In your final year, you’ll complete your period studies core with the ground-breaking literature of early 20th-century Modernism. You’ll also choose from a range of specialist modules, mostly with a focus on 20th-century and contemporary literature. There will be a further opportunity to choose a module from another subject in the school if you wish to branch out. You’ll also design and develop your own year-long dissertation project on a topic of your choice, which you'll work on with focused support from your personal supervisor.
  

  Core modules

  • Dissertation (ENG6001)

    A year-long independent study project working on a topic of the student’s choice with the aid of a personal supervisor. Content will vary accordingly.

  • Modernism (ENG6002)

    This module will explore a number of themes through an examination of writing published in the approximate period 1910-1930. The themes will include structural and linguistic experimentation, historical and artistic influences, the First World War and literary networks.

  Optional modules

  • Literatures of The Atlantic World: Race, Resistance, and Revolution (ENG6004MX)

    This module explores a diverse range of writing and cultural formations in Atlantic contexts. Adopting critical paradigms of the Atlantic World, the module investigates literary and cultural exchanges between Africa, Europe, North America and the Caribbean. It explores questions of identity formation, resistance, national memory, and knowledge hierarchies by examining different literary forms and cultural productions, ranging from the colonial period, through nineteenth-century abolitionist texts, to contemporary fiction and memoir. In addition to introducing texts from various locations and time periods, the module will also engage with theoretical perspectives concerning race, memory and nationhood, as well as recent critical work centred on decoloniality in relation to literary studies.

  • American Crime Writing (ENG6005)

    This module considers the development of twentieth-century American crime fiction from hard-boiled detectives, to myths of the mafia, and postmodern reinventions of the genre. This module will explore the cultural contexts of American crime writing, prevailing conventions of the genre, as well as challenges to those conventions.

  • Laughing Matters: Cruelty and Comedy of Literary Satire (ENG6006)

    Introduces historical and contemporary satirical theories; analyses satirical forms; enables critical engagement with the foundational associated modes: comedy, parody, irony and hyperbole.

  • Features Journalism Workshop (ENG6008)

    This module offers students an in-depth experience of professional writing. We will explore technique in features and literary journalism; music reviews, opinion columns and longer immersion features as well as other contemporary works of non-fiction feature writing, both short- and long-form, from sub-genres including profiles and interviews, autobiography and columns, travel writing, and reportage. We will learn to research and produce our own works of professional nonfiction and critically evaluate them.

  • Script to Screen: Making Films, Podcasts, and More (ENG6009)

    This final year module asks students to realise an original script of their own making with an on-screen production. In addition to writing their own scripts, students will be introduced to the production side of things, including storyboarding, working with actors, cameras, and using film-making software. We’ll also study some classic examples of page to screen adaptations (albeit most on bigger budgets than you’ll have!). The module is taught through lecture, seminars, and workshops where students are asked to submit and feedback to peers and tutors on a regular basis.

  • Brave New Worlds: Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Politics (ENG6010)

    Science Fiction seems to be a field or mode that is particularly difficult to define, in part because it crosses over with many other forms. But it is also one of the most popular types of literature easily ranging from the highbrow to the low. This module will explore SF writing since 1960, with a particular focus on the hybridity of the field and the ways in which it intersects with fantasy writing, to explore a range of political issues in the contemporary world. SF is ‘a wide-ranging, multivalent and endlessly cross-fertilizing cultural idiom.’ (Roberts, 2006, 2) But is it really concerned with the future, or in fact, driven by nostalgia to engage with the ways in which the past has constructed the present? The module will be thematically structured and will concentrate on Anglophone writing.

Every undergraduate taught course has a detailed programme specification document describing the course aims, the course structure, the teaching and learning methods, the learning outcomes and the rules of assessment.

The following programme specification represents the latest course structure and may be subject to change:

BA English Programme Specification Sep22 7215

UCAS tariff

104 - 112