BA (Hons) English

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Beyond Plymouth: Enhance your prospects while studying BA (Hons) English 

Here at Plymouth, you won’t only study rigorous academic content—you’ll also have the chance to improve your skills and experience to enable you to secure the career you want long-term. We have a dedicated Internships and Placements Officer to help you secure relevant, graduate-level work experience. Our option module Working With Literature helps interested students to gain a formal placement and to practise key skills such as interviewing, CV writing, and more. And there are numerous fully funded, ad hoc opportunities to gain specific types of experience.

"My time at Plymouth has allowed me to explore various career options. I’ve never had a concrete idea of what I want to do with my degree, however the lecturers and support staff at Plymouth have enabled me to try public speaking at open days, writing for the ‘Bruseels’ pamphlet, and editing for INK Journal; all of which have given me a clearer idea of what I wish to pursue." 

Mitchell Gregory, BA (Hons) English student

Where could your English degree take you?

• The 2020 NSS shows that 96% agreed staff were good at explaining things and the course is intellectually stimulating, and 100% say that staff have made the subject interesting.*
• Choose every year from a wide variety of specialist modules, from 1600 to the present, including period and cultural studies and creative writing.
  
• Receive free set texts for all core modules throughout the three years.
• Benefit from assessment through coursework, with no written exams.
• 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.
• Make use of our open-door policy and talk to your lecturers in a friendly and supportive learning environment.
• Learn from internationally recognised research-active staff, including published creative writers.
• Experience other cultures by studying or working abroad in either Europe or the US.
• Write and be published as part of INK, the English and Creative Writing student-run magazine.
• Access resources at any time with the University library, open 24 hours 365 days a year, offering a vast range of electronic and print materials, including a rare books collection. 
• Make the most of a rich cultural life with The Arts Institute programme and the University’s links with local arts organisations, like the Theatre Royal Plymouth.

If you are interested in taking this normally full-time course on a part-time basis please contact admissions to discuss this possibility.

• 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

  • Writing the Modern World, 1600-1700 (ENGL402)

    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 modern print culture.

  • Writing the Modern World, 1700-1800 (ENGL403)

    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 (ENGL404)

    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.

  • Gods, Monsters and Heroes: Myths and Legends in Literature (ENGL406)

    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.

  • Rewritings: Contemporary literature and its Histories (ENGL407)

    This module will examine how and why modern and contemporary authors have rewritten or reworked influential 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 such intertextual acts, students will explore the ways in which literature engages with the cultural politics of its times, focusing particularly on issues of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, class and aesthetics.

  • The Craft of Writing I: Prose Fiction & Non-Fiction (ENGL409)

    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.

• 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 our work-based learning module (Working with Literature) which places you in the professional workplace. Several modules offer opportunities for creative as well as critical writing.

  Core modules

  • Romanticism (ENGL501)

    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 (ENGL506)

    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.

  Optional modules

  • Victorian Values (ARHI507)

    This module examines the visual culture of the Victorian age, Pre-Raphaelitism, Aestheticism and British Impressionism, say, to question modern stereotypes about Victorian Values both moral and cultural. We will not only consider the definitive role of social principles in the art of this period, but also debates about art and beauty as independent realms of meaning and value.

  • Gothic Fictions: Villains, Virgins, Vampires (ENGL502)

    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.

  • Apocalypse and the Modern Novel (ENGL511)

    This module explores how fiction from the late nineteenth century to the present day has represented end of world scenarios. It will engage with issues of genre and form, and with appropriate historical and cultural contexts including the environment, spirituality, technology, and globalisation. Criticism and secondary sources pertaining to these issues, as well as to individual authors, will be considered alongside the primary texts.

  • American Novel (ENGL516)

  • The Impact of Publishing: Understanding the Technologies of Knowledge (ENGL518)

    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.

  • Working with Literature (ENGL519)

    While remaining focused on English and English and Creative Writing projects, this module will provide students with the opportunity to apply their literary and creative skills in a 'work-facing' environment.

  • Creative Nonfiction (ENGL520)

    This module introduces students to the key concepts and issues in contemporary works of creative nonfiction including autobiography, travel writing, essays and reportage. We will produce our own works of poetry, short story and nonfiction, and critically evaluate and contextualise them.

  • Dramatic Writing for Stage, Screen, and Beyond (ENGL522)

    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.

  • Genre Writing (ENGL523)

    This module introduces students to writing in various genres, with possibilities including fantasy, science-fiction, period/historical, young adult fiction, horror, comedy, romance, crime, and thriller. Forms explored will include fiction, dramatic writing for stage and screen, and poetry. 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.

  • Burning Issues: Interdisciplinary Writing Project (ENGL524)

    This module asks students to engage with the 'burning issues' of our times, by thinking outside of their own discipline and engaging with research taking place in other departments, schools and faculties around the university, or even the country and the world. Students select a topic from outside their discipline and then, through research and communication with experts in the chosen field, devise a writing project to communicate and explore their chosen issue. 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.

  • Writing to Commission (ENGL525)

    In the context of this module, Professional Writing refers to commercial content for a variety of media outlets including advertising and marketing, as well as other 'businesses' which students have imagined and created themselves. Students will experiment with creative formats such as posters, reviews, reports, 'copy', interviews, the op-ed (opinion-editorial). 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.

  • 'Hurt Minds': Madness and Mental Illness in Literature (ENGL526)

    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.

  • Heritage and Public History (HIST511)

    The module content will examine the theory and practice of the presentation of the past to public audiences. In it, students will examine the creation, nature, use and understanding of heritage and public history, nationally and internationally. They will examine these issues in case studies of historical sites of different types, to gain a critical awareness and understanding of the theories and controversies surrounding heritage and public history. This is a work facing module, where students will consider the theory and practice of using sites of heritage and public history from the point of view of a range of stake holders.

• 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. You’ll produce your own year-long dissertation on any topic of your choice, which you'll work on with the focused support of your personal supervisor.

  Core modules

  • Modernism (ENGL603)

    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

  • Project in Critical Writing (ENGL601)

    The student will complete, under tutorial supervision, a project in critical writing in the form of a literary - critical dissertation based on an idea, theme, author/s, theoretical consideration etc: or a dissertation which arises from literary - critical interests connected to issues arising from the student's work in other English modules. Maximum length 12,000 words.

  • Project in Creative Writing (ENGL602)

    The student will complete, under tutorial supervision, a project in creative writing such as a collection of poetry, short stories, a longer piece of prose fiction, autobiography, travel writing or other suitable modes which may draw upon issues encountered in other English modules and which includes relevant literary-critical material. Maximum length 12,000 words.

  • Reading Jane Austen - then and now (ENGL610)

    This module explores the cultural politics of Jane Austen's novels and of reading her work, both at the time it was written and now. Attending to social and historical contexts, the course selects some of Austen's major works, together with a selection of early and minor material and work by her contemporaries, to consider how we can read Austen as a novelist, as a political writer, and as a writer of `romance'.

  • Laughing Matters: Cruelty and Comedy of Literary Satire (ENGL611)

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

  • Advanced Short Story Workshop (ENGL616)

    In this module we will examine a range of contemporary short story writing and relevant theory as a way for students to learn how to compose their own short fiction. Class time will be divided between discussion of short fiction and theory, writing exercises and peer workshops of student work. The workshops will be substantially informed by staff research practice.

  • Advanced Poetry Workshop (ENGL617)

    In this final year module we will examine a range of contemporary poetry and poetic theory as a way for students to advance their own composition of poems. Class time will be divided between seminar discussions of published poetry/theory, writing exercises, and workshops of student poetry.

  • Features Journalism Workshop (ENGL618)

    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.

  • Black Atlantic Literature and Culture: Race, Resistance, and Revolution (ENGL621)

    This module explores a range of black writing and cultural formations in transatlantic contexts. Adopting the critical paradigm of the 'Black Atlantic', 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 nineteenth-century abolitionist texts through to contemporary fiction and memoir. In addition to introducing texts from various locations and time periods of the Black Atlantic, 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.

  • Brave New Worlds: Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Politics (ENGL622)

    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 (Hons) English_Combinations Programme Specification 2021/22

UCAS tariff

104 - 112