Year 1
Year 1 lays the foundations of your study in literature and language. You will develop crucial skills in the four main areas of English studies, learning how to analyse poetry, prose, drama, and language; you will learn about the development of the novel and the English language itself, and encounter the Renaissance stage in all of its richness. You can also choose two option modules to complement your study of literature.
Core modules
- Reading Poetry
- Writing Matters
- The Novel Around the World (double module)
- Renaissance Drama: Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (double module)
Option modules
Choose one option module from:
- Classic American Writing
- Introduction to Writing Creatively: Part 1
- Feminist Fiction
Then choose one option module from:
- American Literature in the Twenties and Thirties
- Introduction to Writing Creatively: Part 2 (to take this module, you must also have chosen the Part 1 module from the earlier list)
- Historical Fiction
Modules shown represent choices available to current students. The range of modules available and the content of any individual module may change in future years.
Year 2
In Year 2 you will have the opportunity to discover literature from the medieval and early modern periods, and be able to explore the literary and theoretical movements that have shaped contemporary literature and language studies. You will also be able to choose from a generous selection of specialist option modules, to enhance your employability profile and benefit from our research expertise.
Core modules
-
Critical Perspectives 1
- Critical Perspectives 2
Option modules
Choose one option module from:
- Romantic Literature from Blake to Shelley (double module)
- Eighteenth-Century Literature from Restoration to Revolution (double module)
Choose one option module from:
- Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
- Chaucer’s Worlds
- Diversity in Contemporary American Literature
- Using Stories
- Gothic
- American Literary Figures from the Settler to the Hipster
Choose one option module from:
- Modern Literature from Heart of Darkness to Nineteen Eighty-Four (double module)
- Rewriting Britain from Windrush to Now (double module)
Choose one option module from:
- Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
- Advanced Creative Writing Skills
- Diversifying Publishing and the Literature Industry
- English and Arts Journalism
- English and Education
Modules shown represent choices available to current students. The range of modules available and the content of any individual module may change in future years.
Year Abroad (optional)
We’ll make sure you have everything you need for your future career: not just by awarding you a high quality degree, but also by helping you to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence you need to make your mark in the world as a Citizen of Change. One way you can do this is by opting to take a Year Abroad between Years 2 and 3 of your degree.
Studying abroad is not just for people who are interested in travelling and meeting new people. It is about acquiring life skills that are becoming increasingly significant for a wide range of jobs in our modern globalised society. Whether you go on to a career in the private, public or third sector - or plough your own furrow as an entrepreneur – you will find the experience invaluable.
Final Year
Your final year of study will allow you to explore texts from the Romantic period up to the globalised writing of our contemporary world. You will also be able to write a dissertation on a research topic entirely of your own choosing, and take a range of modules led by specialists in their academic fields.
Core module
Option modules
Choose one option module from:
- Renaissance Literature from Utopia to Paradise Lost (double module)
- Victorians: from Oliver Twist to The Picture of Dorian Gray (double module)
Plus two option modules from:
- Adolescence in American Fiction and Film
- Contemporary Black British and British Asian Writing
- Forms of Modern Poetry
- Writing Voices
- Classical Worlds: Translation and Reception
- Writing Prose Fiction
- Clinical Encounters?
- The Living and the Dead in Nineteenth Century Literature and Culture
- Shakespeare, Sex, and Gender
Then choose two option modules from:
- Queering the Renaissance
- Literatures of Protest: Reading and Political Action
- The Latin World: Ancient, Medieval and Modern
- Weird Fiction/ Weird Film
- Autobiography and American Literature
- Late Victorian Gothic: Texts and Contexts
- The Other in American Fiction and Film
- Representing the Holocaust
- The Thatcher Factor: The 1980s in Literature
- Jane Austen: The Novels, their Contexts and their Adaptations
- Tragedy
- Writing for Laughs
- Life and Fate: Russian Literature from Pushkin to Grossman
- Medieval Worlds
- Reading and Writing Climate Change Fiction
Modules shown represent choices available to current students. The range of modules available and the content of any individual module may change in future years.