English Language and Creative Writing BA(Hons)

International equivalencies

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Why study with us?

• You’ll study at our Falmer campus on the edge of Brighton and the South Downs, with its outstanding modern facilities and easy access to the city centre, and its well-established arts and social scene.

• Our talented teaching team create a dynamic and supportive environment where you will be challenged and helped to learn and grow. They will guide you to think critically and creatively, develop detailed methods of analysis and interpretation and precisely communicate your ideas.

• You will be able to use skills acquired through this course and enhance your individual professional and personal development by taking advantage of volunteer placements with local community projects and city schools by becoming involved with local events.

• Guest speaker sessions will give you the chance to meet inspirational writers like bestselling novelist Peter James and scriptwriter Graham Duff.

• There are chances for your work to reach a wider audience through submissions to online journal brightONLINE, subject-related student societies such as the Literature Society and Brighton University Drama Society (BUDS) and by taking part in a collaborative anthology and a graduate show.

• You'll gain vital transferable skills including personal organisation, independent research, team working, communication and presentation that you can use throughout your career.

• This joint honours degree provides good grounding for many different industries including publishing and journalism, but equally provides a solid foundation for further study or research.

Checkland building, Falmer campus

Course structure

Full-time students have 10–11 hours contact time a week in lectures, seminars and workshops, but you are also expected to carry out independent study. Part-time study is possible and can be tailored to suit individual needs.

There are placement opportunities available in the second year as well as field trips to theatres, museums, schools, retirement villages and other community organisations. You are also welcome to study abroad after your second year.

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through our applicant portal.

Year 1

Modules

• Practices of Reading and Writing
• Narrative Literary Texts
• Storying the Self
• The Structure and Grammar of English
• Text Design: Genre and Style
• Perspectives on the History of the English Language

Year 2

Modules

• Creative Writing: Process and Craft
• Research and Practice
• Image and Text: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels
• Power and Persuasion

Options*

• Videogames Cultures
• Science Fiction: Screens, Texts, Theories
• British Television Drama
• Memory, History and Trauma On-screen
• Intercultural Awareness Module
• Studying Travel Writing
• Queer Writing
• Literature in Practice
• Literature and Art History
• American Literature 1850-1945
• Multilingualism
• Sign Language Linguistics
• Regional Englishness
• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Media in Practice
• Introduction to Journalism
• Television and Studio Production
• Photography: From Painting with Light to Zeros and Ones
• Documentary Filmmaking: Theory and Practice
• Power and Persuasion
• Contested Stories

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Final year

Modules

• Dissertation
• Final Year Conference

Options*

• Screen Comedy
• Children's Screen Cultures
• Framing Women: The 'Female' in Popular Screen Culture
• Community Engagement in Practice
• Russian Literature and Culture: The Golden Age and Beyond
• (Re)viewing Shakespeare
• Apocalypse, Utopia and Dystopia
• Literature and Philosophy
• Post-War American Literature
• Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
• Restoration Drama
• Adaptations
• Creative Writing Project
• Goths: Texts and Contexts
• Victorian Sexualities
• Brighton Rocks
• Writing the Contemporary
• Postcolonial Literatures
• European Literatures and Film
• Culture Wars: Revisiting the Great Divide
• Language, Culture and Ideology
• World Englishes
• Language of Gender and Sexuality
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse
• English Language Teaching
• Television News Production
• Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
• From Script to Screen
• Images of War
• The Autobiography and the Screen
• Media Ethics and Conflict

Students must take at least one language-related module and one writing-related module.

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Staff profile

Jess Moriarty

Jess Moriarty researches in the field of pedagogy in writing practice, especially in auto-ethnographical academic writing and in creative writing with undergraduates.

She graduated from the University of Sussex with a Creative Writing MA in 2002 and joined the University of Brighton soon after. Jess won a Teaching Excellence award for her workshops with undergraduates, in which she aims to ignite inspiration and motivation with the writing process.

Jess is the co-founder of Work Write Live, which provides a range of writing short courses and volunteering opportunities for students across arts and humanities courses to develop the vocational and academic skills they are acquiring on their degree programme. She has been interviewed by the Times Higher Educational Supplement about her workshops and won an Innovation Award for her retreats, where participants are encouraged to develop confidence with writing and speaking. Under the banner of Work Write Live, students are able to run open mic evenings, produce creative writing anthologies and organise an end-of-year graduate show.

Jess's doctorate looked at how to make academic writing more personal and creative and included a play based on her autobiographical and researched experiences with academic life. Her work looks at cross-disciplinary practice, community engagement and linking creative processes with the employability agenda.

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Falmer campus