English Language and English Literature 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 and alumnus 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 the University of Brighton 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.

Year 1

You will study a diverse range of genres and approaches that will introduce you to the study of English literature at degree level. You will develop the critical and theoretical tools that will help you to enhance your analytical reading and practical writing skills. Your first year will also engage you in the principal concepts that are relevant to your study of English language. The core English language modules will enable you to develop the meta language to describe language features and their use in different genres. You will also explore the historical perspective of the development of the English language.

Modules

• The Structure and Grammar of English
• Text Design: Genre and Style
• Narrative Literary Texts
• Perspectives on the History of the English Language
• English Poetry in Context
• Literature and Theory

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 2

You will study literature from the sixteenth century to the present, with a strong emphasis on historical and cultural contexts. The second year also provides an essential grounding in understanding language in society and how it varies according to both context and the user. The focus of several year 2 modules is also on enabling independent study and research in preparation for the skills required in the final year dissertation or creative project.

Modules

• Language, Identity and Power
• The Nineteenth Century in Literature
• Researching English Language Use
• British Literature and Twentieth-century History

Options*

One from:

• Studying Travel Writing
• Queer Writing
• Creative Writing
• Regional Englishes
• Television Studio Production
• Documentary Filmmaking: Theory and Practice
• Contested Stories
• Literature and Art History
• British Television Drama

One from:

• Creative Writing
• Introduction to Journalism
• Image and Text: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels
• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Media in Practice
• American Literature 1850–1945
• Literature in Practice
• Photography 

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

Final year

You will study postcolonial literature, with a particular emphasis on literature from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Building on the knowledge developed over the first and second year, you will study different approaches to analysing how different types of discourse are constructed. You will also identify a topic for your self-motivated research project – a critical dissertation or a creative and analytical piece.

Modules

• Dissertation or Creative Project

Options*

One from:

• World Englishes
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse

One from:

• Creative Writing Project
• Apocalypse, Utopia, Dystopia
• Postcolonial Literatures
• Post-war American Literature
• Literature and the World Wars
• European Literatures
• Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
• Gothic: Texts and Contexts

One from:

• Television News Production
• Russian Literature and Culture
• Language of Gender and Sexuality
• From Script to Screen
• English Language Teaching
• Culture Wars: Revisiting the Great Divide

One from:

• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Victorian Sexualities
• Writing the Contemporary
• Russian Literature and Culture
• Script to Screen
• Television News Production
• Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
• Images of War
• Autobiography and the Screen
• (Re)viewing Shakespeare
• Language, Culture and Ideology
• Literature and Philosophy
• European Literatures and Film
• Adaptations
• Media Ethics and Conflict
• Community Engagement in Practice

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

Staff profile

Dr Vedrana Velickovic

Course leader

Dr Vedrana Velickovic lectures and researches in literature with research interests are in twentieth and twenty-first century literature, particularly Black British and post-communist writing. She is a member of the Black British Women's Writing Network and has organised, together with Sheree Mack, its inaugural conference in July 2014 at the University of Brighton. Dr Velickovic is currently completing a monograph titled Eastern Europeans in Contemporary Literature and Culture: Imagining New Europe (forthcoming, Palgrave Macmillan)... find out more

Student views

Rosanna Wood

"Having lecturers who are really passionate about what they teach is great, it makes such a difference when you know that they love their subject and are enthusiastic about it.

"You can make the course what you want it to be, focusing on texts you’re really inspired by, choosing assignments which allow for plenty of creativity and tailoring your degree to be more language- or literature-based by taking the options which interest you the most.

"I loved the city and the feel of Brighton. It is such a vibrant, exciting place to live, especially for a literature student with all its theatre, poetry evenings, short story nights and the arts festival. I studied one module where local poets, writers, actors and comedians came in to give workshops to help us learn about writing creatively in different ways for different purposes, and each one of them could recommend things to read, but they could also tell you where to go in Brighton to find out more and meet other writers.

"I would love to teach literature at secondary and college level if I could. I hope to stay on at Brighton to do a PGCE course after my degree and then go on to be a teacher.”

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Falmer campus