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 alumni 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.

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

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 your Year 3 dissertation or creative project.

Modules

• Language, Identity and Power
• Researching Variation in English
• The Nineteenth Century in Literature
• Early Modern Literature

Two from:

• Introduction to Journalism
• Modernisms
• British Literature and Twentieth Century History
• Creative Writing
• Linguistics and Grammar: Concepts and Analyses
• Second Language Acquisition
• Photography
• Signs, Genres and Representation
• Life Online: Contemporary Media and Society
• Video Game Cultures
• American Literature 1850-1960
• Studying Travel Writing
• Writing and Social Purpose
• Spoken and Written Language
• Documentary project
• Film Noir
• Community and personal development project
• Modern languages (French, German, Spanish)

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

• Approaches to Analysing Discourse
• Postcolonial Literatures
• Dissertation

Two from:

• Reading British Narrative Texts
• Writing for the Screen
• Creative writing project
• Kerpow! Language of Graphic Novels
• English Language Teaching
• Women's Writing, Feminist Theory
• Approaches to the Study of Meaning
• Film, Culture and Language
• Modern languages (French, German, Spanish)
• Journalism and Media Communication
• Literary Adaptations
• Performing Gender
• Victorian Sexualities
• Brighton Rocks
• Images of War
• Children’s Screen Cultures
• Screen Comedy
• Literature and Film as Philosophy
• Community Participation and Development

Staff profile

Dr Jess Moriarty Course leader

Jess Moriarty is founder of the Work Write Live programme. She designs courses on, and teaches, creative and imaginative writing, writing for personal development and confident speaking and writing. Her research uses autobiography and poetry to explore the potential of making the academic writing process more personal.

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 information

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Falmer campus and Brighton and Sussex Medical School map