English Literature BA(Hons)

International equivalencies

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

Why study with us? 

• Our staff are highly regarded writers and award-winning teachers with a commitment to excellence.

• We have regular visits from writers to deliver salons and writing workshops – from Man Booker prize winners to thriller writer Peter James, who sponsors an annual prize. Our writers-in-residence scheme is built into the course.

• The year 2 Literature in Practice module allows you to gain professional experience in a relevant workplace environment.

• Students have the opportunity to spend a year abroad.

• You will study texts in many different and rewarding ways: generically, within critical disciplines (for instance, sexuality and gender), multi-culturally and historically. And as well as the major landmarks of English literature, your course could cover travel writing, journalism, queer writing, or the contemporary.

• We share undergraduate and postgraduate learning experiences through the Literature Research Seminar Series and the Literature and Pedagogy Series.

• You’ll explore a wide range of approaches to reading texts whilst developing your own range of writing and expressive skills, developing a sense of yourself as an autonomous critical and analytical reader and writer.

• Assessments encompass a range of literary skills – from traditional essays to writing poetry, from journals to project work, from writing a book to writing reviews, from presentations to novel writing.

Year 1 

The content and structure of the course reflects its aims and ethos, providing a core grounding in approaches, theories, genres and periods in the first two years, followed by opportunities for pursuing individual research and practice interests in the third year.

Your degree includes core literature modules and further option modules through which you will be able to forge a personal pathway. For example you might take creative or writing modules at each level to provide a distinctive creative strand through the degree, which can then be supplemented in your dissertation. Students may also take one option from outside literature in years 2 and 3, with choice across the fields of linguistics, media and language.

You’ll develop presentation skills through seminar groups, which foster and enable a debating culture.

Modules

• Practices of Reading And Writing
• Narrative and Narratives
• English Poetry in Context
• Literature and Theory
• Drama in Society
• Enlightenment to Romanticisms

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 

In the second year you’ll begin developing your own pathway and interests through option choices each semester.

Modules

• The Nineteenth Century in Literature
• Early Modern Literature
• Twentieth-century Literary Experiments
• British Literature and Twentieth-century History

Options*

One from:

• Queer Writing
• British Television Drama
• Studying Travel Writing
• Introduction to Journalism
• Creative Writing: Process and craft
• Literature and Art History
• Image and Text: The language of comics and graphic novels
• Regional Englishes
• Photography
• Video Documentary Project
• Contested Stories
• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen

One from:

• American Literature 1850–1960
• Literature in Practice
• Media in Practice

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

Optional year abroad 

Students have the opportunity to spend a year abroad at the end of their second year, undertaking a study period at a partner university within the ERASMUS exchange programme.

Final year 

Your final year of literature study allows you to benefit from the skills you have developed and to demonstrate your academic ability through a major dissertation project. 

Modules

• Dissertation

Options*

One from:

• Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
• Writing the Contemporary
• Postcolonial Literatures
• European Literatures and Film

Three from: 

• Creative Writing Project
• Russian Literature
• Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
• Literature and the World Wars
• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Gothic: Texts and Contexts
• Victorian Sexualities
• Writing the Contemporary
• Post-war American Literature
• Postcolonial Literatures
• European Literatures and Film
• Adaptations
• (Re)viewing Shakespeare
• Literature and Philosophy
• Apocalypse, Utopia, Dystopia
• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Culture Wars: Class, race, gender and the politics of taste
• Community Placement: Theory in practice
• From Script to Screen
• Images of War
• Popular Culture: Europe and beyond
• Autobiography and the Screen
• Media Ethics and Conflict
• Framing Women
• World Englishes
• Language and Gender and Sexuality
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse

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

Staff profile

Dr Kate Aughterson

Course leader

The author of Renaissance Woman, Kate’s teaching and research interests cross disciplinary boundaries, linking scientific, textual, philosophical and political discourses. She has lectured in art history and literature focusing on seventeenth century drama, with regard to gender, sexuality and performance culture.

Student views

“The best teaching I've ever had and the main reason for loving my course.”

“Lectures and seminars have a relaxed, informal feel about them and are always entertaining and thought-provoking.”

“Modules were taught with an enthusiasm that was infectious. Texts that I initially thought dry and staid were brought to life through historical contexts, quirky insights and emotive readings. The teaching inspired me and I am starting a postgraduate course in literature in October.”

“I felt that the seminars were really useful and engaging, and positively encouraged student participation, really delving into the themes and historical background that shaped the texts we studied.”

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Falmer campus