Media and English Literature BA(Hons)

Why study with us?

• You’ll study at our Falmer campus with its modern facilities and easy access to vibrant Brighton with its well-established arts, media and social scene.
  
  
• By studying this joint honours course, you will combine different but related subject areas, simultaneously exploring the classic and the contemporary in context. 
  
  
• You’ll acquire a core grounding in both media and English literature, but can tailor your degree to your interests according to the modules you choose. You can take more practice-based options such as documentary making for a more creative edge or focus on theoretical study for a more analytical degree.
  
  
• 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 and becoming involved with local events.

• You can submit work to our online journal brightONLINE, join subject-related student societies such as the Literature Society and Brighton University Drama Society (BUDS), and take part in a collaborative anthology and a graduate show.
  
  
• Our experienced course tutors are well placed to guide you through this course; they have a strong record of research and publications and several members of our team have won the university’s Teaching Excellence awards in recent years.

• You have the opportunity to undertake a year abroad in year three, extending your degree to four years.

Year 1 

In year 1, you will study the principal concepts and approaches to the study of the media in both theoretical and practical ways. These core media modules illustrate the complexities around representation, narrative and communication. The core literature modules will enable you to engage with a variety of genres and approaches, and to unravel meaning with a variety of critical and theoretical tools and approaches.

Modules

• Digital Storytelling: Theory and Practice

  This module will introduce you to the practice of digital storytelling contextualised through a wider examination of amateur media.

  Through exploring the histories and cultures of such practices and an investigation of autobiographical storytelling, you will explore the ways in which self-representation can be given expression through digital storytelling.

• Representation: Understanding Media Works

  In this module you will focus on representation as a key concept and approach for contemporary media studies. Coupling a study of representation with the media’s relations with forms of individual and collective identity, the module will introduce you to the several roles the media play in the twenty-first century.

  • Theories of representation.
  • Modes of representation of identity (forms to be considered include gender, sexuality, ‘race’, national and class identities).
  • Key analytic concepts for understanding how representations work (discourse, ideology, hegemony, political economy and media industries).
• Narrative and Narratives

  This module acts as a bridge from your earlier experiences of reading narrative texts and will encourage you to reflect on those early experiences. You will be introduced to a variety of narrative texts and genres (including early forms such as fairy-tales and myths) and to key issues in narrative theory. The module offers you an awareness of narrative as central to being human and allows you scope to explore narratives in creative and personal as well as critic always in a journal.

• Narrative and Screen Media

  This module will introduces you to narrative theory as applied to screen media texts. You will examine competing narrative theories as a way of understanding systematically and critically a range of different screen media genres across fact and fiction. By examining and deploying archetypal plot theory, you will gain insights into the ways in which screen media tell familiar stories in sometimes unfamiliar ways.

• Drama in Society

  This module will introduce you to drama as both performative and literary texts. The module approaches drama through practical, textual and theoretical readings, as well as through placing drama in its social and political contexts. How do plays engage with the world we live in today? The module focuses on twentieth century dramatic texts in order to explore the role and function of drama in society. You will look at, for example, naturalist drama, Brechtian drama, theatre of the absurd, feminist theatre, postcolonial theatre, and in-yer-face theatre.

• Literature and Theory

  This module will introduce you to the key philosophical and theoretical approaches to the reading of literary texts, and situates that knowledge within a historical overview of literary criticism. By the end of the module you will be able to apply theoretical vocabulary and knowledge of critical concepts in the interpretation of literary works.

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 year 2, you take a broadly period-based approach to the study of media and literature. You will study the history and theory of film, followed by a module examining digital media and culture. You'll also develop your understanding of literature in context, from the sixteenth century to the present. You'll also start to develop the independent study and research skills required in your final year dissertation or creative project.

Modules

• Cinema and Society
• The Nineteenth Century in Literature
• Digital Media and Culture
• British Literature and Twentieth-century History

Options*

Two from:

• Studying Travel Writing
• Queer Writing
• Twentieth-century Literary Experiments
• Introduction to Journalism
• Narrative, Conflict and Power
• Reading the Graphic Novel
• Documentary Filmmaking: Theory and Practice
• Spoken and Written Language
• Mind and Language
• Linguistics and Grammar: Concepts and Analyses
• Literature and Art History
• Regional Englishes
• Television Studio Production

• Creative Writing: Process and Craft
• Introduction to Journalism
• Reading the Graphic Novel
• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Media in Practice
• Power and Persuasion
• American Literature 1850–1945
• Literature in Practice
• Photography

You can also choose option modules from across our humanities and arts subjects. 

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

Final year

In year 3, besides your dissertation, you have the choice of a wide range of options, from popular culture to postcolonial literature, and from personal documentary to television news production.

Modules

• Dissertation
• Ethics, Power and Professionalism

Options*

Three from:

• Apocalypse, Utopia, Dystopia
• Literature and the World Wars
• From Script to Screen
• Women’s Writing and Feminist Theory
• Gothic: Texts and Contexts
• Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
• Public Journalism
• Post-war American Literature
• Postcolonial Literatures
• Adaptations
• Community Placement: Theory in Practice
• World Englishes
• Language of Gender and Sexuality
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse
• English Language Teaching
• Victorian Sexualities
• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Writing the Contemporary
• Culture Wars: Class, Race, Gender and the Politics of Taste
• Russian Literature
• Literature and Philosophy
• Approaches to the Study of Meaning
• Images of War
• Autobiography and the Screen
• European Literatures and Film
• Media Ethics and Conflict
• Brighton Rocks
• Restoration Dramas
• (Re)Viewing Shakespeare

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

Watch Media and English Literature students talking about their experiences of the Community Placement module.

Staff profile 

Patricia McManus, course leader

Patricia's teaching crosses contemporary media theory and mass-mediated forms of narrative, with particular interests in feminist, Marxist and post-Marxist theoretical traditions.

Her research has primarily examined the history of the novel, particular the interaction with film and of television drama in terms of story-telling practices.

Student work

Student film-making

Our student film-makers have the opportunity to show their work on Brighton's popular Big Beach screen over the summer months.

You'll find samples of work from this course on our arts Vimeo page.

International requirements

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

Course fees

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2019–20.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Local area

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Falmer campus