Media 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 with its outstanding modern facilities, including an excellent television studio and editing suites, and also have 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 ensure that your work reaches a wider audience through submissions to online journal brightONLINE and blog L@B Notes or through joining subject-related student societies in film, drama or literature.
  
  
• 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.

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
• Media Communication and Representation
• Narrative Literary Texts
• Popular Television
• Drama in Society
• 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 

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. The second year also provides an essential grounding in understanding literature in context, from the sixteenth century to the present. The focus of several year 2 modules is also on enabling independent study and research in preparation for the 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*

One from:

• Videogames Cultures
• Studying Travel Writing
• Queer Writing
• Modernisms
• Introduction to Journalism
• Contested Stories/Contesting Stories
• Creative Writing: Process and Craft
• 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 

One from:

• Creative Writing: Process and Craft
• Introduction to Journalism
• Studying Travel Writing
• Spoken and Written Language
• Reading the Graphic Novel
• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Media in Practice
• American Literature 1850–1945
• Literature in Practice
• Photography
• Memory, History and Trauma Onscreen
• Science Fiction: Screens, Texts, Theories
• Modern History, Trauma Onscreen

*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

In year 3, besides your dissertation or creative project, 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

Options*

Three from:

• Apocalypse, Utopia, Dystopia
• Literature and the World Wars
• Creative Writing Project
• From Script to Screen
• Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
• Gothic: Texts and Contexts
• Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
• Television News Production
• Post-war American Literature
• Postcolonial Literatures
• Adaptations
• Contemporary British Narrative Cinema
• Community Engagement in Practice
• Beyond the Screen
• Film and Screen Journalism
• Framing Women
• The Cultural Politics of Screening Race
• World Englishes
• Language of Gender and Sexuality
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse
• English Language Teaching

One from:

• Victorian Sexualities
• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Writing the Contemporary
• Culture Wars: Recreating the Great Divide
• Russian Literature
• Literature and Philosophy
• Approaches to the Study of Meaning
• Images of War
• Autobiography and the Screen
• Children's Screen Cultures
• Screen Comedy
• Community Engagement Practice
• Adaptations
• Language, Culture and Ideology

The following options may run semester 1 or 2. 

• European Literatures and Film
• Media, Ethics and Conflict
• Brighton Rocks: The City in Literature and Film
• Restoration Dramas
• (Re)Viewing Shakepeare

*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.

Location

Campus where this course is taught

Accommodation

Maps

Accommodation

University building

Falmer campus