Are you new to higher education study or returning after a break? This Access module – which presents several times a year and is designed to develop the key skills required for successful university study – is an ideal starting point. You may even be able to study for free. This module includes case studies from the field of art history, including one centred on the Turner prize, alongside a range of other subjects, including English literature, English language studies, history and modern languages. The theme of popular protest runs throughout the module and is used to link the various subject areas. This module will also gently introduce you to computing and online learning; the perfect way to gain the study skills you’ll need for the next step in your studies.
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Access
Degree
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This is one of several specialist routes available in our BA (Honours) Arts and Humanities (R14). The degree starts by developing your understanding of the world we live in through a variety of perspectives, periods and subjects – including English language. You’ll then take two specialist English language modules, discovering how the English language works, its history, its politics and how it came to be such a hugely influential global language. Using the illustrated module books, and extensive audio, video and interactive material, you’ll explore communication and creativity in language and its written, spoken and visual potential in diverse and changing cultural and technological settings.
Alongside your study of English language, you can choose to study a second specialism from art history, classical studies, creative writing, history, modern languages, music, philosophy and religious studies. This will entitle you to include both subjects in the name of your degree, or complete your degree with modules chosen from a wide range of options.
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This is one of several specialist routes available in our BA (Honours) Arts and Humanities (R14). The degree starts by developing your understanding of the world we live in through a variety of perspectives, periods and subjects – including English literature. You’ll then take at least two specialist English literature modules, discovering more about an exciting range of texts produced across many periods and places. You will encounter a range of genres, from poetry to fiction to film, and explore a variety of approaches for reading them. Through engagement with the study materials, contained in the module books and audio-visual resources, you will develop important skills in analysis, evaluation and communication.
Alongside your study of English literature, you can choose to study a second specialism from art history, classical studies, creative writing, history, modern languages, music, philosophy and religious studies. This will entitle you to include both subjects in the name of your degree, or complete your degree with modules chosen from a wide range of options.
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If you love the written and spoken word, this course is for you. A comprehensive and stimulating introduction to English language and literature, it investigates how the English language is used in a variety of global contexts, and explores literature from different historical periods and in diverse cultural settings. You’ll explore writing and speech in a wide range of forms, and develop your skills in the interpretation of literary and non-literary texts.
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If you are interested in reading between the lines, and being challenged by new ideas and ways of seeing, then this course is for you. English literature is a broad, accessible and important subject. On this course you will study a range of texts dating from around 1570 to the present, from poetry to fiction to film, and discover a variety of approaches for reading them. You will develop your skills of analysis and communication, enabling you to take a fresh look at familiar texts, and to encounter new texts and ideas with confidence.
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This degree course offers a stimulating and wide-ranging introduction to English literature and creative writing. You’ll have the opportunity to study and interpret literature from different historical periods and diverse cultural settings – including translations – and to develop your writing skills in several genres including fiction; poetry; life writing; and scriptwriting for film, radio and stage.
Level 1
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Do you want to know more about how people have expressed themselves through the ages and around the world? If so, this module is for you. Studying the arts and humanities helps us to learn about what people thought and felt throughout history, as well as how the things they created influence the world we live in today. The module is built around three themes: 'reputations', 'traditions' and 'crossing boundaries'. It invites you to discover people, events, practices, ideas and works of art from three thousand years ago to the present day. No qualifications or previous study experience are needed, and there is lots of support available to help you succeed if this is your first module at university level.
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How are cultures produced and encountered, and why does it matter? These questions are examined in this module through the key themes of place, power, literary ‘classics’, and journeys. You'll learn about contemporary cultures and relationships between cultures throughout history, discover how and why cultural identities emerge, and explore how they are expressed using texts, images and objects. After exploring a range of case studies from classical studies, art history, English literature, and creative writing, you'll investigate these themes with specific reference to your choice of one of these subject areas..
Diploma
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This diploma of higher education encompasses a wide range of fascinating disciplines including art history, classical studies, creative writing, English language, English literature, French, German, history, music, philosophy, religious studies and Spanish. As you work through the course, you’ll develop your cultural literacy and deepen your understanding of the past – while sharpening your critical awareness and skills of debate and analysis.
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This diploma offers stimulating options in English literature, English language and creative writing. Whether it’s reading between the lines, exploring the written and spoken word, or developing your writing skills in several genres, this qualification is for you. Depending on options chosen, it provides opportunities to encounter a range of texts from different historical periods and diverse cultural settings; to explore English language use in global contexts; and to develop and reflect on your own writing practice.
Level 2
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In this module you'll think about literature in the light of key contemporary concerns: representation and identity, the environment, politics, and the imagination. Along the way, you'll read books in a diverse range of literary genres, including novels, drama, short stories, poetry, and essays. In your literary encounters, you'll travel in time from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first century and read texts from Britain and around the world.
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How have writers chosen to tell their stories, and why? What techniques do they use to make us believe in the reality of the worlds they create? If you’re interested in finding out in depth about how literature works this module is for you. You'll read gripping stories from across literary history, from Shakespeare to science fiction, from Thomas Hardy to Arundhati Roy, with a particular focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century novels. This will develop your understanding of key techniques and devices used by writers, as you investigate the historical contexts behind their work and discover new ways of understanding literature.
Certificate
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This certificate provides a broad introduction to the arts and humanities, including history, art history, philosophy, classical studies, religious studies, music and English – expanding your cultural horizons while training you to think and argue clearly. Apart from sheer enjoyment, it offers excellent preparation for further study and will give your career prospects a boost.
Level 3
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This module takes you on an engaging journey through a diverse selection of great literature from 1570 to 1818. You will focus on two globally recognised writers in English: the playwright William Shakespeare and the novelist, Jane Austen. Your literary journey from Shakespeare to Austen will include Renaissance poetry (Donne, Spenser) and drama (Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy), Restoration comedy (Wycherley, The Country Wife), 18th century fiction (Swift, Gulliver’s Travels), Oriental tales (Arabian Nights), travel writing (Montagu’s Turkish Embassy Letters), autobiography (Rousseau, Confessions) and Romantic ballads.
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This module draws you into the main currents of literature from 1800 to the present day. You will engage with some of the most stimulating literary works ever written, and track the seismic historical transitions and transformations relevant to them – with an eye on our present and the future. Numerous major authors are offered for close critical study (Dickens, Tennyson, Woolf, T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Winterson, and others), alongside exciting but relatively neglected authors. Influential literary movements and critical interventions will be discussed, while leaving ample space for your own ideas. The module has three parts: Realities, Movements, Futures.
Masters
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Our MA in English Literature introduces you to studying literature, poetry, drama and prose in relation to culture and across three broad themes. These are literary-popular culture, which includes exploring genre writing, the bestseller and mass literary production; revolution and literature, in which you’ll encounter texts representing revolutionary social or political change; and global literary cultures where you’ll look at English literature as an international literary form. The structure of this masters degree allows you to select options and specialise throughout the first year in preparation for the more sustained self-directed work of the dissertation in year two.
Postgraduate Modules
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Our MA in English Literature introduces you to studying literature ‘in the world’ across three broad themes: ‘Literature and the Popular’, ‘Literature and Revolution’ and ‘Literature and the Global’. You’ll also have a wide choice of optional texts: from early-modern manuscripts to detective fiction; and from classical tragedy to the global short story. You’ll encounter actual archives and databases and be introduced to digitised manuscripts and other original materials as you develop skills in research and analysis. You’ll also work like a professional researcher using specific approaches, following up clues, reviewing context, and making exciting discoveries about your topic.
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This module requires you to produce a dissertation on a subject in Literary Studies of your own choice. The opening block guides you in drafting a detailed research proposal, and also introduces strategies for communicating your research to non-university audiences. The remainder of the module is dedicated to writing the dissertation. Working in close dialogue with your own personal tutor, you'll proceed from the initial proposal to submit drafts of the first two chapters before submitting the final dissertation.
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