English Literature and Philosophy, BA (Hons)

Course summary

If you’re fascinated by literature from different cultures and times and have an interest in the big questions about how the world works and what makes us human, this course could be for you.The Joint Honours in English Literature and Philosophy is a thought-provoking, cross-disciplinary degree that will challenge the way you think about the world. It develops your skills, knowledge and understanding across the two subjects through the study of a range of philosophical and literary texts, important concepts, questions, arguments and methods. The syllabus is equally weighted between the two subjects with modules such as Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism exploring the intellectual connections between the two areas.You will be taught by subject experts with wide-ranging specialisms across both disciplines. Course content is informed by the research expertise of teaching staff which keeps the course relevant and up to date.In the first year you will build a strong foundation in both disciplines. The course broadens out in the second year, offering a wide selection of optional modules that give you plenty of opportunities to tailor the course to your interests.In the final year you will research and produce a dissertation on an area of your choice in either subject area. You also have the flexibility to choose optional modules from both subjects which allows you to follow your areas of specialisation in greater depth.You can also apply to add a placement year or a year abroad to your degree; this would increase the course from three years to four.

Year 1 Core modules: Introduction to Drama introduces the work of, and critical debate about, a wide historical range of drama and dramatists writing in English, typically covering work from the following areas: the medieval, early modern, Restoration and Augustan, Romantic, Victorian, and twentieth and twenty-first century: post-medieval dramatists to be covered might include, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Behn, Gay, Shelley, Wilde, Shaw, Beckett, Kushner and Butterworth. Introduction to the Novel introduces ways of reading English novels and various contexts for studying them. You will be familiarised with strategies for engaging with fictional texts formally as well as historically, by situating the novels studied in their distinctive cultural environments while also being taught the ways in which novelistic form and technique have changed over time. Introduction to Poetry introduces a wide range of poems by poets writing in English from the early modern to the contemporary periods including some American poetry. You will develop your understanding of traditional major verse forms, modes of organisation and genres (e.g. blank verse, the couplet, the stanza, lyric, elegy, sonnet, epic, pastoral, ode, open form). Ethics and Values provides a structured introduction to moral philosophy, including applied ethics, by exploring key moral concepts and showing how they influence moral practices and theories. Knowledge and Reality introduces philosophical problems in epistemology (the study of knowledge), and metaphysics (the study of reality and ourselves). Reading Philosophy allows you to acquire an understanding of the issues of interpretation and comprehension in reading primary authors, through a detailed study of four thematically related texts.