English Literature and History BA (Hons)

Year 1

Core modules:

• Introduction to English Studies
• Critical Reading 1
• Critical Reading 2
• Early English Texts and Contexts
• Case Studies I: Sources & Approaches in History
• Case Studies II: Independent Study Project

Two Introductory Study modules from a choice of:

• Introductory Study: Early Medieval Britain 400-1066
• Introductory Study: The United States
• Introductory Study: Early Modern Europe
• Introductory Study: Europe 1300-1500
• Introductory Study: English History 1272-1500
• Introductory Study: Twentieth Century Europe
• Introductory Study: Victorian Britain 1815-1914
• Introductory Study: East Asia 1900-present
• Introductory Study: The Classical World 500-31BC
• Introductory Study: Roman Britain
• Introductory Study: Tudor and Early Stuart England 1500-1660
• Introductory Study: Rise and Fall of Modern Empires, 1783 - 1997
• Introductory Study: Uniting The Kingdom? Britain, 1660-1837
• Introductory Module: Europe in Long Nineteenth Century, 1789-1914
• Introductory Module: The Origins of Greek Civilisation: from the Aegean Bronze Age to Archaic Greece (2000-600BC)
• Introductory Module: Europe in the High Middle Ages (c.800 - c.1200)
• Introductory Module: Modern Europe, 1789-2001
• Introductory Module: Seventeenth century England
• Introductory Study: Barbarians, Byzantines, and Beyond (400-814CE)
• Introductory Study: Britain in the Twentieth Century
• Introductory Study: Europe and The Americas (1763-1914) - change and interchange

Year 2

Core modules:

• Reading History
• Practising History

One Theme Study module from a choice of:

• Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama
• Nineteenth - Century Romanticism
• The Modern Age
• Chaucer and His World
• Shakespeare and Seventeenth - Century Drama
• Eighteenth - Century Romanticism
• Victorian Fictions
• Gothic and Romantic Fiction
• Postcolonial Fictions
• The Postmodern Age
• Literary Adaptations for Film and Television
• Sex and Sensibility in 18th Century Print Culture
• 18th Century Performance and Censorship
• Textual Editing in Theory and Practice
• Children's Literature and Young Adult Fiction
• Volunteering for BA English
• Group Project
• Political and Religious Themes in the Modern Near and Middle East
• Middle English: Texts in Context
• Values Studies
• Field Trip
• The War on Terror

Students choose 2 modules from the following:

• Culture and Society in 5th Century Athens
• The World of Alexander the Great
• Greco-Roman Egypt 331-31 BC
• Culture and Society in Republican Rome 506-44 B.C.
• The Carolingian Renaissance
• The Vikings and the Frankish World
• The Investiture Contest
• Norman Sicily, ca 1000-1197
• English Monasticism
• The First English Empire: c. 1100 to c. 1350
• The Reign of King John
• Culture and Society in Late Medieval England
• The Golden Age of Spain
• Political Medievalisms
• Religion, Politics & Society in Early Tudor England, 1485-1558
• The Global Hispanic World (1760s-1960s)
• War as a Life Experience (18th-20th Centuries)
• Enlightened Absolutism in East-Central Europe, 1740-1790
• Victorian Culture and Society
• Imperial Japan
• The British Raj, from the 'Indian Mutiny' to Gandhi - 1857-1947
• The American South 1865-1970
• Edwardian Britain
• Revolutionary Russia, 1900-1924
• Nazism and the Holocaust
• From Austerity to Affluence: Everyday Life in Post-war Britain
• The Kinks: English Culture and Identity from the Post-War through to the 21st Century

Students choose 2 modules from the following:

• The Symposium: Ancient Greek Drinking Culture
• Sport and Leisure in Classical Greece and Rome
• Classical World on Film
• The Age of the Vikings
• Post-Carolingian Rulership
• The Crusades
• Societies at War - England and France, 1189-1529
• Textiles in the Medieval World
• Food and Drink in Medieval and Early Modern England
• The Urban History of Europe from the Black Death to the Industrial Revolution c.1350-1700
• The Renaissance Court: Power. Politics and Patronage
• Gender in Europe and North America, c. 1500-1914
• Culture, Society and Economy in Early Modern England
• Exploring Past Localities
• Age of Discovery
• The Rise of the High Speed Society (18th-20th centuries)
• American Slavery
• Reactions to Poverty
• Power to the People: Energy, Industrialization and the Creation of the Modern World
• Photography and Society
• Sisterhood - Before and After: Feminism in Twentieth Century Britain
• Political Violence in Twentieth-Century Europe
• Soviet Communism
• 'Subordinate Independence': Japan's Relationship with the US 1945-present
• Stalinism
• Dreams and Nightmares: Britain in 20th Century Europe
• The History of Rock and Roll
• Political and Religious Themes in the Modern Near and Middle East
• 'The War on Terror' and the 'Axis of Evil' and Beyond
• Middle English: Texts in Context
• Old English I

Year 3

Core modules:

• Dissertation
  or
  Dissertation in History
  Writing History

Optional modules

Students choose one module from the following:

• The Shakespeare Phenomenon
• Women's Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century
• Twentieth Century Dramatic Texts: Brecht and Beckett
• Consumer Culture
• Jewish Identities
• Keywords
• Literature, Sexuality and Morality
• The City in American Literature 1868-1925
• Renaissance Poetry at the Court of Elizabeth I
• Romantic Celebrity Culture
• Globalization and Contemporary Fiction
• Literature and Psychoanalysis
• Figure of the Law
• Post-Structuralism: Theory, Text, Culture
• Utopian and Dystopian Fiction
• The Victorian Art of Murder
• Reflecting on History

Students choose two modules as a comparative study:

• Supernatural and Witchcraft Beliefs in the British Isles, Continental Europe and America c.1450-1800
• Comparative Study: Chivalry
• Comparative Study: Minorities in the Past
• Mediterranean Fascism: Conflict and Dictatorship in Spain and Italy 1914-1947
• War Crimes Trials and Memories of War: Japan and Germany
• Religious Reform in Sixteenth-Century Europe
• Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe
• Greek and Roman Comedy Theatre
• The Monstrous Regiment: Gender and Authority in Early Modern Europe
• Nation Making in Early Modern Europ
• Holocaust Memory and Representation in Europe, the United States & Israel
• Ideas, Ideologies and Colonial Organisation in the British and French Empires
• Borderlands and Commodities In History
• The Black Death in Europe
• Murder in the Ancient City
• Medieval Hostageships
• Greek and Roman Epic
• Plutarch's Parallel Lives
• Gender and Authority in Early Medieval Europe
• Warfare in the Medieval West from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century
• The Middle Ages in Computer Games
• Mental Health and Illness
• The People are Revolting! Protest, Rebellion and Popular Politics in the Modern World
• Anxiety and Hope: Meanings of Home in the Post-war World

Students choose two modules as a depth study:

• The Hundred Years' War 1337-1453
• Alfred the Great
• The Wars of the Roses 1450-1499
• Civil War and Revolution in the British Isles
• The United States and the Cold War 1945-63
• Japan at War and Under Occupation 1937-52
• The Home Front: Britain 1939-1945
• The French Wars of Religion 1562-1598
• Society, Culture and Everyday Life in Russia: 1928-1985
• The Norman Conquest
• Interwar Britain
• The Pax Romana
• The Italian Wars 1494-1516 and 1521-1559
• The Henrician& Edwardian Reformation and the Marian Counter-Reformation
• The French in North Africa: The Maghreb, 1830-1914 and North Africa and France: The Maghreb, 1914-present
• Genocide in History and Memory I and II
• Ruling England in the Second Viking Age, Part I: Kingdoms Lost and Won and Part II: Political Cultures
• The Medieval Life Cycle: Youth and Age
• Epic Literature and History: Homer and Herodotus
• Norman Worlds I (Normandy and the British Isles) and II (Southern Italy and Crusader Kingdoms)
• The Anglo-Norman Civil War, 1120-1148 and 1148-1162
• The Emergence of the Italian City Communes (c.1050-c.1150) and The Dominance of the Italian City Communes (c.1150-c.1250).
• The Rise of British Medicine 1650 - 1800 and 1800 - 1950
• The Age of Napoleon in global perspective - I and II
• The Emergence of Modern Environmentalism I & II: The Discovery of Nature and The Crisis of Nature
• The Post-war Teenager, 1945-1979 Part 1 and Part 2
• The USSR after Stalin, 1953-1964 and 1964-1985
• Greek Rhetoric: The Sophists and Lysias & Demosthenes

Please note the modules listed are correct at the time of publishing, for full-time students entering the programme in Year 1. Optional modules are listed where applicable. Please note the University cannot guarantee the availability of all modules listed and modules may be subject to change. For further information please refer to the terms and conditions at /termsandconditions. The University will notify applicants of any changes made to the core modules listed above.