English Studies

You may choose between two and four of the following introductory core modules:

• Introduction to English Studies 1: Genres An introduction to a range of different genres of literature, including poetry, fiction and drama from Chaucer to the present day. The course has an overarching emphasis on how genres change and develop over time, and how literary texts respond to each other.


• Introduction to English Studies 2: Theories and ApproachesThis module aims to introduce students to the study of literary texts through a range of different theoretical and literary critical approaches.

These compulsory modules may offer the opportunity to present a piece of creative writing for assessment.

• Language in Society: an introduction to the intricacies of regional and social variation in language, how we influence and judge each other through the way we speak, and how language varieties reflect and construct social contexts and identities.


• Foundations of Language: provides an introduction to the structures of language and the ways in which language works on various levels (sounds, words, sentences, meaning), exploring the uniqueness and diversity of human language

You will take the following compulsory module:

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  Literary Revolutions This module explores the revolutionary potential of literature and the relationships between actual, historical and political revolutions and literary revolutions (and the counter-revolutions prompted by these).

  
  

You may also take the following optional module (depending on the degree programme you are following):

• Language and the Brain: an introduction to the relationship between language and the brain, and to the cognitive basis of language more generally, exploring issues such as language acquisition, linguistic universals, categorisation, metaphor, and the evolution of language

You will choose either one or two of the following core modules (depending on the degree programme you are following):

• Writing and History: Scotland and Empire: studies aspects of Scottish literature, history and identity since the defining moment of the Union of the English and the Scottish Parliaments in 1707


• Writing and Identity: explores the constitution and representation of the ‘self’ and ‘identity’ in a range of literary texts from the 17th century to the present day


• Writing and Language: will provide you with the technical tools and vocabulary to describe in detail how language choices produce particular effects in literary texts

You will choose between one and three of the following historically-orientated modules (again depending on the degree programme you are following):

• From Medieval to Renaissance


• Restoration and 18th Century


• British Romanticism


• Victorian Literature and Culture


• Modernism and Modernity


• The History of the English Language

You will choose from a range of Honours option modules. The selection of modules varies every year, but typical option modules may include:

• Scottish Literature


• Modern Gothic


• Shakespeare's Theatre


• The Art of Fiction


• Children's Literature


• Critical Theory


• Postcolonial Writing


• Rotten English


• Language, Power and Ideology


• Language and Gender


• Tragedy


• Creative Writing


• Becoming a Writer


• Jane Austen


• Chaucer

This last semester is spent writing a dissertation (15,000 words for Single Honours; 10,000 words for Combined Honours). Every student is given a series of meetings with the tutor who will supervise their dissertation project and give feedback on each draft chapter as it is submitted.