Drama with English BA (Hons)

What you'll study

Excited to learn more? For a taster of what you can expect to study on our Drama with English BA (Hons) degree, take a sneak preview of some of the modules you may have the opportunity to study below. Our combination of core and optional modules will introduce you to all aspects of both subjects and provide you with the skills you need for the rest of your studies.

The information below reflects the currently intended course structure and module details. Updates may be made on an annual basis and revised details will be published through Programme Specifications ahead of each academic year. Please see Terms and Conditions of Study for more information.

• Year 1
• Year 2
• Final year

Year 1

In Drama, modules will develop core performance skills across a range of periods and styles and introduce you to reflective and critical practices. In English you will take modules exploring a range of literary genres, language studies, literary theory and criticism.

In the first year you will take five core modules and select one optional module.

Semester 1

Acting and the Classics Core

Acting and the Classics

This module aims to explore classical texts through practical performance.

Narrative Forms and Fiction Core

Narrative Forms and Fiction

Narrative forms and fiction allows you to explore the concept of narrative over a range of genres and time periods, including the study of film as well as short stories, memoir and fiction. Find out how narrative works and, if you wish, try your hand at creating your own stories, screenplays and even graphic novels

Performance Practices Core

Performance Practices

This module explores a variety of basic physical and vocal practices through set exercises towards a final performance.

Semester 2

From Analysis to Performance Core

From Analysis to Performance

This module introduces students to stage play analysis and performance development from critical reviews of live performances.

The Theatre and its Histories Core

The Theatre and its Histories

The aims of this module are to explore the role of theatre and performance in history; to investigate questions of its roots and origins; and to trace key developments in theatre and performance through history.

How to do Things with Digital Texts Optional

How to do Things with Digital Texts

This module addresses the ways in which the digital revolution is changing literary studies, and enables you to use digital resources to aid and expand your close reading skills. You’ll also learn how to create your own innovative versions of texts using tools such as Juxta and desktop publishing software.

Introduction to Film Optional

Introduction to Film

This module will introduce you to the approaches, skills and vocabularies essential for the analysis of film. We will consider stylistic and formal elements, cinematic authorship and stardom, and issues of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, covering films of diverse periods and genres.

Literary and Critical Theories Optional

Literary and Critical Theories

The module introduces students to significant classic and contemporary theoretical approaches and key concepts used in the study of literature today and demonstrate how these can be used in interpreting different literary texts.

Elephants and Engines: An Introduction to Creative Writing Optional

Elephants and Engines: An Introduction to Creative Writing

This module will introduce you to techniques for writing fiction and poetry. These include imagery, character and location - allowing you to write in whatever form or genre you wish, and on any subject matter. Practical workshops and examples from contemporary literature will help you to write, and to develop your writing strengths.

Writing in History Optional

Writing in History

This module will provide you with an outline of English literary history from the late medieval period to the early 20th century. You will discover how various ‘timeless’ literary texts reflect the historical context which produced them, often in surprising and complex ways, while also gaining an overview of the dominant movements and periods of English literature.

Year 2

In year 2 your Drama modules deepen your theoretical knowledge and broadens the understanding of theatre across a variety of performance practices. You can choose to develop you acting skills or focus on extual and theoretical study of theatre. English modules allow you to develop your understanding of the literature of different historical periods and to study a range of well-known and less familiar writings that will extend your knowledge and confidence in the subject.

In year 2 you will take two core modules and select four optional modules.

Semester 1

Production 1 Core

Production 1

Students explore a specified genre, period or style of performance in a short production and then reflect critically on it.

Brecht: The Critical Stage Optional

Brecht: The Critical Stage

This module aims to consider how various approaches to staging work by Bertolt Brecht and how 'Epic form' may function in theatre today.

Chivalry from Chaucer to Shakespeare Optional

Chivalry from Chaucer to Shakespeare

Discover and explore the codes of chivalry represented in the behaviour of knights in love, justice, and war from the medieval to the early modern period. Authors studied typically include Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Malory, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare.

Introduction to Linguistics Optional

Introduction to Linguistics

How can we use language to describe and explain the structure and functions of language? Learn how to analyse written texts, film and television by examining the theories of language and applying them to contemporary examples.

Nineteenth Century American Literature and Culture Optional

Nineteenth Century American Literature and Culture

In this period, the United States developed in terms of culture, economy, population - and ambition. This module will examine how writers of poetry, fiction and theatre depicted the events of this century, including the American Civil War, poverty and gender roles. If you want to understand the United States today, start here.

Popular Theatres Optional

Popular Theatres

This module aims to address the following questions: `What constitutes a popular theatre?' and `Can we talk about a popular theatre tradition?', by introducing students to a range of popular theatre forms across history.

Renaissance Writings Optional

Renaissance Writings

The aims of this module are to introduce students to a range of renaissance and mid-seventeenth-century texts, and explore the relevance of them to their historical and theatrical contexts.

The Weird Tale Optional

The Weird Tale

The module aims to explore the development of the Weird Tale in Britain and the US from the late nineteenth century onwards, attempting to define the form, to examine its history, and to engage critically with its preoccupations.

Victorian Literature Optional

Victorian Literature

Students will be introduced to a range of Victorian writing, to read Victorian writing in relation to the social and cultural history of the period, and allow students to explore ideas from the period in depth.

Text, Editing and Design Optional

Text, Editing and Design

In this module on book production and publication, you will learn about the editorial processes involved in transforming a manuscript into a print or digital book and acquire the advanced design and copy-editing skills needed to make this happen. Discover what difference the intended audience makes to the publishing process, and analyse theories and methods related to text and text production.

From Fan Fiction to YouTube: Navigating the Digital Literary Sphere Optional

From Fan Fiction to YouTube: Navigating the Digital Literary Sphere

This module surveys the structures of literary culture and shows how they have been transformed by online media and behaviour. It will enable you to engage in the digital literary sphere through the creation of blogs, vlogs, online book reviews, and fan fiction.

A Revolt Against Fate Optional

A Revolt Against Fate

This module aims to provide students with a theoretical and textual understanding of the tradition of absurdism, introducing types of literature and theatre, generally associated with the label ‘the absurd’.

Theatre and Education Optional

Theatre and Education

The aims of this module are to explore a range of drama techniques used for making theatre in education and the community.

Semester 2

Performance Philosophy Core

Performance Philosophy

The aims of this module are to introduce students to a variety of theories applicable to the study of drama, bringing information and ideas together from different topics.

African American Culture Optional

African American Culture

On this module you will explore the complex formal and political questions raised by African American cultural expression produced between 1845 and the present. We will study a wide range of forms and media - literary, cinematic and musical - situating these in their shifting historical contexts, from the nineteenth-century American South to the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.

America at War Optional

America at War

America has been involved in major military conflicts in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries: World War 1, World War II, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, and the Iraq War. This module addresses war writing including the novel, poetry, drama, film, music, photo-journalism, and non-fiction. It enables you to develop critical awareness of the myriad ways in which writers and film-makers have responded to and imagined warfare.

Eighteenth-century Literature Optional

Eighteenth-century Literature

The aims of this module are to introduce students to a range of eighteenth-century and Romantic texts, 1700-1830, and, thereby, help place them within their original cultural and historical contexts.

Modernisms Optional

Modernisms

This module is an introduction to the diversity of literary and artistic movements, ideas, and concepts grouped under the term 'Modernism'.

Voice and Text Optional

Voice and Text

The aims for this module are for the student to acquire a working knowledge of the principles of voice production.

Women's Writing in the Seventeenth Century Optional

Women's Writing in the Seventeenth Century

On this module you will explore a range of writing by women from England in the seventeenth century. The political events of this century enabled women to publish in unprecedented numbers and ways. The module will equip you with a greater appreciation of the type of writing women undertook, and an ability to situate this work in its historical context.

Communicating Knowledge Optional

Communicating Knowledge

An introduction to the academic publishing sector in which you’ll develop an understanding of the different cultural characteristics and patterns of communication across STM (Science, Technology and Medicine), and the Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities. The module covers major recent trends in academic publishing and sets academic publishing and scholarly communication in the wider context of science in society, including the way in which science is represented in the media.

Children’s Reading Optional