English and Drama BA (Hons) DIntS / DPS

What you'll study

The combination of core and optional modules on our English and Drama BA (Hons) degree will introduce you to all aspects of both of these subjects and provide you with the skills you need for the rest of your studies. You will need to study 120 credits each year, 60 credits in English modules and 60 credits in Drama modules.

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

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

Semester 1

Performance Practices Core

Performance Practices

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

Exploring Language and Linguistics Core

Exploring Language and Linguistics

This module will introduce you to some of the most important aspects of Linguistics, including grammar and syntax, and the history and formation of the English language. This will develop your skills in reading, evaluating - and creating - different kinds of written and spoken texts. A fascinating subject area, and highly useful learning.

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

Semester 2

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In year 2 your core 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. A choice of stimulating optional modules allow you to pursue areas of particular interest, and to deepen your understanding of the various social, cultural and political contexts within which the texts you are studying exist. Your Drama modules deepen your theoretical knowledge and broadens the understanding of theatre across a variety of performance practices. You can choose to develop your acting skills or focus on textual and theoretical study of theatre.

In the second year you take two core modules (one Drama and one English module from a selection) and you will choose four optional modules.

Semester 1

Victorian Literature (post-1800) Core

Victorian Literature (post-1800)

On this module you will examine in detail some of the important novels and poems of the Victorian period. We will consider these works in relation to the social and cultural contexts of the nineteenth century, including class, gender, sexuality, religion and science.

Renaissance Writings (pre-1800) Core

Renaissance Writings (pre-1800)

A fascinating insight into the literary forms and texts of the Renaissance. As well as a range of texts from the Elizabethan period to the Civil War, you’ll look at historical and cultural contexts, in order to understand what these writers are doing in this period of transformation - including the controversy and power of their writing.

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’.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Eighteenth-Century Literature (pre-1800) Core

Eighteenth-Century Literature (pre-1800)

This module will introduce you to a range of texts from the period 1700-1830. We will discuss them within their original cultural and historical contexts, including revolution, Romanticism and the Gothic.

Modernisms (post-1800) Core

Modernisms (post-1800)

This module is an introduction to the diversity of literary movements, ideas, and concepts grouped under the term 'Modernism'. You will study a range of texts, both fiction and poetry, produced in the early twentieth century when a number of writers broke with tradition and sought new ways of depicting the rapidly changing world around them.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Introduction to Multimodality Optional

Introduction to Multimodality

How do we communicate through images and what is the relationship between visual and verbal text strategies? The aim of the module is to introduce students to the study of texts that are created not just by using verbal language.

Lighting and Sound Design Optional

Lighting and Sound Design

Students will gain knowledge of the fundamental elements that comprise Sound systems, gaining an insight into the principles of Sound recording. They will also explore aspects of lighting design both practically and theoretically.

Modern Irish Literature Optional

Modern Irish Literature

Despite its size and relative isolation, Ireland has an enormously rich literary heritage, particularly in the twentieth century, with no fewer than four Nobel prize winners. This module introduces you to the breadth and range of modern Irish literature, from the 1890s to the present day. The module will have a dual emphasis on close reading and historicist contextual positioning.

Writing for Stage and Screen