English and History - BA(Hons)

Year one

In your first year, modules are designed to build on your current abilities and enjoyment of literature and history.

You will study the following compulsory modules:

• Creativity, Critique and Literature
• Literature and Ideas
• Sources for Courses: History and Evidence
• British History from the Black Death to the Present Day.

Year two

As you progress, you will hone your written and presentation skills. Enhanced research skills will help you to develop informed opinions on literature and historical sources. Throughout you will be challenged by the latest methods of critical analysis and encouraged to develop an independent approach.

You will study the following compulsory modules:

• Forms of Reading/Reading Forms.

In addition, you will study one of the following English modules:

• Shakespeare's World of Words
• Romanticism Unbound
• Exploring the Eighteenth Century
• British Writing 1900-1950
• Victorian Frictions
• Imagining America: Cultural and Literary Legacies of the United States, 1830-1970.

As well as the above, you will study two of the following History modules:

• Project Management in History *
• Public History: Representations of the Past, 1400 to the Present
• Crime and Protest, 1750-1930
• The First English Empire - Britain, Ireland and France, c. 1000-1540
• Themes in the Social and Political History of Fascism: Europe, 1890-1945
• The Making of Modern South Africa: Segregation, the State, and the Origins of Apartheid 1820-1948
• Problems of Power: US History from 1776-Present
• Politics and Society in Ireland since 1750
• Men and Women in Imperial Britain c. 1700-1800
• Divine Right, Regicide and Revolution: Politics in Tudor and Stuart Britain, 1509-1689

If you choose to study on the four year sandwich route, you will spend your third year on placement. The curriculum in the second year provides support for the process of securing this.

Final year

In your final year, you can choose to focus on a specific topic of interest with the option to do an English Independent Project or History dissertation (or equivalent). You cannot take both of these modules together.

If a Study Year Abroad (SYA) or Placement Year has been completed, you will choose one less English or History module from the list below.

You will study two of the following English modules:

• English Independent Project*
• Children's Fiction Since 1900
• Fiction in Britain since 1970
• Literature and Culture in Britain 1885-1930
• Contemporary American Narrative
• Gothic Literature
• Moving Words: Travel, Writing and Modernity.

In addition, you will study two of the following History modules:

• Applied Historical Research (Dissertation)*
• History in the Public Space
• Arc of Crisis: Great Power Rivalries in the Near East, 1821-1991
• Mafias, Mythologies and Criminal Networks: The United States and the Globalisation of Crime
• Stalin and Stalinism
• The Collapse of Empire and Colonial War: British and French Decolonisation, 1918 -1965
• Crowds, Disorder and the Law in England, 1730-1820
• Resistance to Fascism and Nazism in Western Europe: the Spanish Civil War and Occupied France, 1936-45.

* In your final year you can take either the English Project or Historical Research module. If you choose to take Historical Research you must take the Project Management module in History at during Year two.

For part-time delivery, the same modules will be studied. However, the structure will differ.

The University continually enhances our offer by responding to feedback from our students and other stakeholders, ensuring the curriculum is kept up to date and our graduates are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need for the real world. This may result in changes to the course. If changes to your course are approved, we will inform you.

Hear what History and English students think about their time at UWE Bristol.

Our teaching staff provide a supportive and inspiring environment for study. Members of the History department have developed History coursework at a national level. English staff have been praised for their 'energy and creativeness' (English Academic Review) and their teaching and learning is ranked as excellent by the QAA.

Our teaching methods are constantly reviewed, and we build variety into the delivery and assessment of modules. As well as lectures and seminars, you will learn through workshops, tutorials, independent library research and student-led group activities. In your history modules, you will also learn using computer assisted learning packages with access to a range of primary and secondary materials, and in English you will have opportunities to undertake Adobe desktop publishing training.

For more details see our full glossary of learning and teaching terms.

Find out more about our academic staff, their teaching expertise and research interests.

Lectures, workshops/seminars, group project work, and tutorials account for 12 hours of contact time per week. However, you will be expected to spend at least as much time again in essential independent study.

Assessment comprises coursework and examinations, and not only assesses what you know and can do but also develops graduate skills valued by employers.

We use a variety of assessment methods to help you build a broad skillset. These include essays, anthologies, document tests and exercises, assessed seminar papers, book and/or periodical reviews, online and multimedia projects, an optional dissertation and end of year examinations.

For more details see our full glossary of assessment terms.