English Literature and History BA Honours (QV31)

Our degrees are divided into Stages. Each Stage lasts for an academic year and you need to complete modules totalling 120 credits by the end of each Stage.

Please be aware that programme modules do change and therefore may differ for your year of entry.

You take compulsory modules to equip you with the foundation you need for further study.

• HIS1030 Evidence and Argument
• SEL1030 Close Reading

You select up to two modules from Lists A and B below:

• HIS1025 World Empires
• HIS1027 European History
• HIS1044 Aspects of British History
• HIS1046 The History of the Americas

• SEL1003 Introduction to Literary Studies 1
• SEL1004 Introduction to Literary Studies 2
• SEL1023 Transformations

• SEL2218 Research Project in English Literature and History

You take 40 credits from List C, and 20 credits from both Lists D and E.

• HIS2003 Religion and Politics in Tudor England c. 1470-1558
• HIS2012 Clash of Civilizations: Islam, the Crusades and the Mongol Invasions (c. 750-1300)
• HIS2055 The Later Russian Empire 1796-1917
• HIS2072 Anglo-Saxon England: From Roman Britain to the Norman Conquest, 410-1066
• HIS2078 Approaches to the History of Western Medicine
• HIS2082 Twentieth Century Spain 1898-2004
• HIS2084 Europe's Reformations
• HIS2085 Pre-Columbian and Spanish America
• HIS2087 A Civilian's War: the Second World War, 1939-1945
• HIS2103 The Dark Ages: Early Medieval Europe and its Neighbours, 500-900
• HIS2114 Death, Dying and the Dead
• HIS2123 The Family, Sex and Society in Early Modern England
• HIS2124 A History of Contemporary Britain
• HIS2131 American Slavery, American Freedom: Black and White America in the Age of Revolutions
• HIS2132 The Criminal Atlantic in the Long Eighteenth Century: Pirates, Convicts and Rebels
• HIS2133 Society and Politics in Colonial India, 1880s-1947
• HIS2140 Survey History of Japan
• HIS2212 History and Memory in the United States
• HIS2219 Oral History and Memory
• HIS2239 New: Middle East/Ottoman Empire
• HIS2234 Atlantic Slave Trade, 1450-1870
• HIS2235 The Soviet Experiment: 1917-1991
• HIS2238 Disease in Society ca.1700-1900

• SEL2201 Reading the Renaissance
• SEL2202 Writing New Worlds, 1660-1800
• SEL2203 Revolutionary Britain, 1789-1832
• SEL2216 Poetry, Script and Prose Workshop
• SEL2219 Monsters, Misery and Miracles: Heroic Life in Old English Poetry

• SEL2205 Fictions of Migration
• SEL2206 Contemporary Cultures
• SEL2207 Modernisms
• SEL2217 Popular Performance Here and Now
• SEL2204 Victorian Passions: Victoria Values

Alternatively, you may replace 20 credits in List C or D with one of the following career development modules:

• NCL2007 Career Development for Second Year Students
• NCL2100 Developing Enterprise, Entrepreneurship and Employability
• NCL2010 Career Management Module

You take your final 20 credits from either List C, D or E. Alternatively, you may select modules to a maximum of 20 credits from those offered by other schools, with the approval of the Degree Programme Director.

• SEL3377 Dissertation in English Literature and History

You also take at least 20 credits and not more than 40 credits from Lists F and G below:

• HIS3000 Reading History
• HIS3030 History and Society
• HIS3035 Elizabeth I: the Politics of Religion
• HIS3131 China in Revolution
• HIS3134 The Great Patriotic War and its Aftermath
• HIS3135 Nazi New Order
• HIS3138 Art of Empires, 1750-1850
• HIS3181 The American Civil War, 1861-1865
• HIS3203 Madness, Nerves and Narratives
• HIS3204 The English Revolution, 1640-1660
• HIS3205 Fascism in Italy, 1914-1945
• HIS3206 The Irish Revolution, 1879-1923
• HIS3212 Reconstruction and the New South, 1865-1914
• HIS3218 Hogarth! The artist and his life in Georgian London 1697-1764
• HIS3219 Living Together: Christians, Muslims and Jews in Medieval Iberia
• HIS3222 The Jarrow Crusade
• HIS3227 Latin America through the Foreign Gaze
• HIS3229 The Spanish Second Republic and Civil War, 1931-1939
• HIS3240 Civil Rights in America, 1948-1975
• HIS3278 England, 1714-1820: The Birth of a Consumer Society
• HIS3279 Popular Politics and Reform in Britain, 1811-1850
• HIS3283 Russian Revolution
• HIS3295 Royal Portraits: Christian Kings and Kingship, c870-c930
• HIS3321 Viking-Age Scandinavia
• HIS3326 Women in Colonial South Asia
• HIS3328 Imagined Futures
• HIS3330 New: Middle East/Ottoman Empire Module

• SEL3379 Enlightened Romantics
• SEL3093 Coming of Age in the Renaissance
• SEL3373 Women of Virtue and Women of Pleasure
• SEL3340 Journeys of the Imagination in Romantic Poetry
• SEL3303 Writing Rebellion: The Literature of the English Revolution
• SEL3090 Chaucer, Chivalry, and Heresy in the Middle Ages
• SEL3308 Murder, Mystery, Mayhem: British Detective Fiction, 1850-1950
• SEL3338 Home, History, Heritage:
• SEL3346 Contemporary Documentary 1: Theory and Practice
• SEL3091 Sex and Money: Economies of the Victorian Novel
• SEL3319 Spielberg Generation
• SEL3378 Landscapes of American Modernism
• SEL3347 Contemporary Documentary 2: Theory and Practice
• SEL3323 English Ghost Story: Forms and Themes
• SEL3359 Victorian Dream Worlds
• SEL3370 Writing the Postcolonial Nation: Literature from the Indian Subcontinent
• SEL3388 Reading Contemporary Cultures
• SEL3387 The Child: Representations in Literature and Culture
• SEL3386 Modernist Poetry: Pound to the Beats
• SEL3389 Stage and Page: Character and Performance, 1660-1800
• SEL3390 A New Empire: Fiction and the Rise of Global Capitalism

Having taken at least one module from Lists F and G, you may also choose to take one of the following:

• NCL3007 Career Development for Final Year Students
• NCL3008 Advanced Career Development
• SEL3324 The Cultural Industries (semester 1)
• SEL3325 The Cultural Industries (semester 2)
• HIS3030 History and Society

As an English and History student, you will develop a broad range of skills which are highly regarded by employers in many sectors, including the ability to:

• analyse and summarise material
• work to a deadline
• critically evaluate evidence, organise ideas and present a coherent argument
• present complex material accurately, clearly and persuasively

As a result our graduates enter a wide variety of careers, including:

• finance
• management
• information
• education
• human resources
• journalism
• law
• media
• marketing
• PR
• politics
• publishing
• teaching
• writing

Qualities such as self-motivation, teamwork and leadership may also be gained through non-academic activities and work experience.

Watch video interviews with former English students talking about their experiences at Newcastle and their careers since graduating on the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics website.

Find out more about the career options for English and History from Prospects: The UK's Official Careers Website.