History and English Literature-BA

Bachelor's degree

In Durham

£ 9,250 + VAT

Description

  • Type

    Bachelor's degree

  • Location

    Durham

Joint Honours in English and History is a cross-disciplinary course, which develops and assesses skills that are common to both disciplines alongside others that are specific to each. The course offers the opportunity to acquire a range of both literary-critical and historical knowledge, develops the ability to deploy and contextualise a number of subject-specific skills in each discipline, and locates these skills and forms of knowledge in relation to one another.

Facilities

Location

Start date

Durham
See map
Stockton Road, DH1

Start date

On request

About this course

Admissions Process Subject requirements, level and grade In addition to satisfying the University’s general entry requirements, please note: We welcome applications from those with other qualifications equivalent to our standard entry requirements and from mature students with non-standard qualifications or from those who may have had a break in their study. We require Grade A in History and English Literature (or the combined English Literature and Language A Level) for English Literature and History (QV) We require a Grade A* in any...

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Subjects

  • English
  • University
  • Poetry
  • Skills and Training
  • Shakespeare
  • Writing
  • Joint

Course programme

Year 1

In the first year, you will take three modules in English literature and three modules in History.

Compulsory modules in English:
  • Introduction to Drama
  • Introduction to the Novel
  • Introduction to Poetry
  • Romance and the Literature of Chivalry
  • Myth and Epic of the North
  • English: Language, Use, Theory
  • Classical and Biblical Backgrounds to English Literature.
Optional modules in History (previous examples include):
  • Tensions of Empire: British Imperialism
  • Reformation Europe,
  • New Heaven, New Earth: Latin Christendom and the World,
  • The Birth of Western Society, AD
  • The Making of Modern Africa: change and adaptation in sub-Saharan Africa, .
Year 2

In English, you have a wide choice from among lecture and seminar modules, but must take either Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism or Shakespeare. In History, you are offered modules that provide time-depth and focus on a closely defined period, and modules that are broader and more wide ranging, typically offering a widely delimited chronological and geographical approach.

Compulsory modules in English:

EITHER / OR

  • Theory and Practice of Literary Criticism
  • Shakespeare

(although both may be selected).

Optional lecture modules in English (taught by weekly lectures and four one-hour tutorials) have previously included:
  • Medieval Literature
  • Old English
  • Old Norse
  • Old French
  • Renaissance Literature
  • Victorian Literature
  • Literature of the Modern Period
  • American Poetry.
Optional seminar modules in English (taught by fortnightly two-hour seminars) have previously included:
  • Modern Poetry
  • Germanic Myth and Legend
  • The Australian Legend
  • Toni Morrison: Texts and Contexts
  • John Milton
  • Evelyn Waugh (a maximum of one may be selected).
Optional modules in History (previous examples include):
  • Hard Times: British Society c.
  • Modern China’s Transformations
  • The American Half-century: the United States since
  • The King’s Two Bodies: Rulership in Late Medieval Europe
  • The Ottoman World, .
Year 3

In English, the combination of a range of optional lecture modules and Special Topics is designed to broaden and deepen your knowledge base and analytical skills. In History, the syllabus encourages the detailed study and analysis of historical events, trends and problems by means of a Special Subject (requiring close study of a highly specialised topic using primary source materials) and a Dissertation. The third year also includes the possibility of choosing ‘reflective’ modules which oblige students to study a particular historical problem that will lead them to reflect upon the problematical nature of the historical enterprise, on its technique, historiography and subjectivity.

Compulsory modules:

One from:

  • Dissertation in English
  • Dissertation in History ( credits).
Optional lecture modules in English (taught by weekly lectures and four one-hour tutorials) have previously included:
  • Old English
  • Old Norse
  • Old French
  • Restoration and th Century Literature
  • Literature of the Romantic Period
  • Post-War Fiction and Poetry
  • American Poetry.
Optional Special Topics in English (taught by fortnightly two-hour seminars) have previously included:
  • Literature, Cinema and Neuroscience
  • Shakespeare on Film
  • Shakespeare’s Problem Plays
  • US Cold War Literature and Culture
  • Writing Prose Fiction
  • Fictions of Terrorism
  • W. B. Yeats
  • Elizabeth Bishop and Twentieth Century Verse
  • A Society of Equals? Literature, Culture and Equality
  • Creative Writing Poetry
  • Contemporary Mountain Writing
  • Seamus Heaney.
Optional modules in History (previous examples include):
  • A World Turned Upside Down: Radicalism in the English Revolution
  • The Disappearance of Claudine Rouge: Murder, Mystery and Microhistory in Early Modern France
  • Light Beyond the Limes: the Christianisation of Pagan Europe,
  • From War to Cold War: US Foreign Policy, c. .
Study Abroad English Studies

The Department is part of the ERASMUS programme which encourages students to study for part of their course in a university of another EU country. Currently, we are exchanging students with the University of Reykjavik (Iceland), Charles University (Prague, Czech Republic) and Heidelberg University (Germany) in their second year of study.

The University of Reykjavik has special strengths in Old Norse and houses the world’s most important collection of Old Norse manuscripts. Charles University is one of the oldest universities in Central Europe and Heidelberg is the oldest university in Germany. Both have exceptionally beautiful settings in cities renowned for their artistic and cultural heritage. Teaching is in English at all three universities.

History

The Department participates in the University- wide overseas exchanges with:

  • Boston College (USA),
  • the University of British Columbia (Canada),
  • the University of Hong Kong (China)
  • the National University of Singapore (Singapore).

Students can apply to spend the second year of their degree overseas. If you study on the four-year Joint Honours Modern European Languages and History degree, you will spend your third year abroad at a European university or a work placement as part of the University’s ERASMUS exchanges.

History and English Literature-BA

£ 9,250 + VAT