English Literature and History BA(Hons)

This module will introduce you to the place of history in the public sphere. Utilising a range of case studies, it will help you understand and critically analyse how the past is produced and presented in a range of places that include museums, the media and online. With input from academics and those involved in the creation and curation of public history, this module will also help you develop your communication and employability skills.

Critical thinking enables us to go beyond the surface of information, using analytical skills to dissect, question, and evaluate ideas with a detective's curiosity and a scientist's precision. The module will hone your intellectual skills in reasoning and close analysis, improve your ability to present arguments effectively, and equip you to plan and conduct an independent research project. This module will also provide support for planning your personal and career development.

This module introduces you to a diverse range of literary texts, representing the principal genres on which the Western literary tradition is built. It also explores how these genres have been adapted, modified, and reformed in response to historical and cultural change. It helps you situate this knowledge in relation to overarching questions about the key concepts, skills and terms used throughout the study of literature at university level.

In this module you'll develop skills in contextual analysis relating to two different topics in literary studies. You'll analyse digital resources, evaluate the arguments of a range of literary critics, and present your own arguments and ideas in a written essay and an oral presentation. The module incorporates a series of skills workshops in addition to the core of lectures and seminars on of two distinct literary topics. You'll choose these from a range of options, which relate directly to the research expertise and scholarly publications of individual members of academic staff. The options on offer may include: Global Shakespeares; Extraordinary Gentlemen; 20th-Century Poetry; 20th-Century Drama; 20th-Century Fiction; South Asian Writing in English; 'Old Worlds, New Worlds, and Other Worlds; 1837; Victorian Novel; Frontiers & Borders in American Literature and Contemporary Women's Writing.

This module aims to develop your understanding of key theoretical concepts and the productive ways in which these can be used in reading literary and cultural texts. It encourages you to engage with challenging ideas around nation, identity, history and culture.

This module equips you with the necessary tools to devise and plan your own independent research project. The module is taught through a series of workshops that support you in becoming a historical researcher in your own right. You'll identify a historical research topic, locate research questions within an appropriate historiographical context and find relevant primary source material. As such, the course offers a significant underpinning for Year 3 dissertations and projects.

This module explores the Crusades to the Holy Land from the late 11th to mid-13th Centuries in the context of contemporary political, social and religious developments in Western Europe and the Middle East. You'll be directed to different accounts of the Crusades in contemporary sources from the perspective of the crusaders themselves, as well as from the point of view of the Jewish, Islamic and Byzantine peoples who were affected by the influx of Western Europeans to the Eastern Mediterranean. You'll also have the opportunity to examine crusading activities within Europe (e.g. Spain and the Baltic).

On this module, you'll use archival resources to explore the social, cultural, legal and emotional history of refugees in the twentieth century. You'll think about how we can hear the refugee ‘voice’ in history and how this can help us reflect on the experience of displacement, in the contemporary world as well as in the past.

Through a study of primary and secondary sources, this module introduces you to the political and religious history of the Tudor and Early Stuart periods in areas under the control of the English Crown. You'll find out that many issues from this time have been debated by historians, and come to understand how they resonate into the 21st Century.

This module deals with the theory and practice of oral history in relation to the history of childhood and youth. You'll conduct at least one interview, and provide all the relevant ethical and archival documentation to accompany it. You'll be introduced to the key problems in oral history of memory, ethics, intersubjectivity and narrative. Finally, in order to write about the experience of childhood and youth in the past, you'll learn the analytical techniques which can be applied to oral history data.

On this module you'll get to grips with the history, memory and historiographical controversy surrounding the Nazi era in European History. You'll use a broad range of primary and secondary source material to develop a deep historical analysis, rooted in the debates over the consent or coercion of the German population, the limits of the totalitarian model and the nature of victimhood and commemoration.

You’ll be exploring histories of the African continent on this module, and thinking analytically about sources in order to break free from dominant colonial ideas, structures and questions. Following broadly chronological lines, you’ll consider the impacts of geography, religions, slavery, medicine and healthcare, among other key themes.

The module is designed for students who have the minimum level of English language skills for them to have been accepted onto a university course and who may lack the initiative to ask for help when needed. In this module students are provided with the opportunity to develop higher levels of confidence in their production of spoken and written academic English. In addition, students will consolidate and refine their understanding of syntax and grammatical structures. As the module runs alongside their university studies, there is an emphasis on and an incentive to use skills that complement work done in the main area of study and which will be of use in and beyond an academic context. The use of regular AM/AI-proof tasks will ensure students develop an understanding of their own learning and the role they themselves play in developing their knowledge and skills. The module contributes to the attainment of skills and knowledge relevant to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) normally level B2- to B2.

The module provides students who have a level of English language skills sufficiently advanced for them to have been accepted onto a University course with the opportunity to improve further their skills in that language, with particular reference to improvements in the accuracy, clarity and fluency of their oral and written work. In addition to this, students will refine and develop their knowledge of academic study skills. As the module runs alongside their university studies, there is an emphasis on and an incentive to use skills that complement work done in the main area of study and which will be of use in and beyond an academic context. The use of regular AM/AI-proof tasks will ensure students develop an understanding of their own learning and the role they themselves play in developing their knowledge and skills. The module contributes to the attainment of skills and knowledge relevant to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) normally level B2 to B2+.

The module is designed for students who already have a good level of competence in spoken and written English and will support them to further enhance their language and academic skills. Students will refine and develop higher level thinking skills such as critical analysis, problem-solving, synthesis, inference and metacognition. Advanced oral role-plays, group discussions and debates will serve to improve spontaneity and sophistication of expression, whilst written activities will build greater fluency in the use of linguistic structures. They will work with extended academic texts and understand such academic skills as synthesising sources, literature reviews, methodologies, paraphrasing and a range of accurate citation skills. As the module runs alongside their university studies, there is an emphasis on and an incentive to use skills that complement work done in the main area of study and which will be of use in and beyond an academic context. The use of regular AM/AI-proof tasks will ensure students develop an understanding of their own learning and the role they themselves play in developing their knowledge and skills. The module contributes to the attainment of skills appropriate to the B2+ to C1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages.

You’ll enhance your understanding of key theoretical concepts, inviting you to choose a particular literary topic and conceptual focus for your own original analysis of works of literature in relation to other fields of intellectual debate such as historiography, philosophy or film studies. It encourages you to challenge and build upon the concepts and methodologies that have underpinned literary criticism in the past by engaging you in interdisciplinary perspectives and advanced debates in contemporary literary theory. The module incorporates a series of concept workshops in addition to a core of lectures and seminars on a distinct literary topic, which you will choose from the range of available options. These options relate to the research expertise and scholarly publications of individual members of academic staff. The options on offer may include: Global Shakespeares; Extraordinary Gentlemen; Frontiers and Borders in American Literature; 20th-Century Poetry; 20th- Century Drama; South Asian Writing in English; Old Worlds, New Worlds and Other Worlds.

You’ll enhance your understanding of key theoretical concepts, inviting you to choose a particular literary topic and conceptual focus for your own original analysis of works of literature in relation to other fields of intellectual debate such as historiography, philosophy or film studies. It encourages you to challenge and build upon the concepts and methodologies that have underpinned literary criticism in the past by engaging you in interdisciplinary perspectives and advanced debates in contemporary literary theory. The module incorporates a series of concept workshops in addition to a core of lectures and seminars on a distinct literary topic, which you will choose from the range of available options. These options relate to the research expertise and scholarly publications of individual members of academic staff. The options on offer may include: Global Shakespeares; Extraordinary Gentlemen; Frontiers and Borders in American Literature; 20th-Century Poetry; 20th- Century Drama; South Asian Writing in English; Old Worlds, New Worlds and Other Worlds.

This module is the culmination of your degree, allowing you to apply your skills and knowledge to researching and writing an extended piece of work on a subject of your choice, including, if applicable a public engagement output with an external organisation, such as a museum, archive, community heritage group or similar.

The Honours Project is a 6,000-word tightly focused project based on primary sources. You can choose this instead of the longer dissertation, and pick up another module to make up the credits. The Project is on a topic of your choice. You’ll also produce and present a research poster outlining your progress.

This module will investigate East Central Europe in the period between the two World Wars. Carving states out of the remnants of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian Empires created much political (and, in some cases, military) turmoil over border disputes and ethnic exclaves, some of which resurfaced after the end of the Cold War. You will learn about Eastern European history in the 1920s and 1930s, theory and methods of spatial history and historical geography, maps as sources, and digital cartography for analysis and dissemination of historical geographies.

This module aims to develop your understanding of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries in relation to the ‘care’ of what we would now call mentally ill and learning disabled people. By focusing on social and political, as well as medical themes, you’ll have the chance to explore both the understanding of mental ill health and learning disability, and the responses to them.

This module aims to develop your understanding of the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries in relation to the ‘care’ of what we would now call mentally ill and learning disabled people. By focusing on social and political, as well as medical themes, you’ll have the chance to explore both the understanding of mental ill health and learning disability, and the responses to them.

This module examines the impact of economic conditions in the era of the Great Depression on British politics, culture and society. You’ll be looking at government economic policy, the social impact of economic changes on education and other social issues, examining the consequences of unemployment, the problems of poverty and health, and the protest movements of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement, and the General Strike. You’ll also explore the fortunes of the Conservative, Liberal and Labour parties during the inter-war years and assess the activities of smaller parties such as the Independent Labour Party (ILP), the British Union of Fascists (BUF) and the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

This module will explore aspects of medieval history in depth, focusing on contemporary narrative sources, both historical and literary, and including some consideration of related visual and material sources. You'll also engage with the post-medieval representation of the Middle Ages in both academic and popular terms.

This module examines the history and memory of the French experience of World War II, focusing on the German Occupation, the Vichy Regime, French collaboration, and the development of internal and external resistance. You'll have access to a broad range of primary and secondary source material (in translation) to provide a cultural historical analysis, rooted in the debates over silence, truth and representation.We’ll watch a number of historical feature films together and use them to analyse how public or popular memory develops.

The module immerses you in the aftermath of the First World War and attempts at peacebuilding and reconstruction. You’ll investigate the work of new organisations like the League of Nations, the experiences of individuals and cultural responses. There’s a focus on Britain, but set in the context of international movements and global challenges.

The reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) is at the heart of this module. By examining a range of primary sources from the era, as well as important secondary studies, you’ll gain real understanding of key themes in the early-modern era, such as gender, politics, foreign policy and religion. You’ll also consider how Elizabeth has been portrayed in the modern era, in images, television and film.

This module develops your understanding of the Great War: its origins, the military course of the conflict, its impact on British society, and reactions to the war in literature, art and memorial architecture. While we’ll mainly study the British experience of the First World War, we’ll also broaden our approach and consider continental European and imperial experiences too.

You will be provided with the opportunity to develop higher levels of confidence in your production of spoken and written academic English. In addition, you will consolidate and refine your understanding of syntax and grammatical structures. As the module runs alongside your university studies, there is an emphasis on and an incentive to use skills that complement work done in the main area of study and which will be of use in and beyond an academic context. The use of regular AM/AI-proof tasks will ensure you develop an understanding of your own learning and the role you can play in developing your knowledge and skills. The module contributes to the attainment of skills and knowledge relevant to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) normally level B2- to B2.

The module provides students who have a level of English language skills sufficiently advanced for them to have been accepted onto a University course with the opportunity to improve further their skills in that language, with particular reference to improvements in the accuracy, clarity and fluency of their oral and written work. In addition to this, students will refine and develop their knowledge of academic study skills. As the module runs alongside their university studies, there is an emphasis on and an incentive to use skills that complement work done in the main area of study and which will be of use in and beyond an academic context. The use of regular AM/AI-proof tasks will ensure students develop an understanding of their own learning and the role they themselves play in developing their knowledge and skills. The module contributes to the attainment of skills and knowledge relevant to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) normally level B2 to B2+.

The module is designed for students who already have a good level of competence in spoken and written English and will support them to further enhance their language and academic skills. Students will refine and develop higher level thinking skills such as critical analysis, problem-solving, synthesis, inference and metacognition. Advanced oral role-plays, group discussions and debates will serve to improve spontaneity and sophistication of expression, whilst written activities will build greater fluency in the use of linguistic structures. They will work with extended academic texts and understand such academic skills as synthesising sources, literature reviews, methodologies, paraphrasing and a range of accurate citation skills. As the module runs alongside their university studies, there is an emphasis on and an incentive to use skills that complement work done in the main area of study and which will be of use in and beyond an academic context. The use of regular AM/AI-proof tasks will ensure students develop an understanding of their own learning and the role they themselves play in developing their knowledge and skills. The module contributes to the attainment of skills appropriate to the B2+ to C1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for Languages.