English with Foundation Year BA (Hons)

If you are passionate about literature, culture, ideas and writing, our BA English offers you a varied and flexible course with teaching that builds on the rich literary and cultural history of the local area, once home to the Bloomsbury Group, including Virginia Woolf. You will study some of the most cutting-edge authors, deepen your analytical capacity, expand your knowledge and understanding, and become a skilled reader, writer and communicator. You will be taught by internationally renowned academics, researchers and writers.

Why choose this course?

• On this BA English, you will be supported to be the best thinker, reader and writer you can be. Our classrooms are inspiring, stimulating and welcoming - and we love what we do. Academics teaching BA English regularly receive teaching awards.
• We offer you an exciting and varied curriculum with opportunities to choose modules that match your interests. You will have the opportunity to discover groundbreaking texts that include medieval, Gothic, Victorian and contemporary literatures, including from North America and the Global South.
• We welcome and support an international and intergenerational community of students that want to explore the role of literature, the humanities and the arts, in addressing the most urgent issues of our times: identity, climate justice, social inequality, migration, conflict and what it means to be human.
• Our prestigious research nourishes a vibrant teaching and learning environment in which you will be taught by world-class experts who are shaping the field.

What you will learn

We focus on three main approaches to studying English: storytelling, making stories and understanding texts. This allows you to learn how stories are communicated, how they are created and how texts produce meaning in the world.

We pride ourselves on offering you a wide range of modules that expand the boundaries of literature and your understanding of the world, but also support your career aspirations. These span the medieval to contemporary periods and include creative writing, theatre, film, poetry, science fiction and more.

You will study fiction, non-fiction, autobiography, biography, literary criticism, essays, poetry and plays in interdisciplinary contexts to understand how literature shapes, and is shaped by, our contemporary cultural climate as well as traditions and legacies of the past.

How you will learn

You will be taught in lectures, small seminar groups and workshops. Lectures introduce you to broad topics and ideas, seminars allow you to discuss texts in depth, and workshops allow you to practise your skills.

You will engage in literary study in a cultural and global context while finessing your writing skills, and participate in events involving internationally acclaimed critics, writers, actors and philosophers.

This course is available to study full- or part-time. It has an evening timetable with classes taking place in the evening.

Foundation Year

If you opt for the Foundation Year route, this will fully prepare you for undergraduate study. It is ideal if you are returning to study after a gap, or if you have not previously studied the relevant subjects, or if you didn't achieve the grades you need for a place on your chosen undergraduate degree. Find out everything you need to know about Foundation Years.