Course Overview:
Reading and understanding literature can help us to find out about ourselves and see the world from other perspectives. Through engaging with different kinds of texts from across the globe and from different periods of history, you will learn how language reflects and shapes human experience. You’ll also develop your skills as a critical reader, a clear thinker, and a persuasive writer.
Effective communication drives the world. Studying English at Leeds prepares you for an exciting, rewarding and fulfilling professional future. Graduates often pursue careers in media, publishing, journalism, education, the cultural industries and creative arts, or enter fields including management, marketing, and business, where strong analytical skills are prized.
Taught by world-leading academics, you’ll develop a nuanced understanding of literatures in English from the medieval to the present moment, and from the local to the global. Our English Literature degree offers a comprehensive and inclusive exploration of different periods, genres, and cultures. Our modules explore themes relevant to how we live today, including race and ethnicity, gender, climate change and nature, social class, disability, and wellbeing.
A foundational first year will develop your ability to read critically and write with flair, precision, and persuasion. You’ll also explore the diversity and range of literatures in English. Second year will deepen your understanding of literature’s relationship to the environment and to the self, whilst consolidating your knowledge of the breadth and range of the subject. At Level 3, you will build your expertise through choosing from a range of specialist option modules taught by cutting-edge researchers. A final year project on a topic of your choice will allow you to sharpen and confirm your own distinctive critical voice.
Course Details
At Level 1, you will take Reading Between the Lines and Writing Matters, introducing you to university-level study, equipping you to read critically and write with rigour and persuasion. A further compulsory module on Race, Writing and Decolonisation, reflecting the School’s commitment to decolonising literary studies, looks at literary representations of race and racism from around the world. Optional modules focus on poetry, fiction and drama. You may also take Discovery modules from across the University.
At Level 2, you will take two core modules, Writing Environments and Body Language. These modules explore two urgent contemporary challenges, the climate crisis and how we navigate the relationship between the body and the mind. Students will also select four further modules from a choice of eight, ranging historically and geographically from Medieval to Contemporary, and from Postcolonial to American. Level 2 will deepen and enrich subject knowledge, alongside intellectual and academic skills, preparing you for more independent learning.
After your second year of study, students may apply for transfer to an International Degree at one of a wide range of universities with which the University of Leeds has established connections. Alternatively, they may spend a year in industry on a work placement as an optional third year of their degree programme.
At Level 3, you have free choice of a wide range of specialist modules taught by the School’s world-leading researchers. These modules, which focus on particular writers, genres, political issues, and cultural debates, will help you develop and refine the active research and writing skills which you will demonstrate in your final year project. This sustained and extended piece of work may be a dissertation or a textual edition, and it will be guided by an academic supervisor. The Final Year Project is the capstone achievement of your degree in English Literature, consolidating and enhancing the skills of project planning, research initiative and self-motivation which are highly valued by future
employers.
[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable
At Level 1, candidates will be required to study the following compulsory modules:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL1055 | Writing Matters | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL1065 | Reading Between the Lines | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL1855 | Race, Writing and Decolonization | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) |
Candidates may select 20-60 credits of modules from the following optional modules. Alternatively, they may take up to 40 credits of Discovery modules in place of two of the option modules.
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL1070 | Drama: Text and Performance | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL1221 | Modern Fictions in English: Conflict, Liminality, Translation | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL1261 | Poetry: Reading and Interpretation | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
Candidates may take up to 40 credits of Discovery modules in place of two of the optional modules.
[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable
At Level 2, candidates will be required to study the following compulsory modules:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL2030 | Writing Environments: Literature, Nature, Culture | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL2045 | Body Language: Literature and Embodiment | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) |
Candidates will also be required to choose four optional modules from the following five baskets. They may not select more than one module from each basket. Alternatively, they may take up to 20 credits of Discovery modules in place of one of the option modules.
Basket 1:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL2029 | Renaissance Literature | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL2085 | Medieval and Tudor Literature | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
Basket 2:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL2065 | Postcolonial Literature | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL2090 | Modern Literature | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
Basket 3:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL2095 | Other Voices: Rethinking Nineteenth-Century Literature | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL2096 | The World Before Us: Literature 1660–1830 | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) |
Basket 4:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL2055 | American Words, American Worlds | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL2080 | Contemporary Literature | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) |
Basket 6:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL2033 | Crime Fiction Stylistics: Crossing Languages, Culture, Media | 20 | ||
| ENGL2034 | Cursing and Courtesy: (im)politeness in English | 20 | ||
| ENGL2036 | Digital Discourse: language and social media | 20 | ||
| ENGL2037 | Forensic Approaches to Language | 20 | ||
| ENGL2038 | Global English: Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Decolonisation | 20 | ||
| ENGL2042 | Language Policy, Planning, and Politics | 20 | ||
| ENGL2043 | The Politics of Language | 20 | ||
| ENGL2044 | Prose Fiction Stylistics and the Mind | 20 | ||
| ENGL2048 | Dialect Hunting | 20 | ||
| ENGL2049 | Language of the Media | 20 |
Candidates may take up to 20 credits of Discovery modules in place of one of the option modules.
[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable
CANDIDATES UNDERTAKE AN APPROVED WORK PLACEMENT.
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FOAH8001 | Work Placement Year | 120 | Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) |
[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable
At Level 3 Candidates will be required to study ONE of the following modules:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL3005 | Textual Editing Project | 40 | Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) | |
| ENGL3041 | Final Year Project | 40 | Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) |
Candidates will choose up to 40 credits of specialist research modules from Basket 1 and up to 40 credits of specialist research modules from Basket 2. The list provided below is indicative and subject to change year by year depending on staff availability. Modules will be timetabled clash-free
Candidates may choose 20 credits of discovery modules in place of one 20 credit option module.
Basket 1:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL3031 | Sex and Suffering in the Eighteenth-Century Novel | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL3033 | Writing and Gender in Seventeenth-Century England | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL3037 | Speech Acts: Contemporary Approaches to Text and Performance | 20 | ||
| ENGL3046 | Parts, Periodicals, Newspapers: Literature and the Nineteenth-Century Press | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL3063 | Haunted Hinterlands: Wyrd Works and Folk Horror Fictions | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL3068 | African American Narrative | 20 | ||
| ENGL3069 | African Literature | 20 | ||
| ENGL3073 | Turks, Moors and Jews: Race and Identity in Early Modern Drama | 20 | ||
| ENGL3114 | Forming Victorian Fiction | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL3268 | Transformations | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL3321 | Angry Young Men and Women: Literature of the Mid-Twentieth Century | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ENGL3477 | Cursing and Courtesy: (im)politeness in English | 20 | ||
| ENGL3482 | Language Policy, Planning, and Politics | 20 | ||
| ENGL3484 | Prose Fiction Stylistics and the Mind | 20 | ||
| ENGL3491 | Language of the Media | 20 | ||
| ENGL3680 | Postcolonial London | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| FOAH3001 | Global African Writing | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
Basket 2
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ENGL3008 | Writing Modern Sexualities | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3027 | Shakespeare | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3062 | Charles Dickens Then & Now | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3065 | Page, Publication and Audience | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3072 | Narratives of Witchcraft and Magic | 20 | ||
| ENGL3153 | Refugee Narratives | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3163 | Milton | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL32111 | Gender, Culture and Politics: Readings of Jane Austen | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3391 | September 11 in Fact and Fiction | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3394 | Bowie, Reading, Writing | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3396 | Fictions of the End: Apocalypse and After | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3461 | Imagining the United States: Citizenship, Domesticity and Slavery | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ENGL3476 | Crime Fiction Stylistics: Crossing Languages, Culture, Media | 20 | ||
| ENGL3478 | Digital Discourse: language and social media | 20 | ||
| ENGL3479 | Forensic Approaches to Language | 20 | ||
| ENGL3480 | Global English: Colonialism, Postcolonialism, and Decolonisation | 20 | ||
| ENGL3483 | The Politics of Language | 20 | ||
| ENGL3489 | Dialect Hunting | 20 | ||
| ENGL3579 | Law and Literature: Transgression, Justice, and Interpretation | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) |
Candidates may take up to 20 credits of Discovery modules in place of one of the option modules.
Last updated: 08/05/2024 17:06:48
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