As a student of English you will look at imaginative writings in their cultural and historical contexts. It may mean walking through the London of Defoe, Dickens, Virginia Woolf or Monica Ali. It may mean discovering the impact of the French Revolution on English art or the impact of the colonial experience on colonisers and colonised.
English students learn about the history of critical and theoretical approaches to literary texts and question the notion of ‘literature’ itself. You’ll discover how history, philosophy and psychology shape literary criticism and theory and how literature itself is taken on board by those disciplines.
As a student of History, you will have the opportunity to explore the medieval, early modern and modern periods. You will be able to choose from political, cultural, religious, social and economic themes drawn from the School’s strength in British, European, Middle-Eastern and American history. This particular degree meets a growing demand from students for a programme that links the social and political history of a period with its literary texts, and provides theoretical and skill-related tools for understanding the relationship between two disciplinary approaches. |