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Top reasons to choose this course

• Staff are active researchers and writers who bring their expertise to your learning.
• Option modules such as introduction to journalism, writing for stage, radio and screen and literature and philosophy in the second and third years enable you to tailor your degree to your specific career ambitions.
• Scrivener talks give you the chance to speak to a professional writer about their work.
• Extracurricular activities such as the Performance and Community Research and Enterprise Group and the student-led Creative Writing Society.

• Our focus on employability, including a placement, ensures you will graduate with a strong skillset.
• Develop valuable transferable skills as a critical thinker, independent researcher with excellent presentation, written and oral communication skills.
• Excellent student support and a warm and encouraging community. 
• Weekly roundup of writing competitions and opportunities to encourage you to promote your work and consider future careers.

Year 1

You will study a diverse range of genres and approaches that will introduce you to the study of English literature at degree level. You will develop the critical and theoretical tools that will help you to enhance your analytical reading and practical writing skills. 

Modules

• Language in the Social World

  This module introduces issues around language and society. You will develop an understanding of language as a social phenomenon, including the interplay of individual linguistic choices and social structures. You'll also expand your abilities to synthesise materials, think critically and communicate effectively about the relationship of language and society.

• Investigating Language

  This module provides a solid foundation in research methodologies and methods. It will develop your abilities in reading, processing and critically assessing analytical research. It will also build your skills in investigating language and linguistic patterns.

• Stories and Storytelling

  How do stories create and communicate experiences, identities and cultural meaning? How do they work to perpetuate and challenge social structures? On this module you'll study fairy tales, myth, novels, short stories and visual narratives (for example, film, comics and graphic novels, gaming) to discuss these questions. Through reading and guided research you'll identify and pursue your own interests in critical, creative and reflective ways and produce a reading and research journal.

• Understanding Culture

  This module introduces the relationship of language and culture through the discipline of linguistic anthropology. You'll build skills in key areas such as linguistic determinism and relativism, the ethnography of communication and communicative competence. Through this intellectual framing (a concept introduced in the module), you will be able to make connections about your own cultural experience of language use.

• Poetry-Politics-Protest

  This module explores poetry from a diverse selection of writers, time periods and cultures. Learning how to analyse and interpret poetry and understand poetic forms and techniques, you'll discuss poetry as a political act, form of protest and agent of social change to discover the dynamic possibilities of poetry as a relevant means of communication and connection essential in our changing world. Students co-create this module and you'll develop your own practice through curating a poetry anthology.

• The World, the Text and the Critic

  Taking inspiration from Edward Said’s book The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983), this module enables you to explore some of the key debates in contemporary literary studies. Organised around decolonial, feminist, queer, ecocritical and other approaches to texts, you'll develop critical writing skills and knowledge of social, cultural and political contexts in the interpretation of literary works and the wider world. 

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through .

The first year of your English Language and English Literature degree will introduce the principal concepts that are relevant to your study of English language. 

The core English language modules will enable you to develop the meta language to describe language features and their use in different genres.

You will also explore the historical perspective of the development of the English language.

Year 2

You will study literature from the sixteenth century to the present, with a strong emphasis on historical and cultural contexts. The second year also provides an essential grounding in understanding language in society and how it varies according to both context and the user. The focus of several year 2 modules is also on enabling independent study and research in preparation for the skills required in the final year dissertation or creative project.

In your second year you can also choose option modules from across our humanities and arts subjects.

Core modules

• Language Minoritisation and Revitalisation
• The Nineteenth Century in Literature
• Researching English Language Use
• British Literature and Twentieth-century History

Options*

• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Travel Narratives Through Time and Space
• Introduction to Journalism
• Stories That Transform: Reading and Writing for Change
• Twentieth-century Literary Experiments
• Queer Writing
• Professional Practice and Placement
• Literature and Art History
• American Literature 1850–1945
• Television Studio Production
• Photography: From Painting with Light to Zeroes and Ones

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Placements 

In year 2 you can choose a placement module which will allow you to gain professional experience in industries such as publishing, broadcasting, social media marketing, PR and the charity sector. 

Recent placement hosts include:

In year 3 you can choose the Community Placement module aimed at further building your professional experience. This is 30 to 50 hours of voluntary work with a not-for-profit or community organisation. The placement is assessed and contributes to your degree.

Mia Kurian, graduate

“My placement was with Metropolitan City Church Brighton as their Social Media Manager. I learnt a lot about myself and my interests and the type of career I may want to pursue. I got to try my hand at website design, something I had never done before, and it was a great opportunity for me to expand my creativity. Professionally, I gained a lot of experience that has been extremely useful in my career today. I learnt about creating brand cohesion and creating a brand image from scratch, something I’ve never done before.

"I absolutely loved it. It was an incredible learning experience as well as insightful. It allowed me to learn a lot about myself and the future I want. My placement manager was lovely and supportive and allowed me the freedom to explore my creativity.”

Final year

You will study postcolonial literature, with a particular emphasis on literature from Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Building on the knowledge developed over the first and second year, you will study different approaches to analysing how different types of discourse are constructed.

In the final year of your BA English Language and English Literature degree you will also identify a topic for your self-motivated research project – a critical dissertation or a creative and analytical piece. 

Modules

• Dissertation

Options*

• (Re)viewing Shakespeare
• Adaptations
• Apocalypse, Utopia, Dystopia
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse
• Citizen Journalism: Theory and Practice
• Community Placement: Theory in Practice
• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Creative Writing Project
• English Language Teaching

• Language, Culture and Ideology
• European Literatures and Film
• From Script to Screen
• Gothic Texts and Contexts
• Language, Gender and Sexuality
• Language, Law and the State: The Politics of Force
• Literature and Philosophy
• Literature and the World Wars
• Postcolonial Literatures
• Postwar American Literature
• Russian Literature and Culture: The Golden Age and Beyond
• Victorian Sexualities
• Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
• World Englishes
• Writing the Contemporary

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Lab facilities

Mithras House is home to all our School of Humanities and Social Science courses. It has a series of ‘labs’, which may be used for teaching on your course or in your independent research work.

Life lab
A comfortable space with lounge furniture intended for qualitative research with larger groups. Due to its relaxed layout and naturalistic environment, the space is suited to research using focus groups, research using observation-based methods and child research.

The space is also used for teaching on some social science courses, as well as for dissertation research for projects.
 
City lab
A space designed for collaborative student learning. It is used by students and staff involved in the university’s Global Challenges programme, our collective mission to contribute towards solutions to tackling the pressing issues facing our world.

Design lab
A space housing our extensive collection of historic dress and textiles, which are used in some teaching on our History of Art and Design courses. It has the space and equipment to work on textile projects. Displays created by students on these programmes are on view in the social spaces of the building.

Stats lab
A specialist workspace with computing equipment for statistical analysis and projects involving video and audio editing software. The lab is accessible as a study space to students on psychology courses.

It is also available to students studying courses involving video and audio recording and editing, such as politics degrees and our creative writing programmes. The stats lab contains eight soundproof booths for recording or transcribing interviews undertaken as part of dissertation research.

VR and eye tracking lab
This lab is used for psychological research, specifically eye-tracking research and virtual reality research. Equipment includes an electroencephalography (EEG) headset and Electrodermal Activity (EDA) equipment.

Meet the team

Dr Irralie Doel, course leader

Irralie is Senior Lecturer in English literature and leads the literature subject area at the Ï㽶ֱ²¥. She researches twentieth and twenty-first century women’s writing and feminist theory, poetry, poetics and politics, and creative writing.

Other staff who teach on the course include:

• Dr Deborah Philips
• Dr Janis Darvil-Mills
• Dr Michael Hallam.

Student views

Rosanna Wood

"Having lecturers who are really passionate about what they teach is great, it makes such a difference when you know that they love their subject and are enthusiastic about it.

"You can make the course what you want it to be, focusing on texts you’re really inspired by, choosing assignments which allow for plenty of creativity and tailoring your degree to be more language- or literature-based by taking the options which interest you the most.

"I loved the city and the feel of Brighton. It is such a vibrant, exciting place to live, especially for a literature student with all its theatre, poetry evenings, short story nights and the arts festival. I studied one module where local poets, writers, actors and comedians came in to give workshops to help us learn about writing creatively in different ways for different purposes, and each one of them could recommend things to read, but they could also tell you where to go in Brighton to find out more and meet other writers.

"I would love to teach literature at secondary and college level if I could. I hope to stay on at Brighton to do a PGCE course after my degree and then go on to be a teacher.”

Course fees

Fee information for this course for 2025 entry will be updated here no later than December 2024.

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2024–25.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Brighton Boost – cost of living help for our new undergrad students. Find out about how we can help with your study, accommodation or travel costs and more...
• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• Read our student contract and (pdf) for more on Ï㽶ֱ²¥ tuition fees.

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