'Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies'

Explore the urge to create and build new worlds, to share language and stories with others. On our course you work on the craft of writing through a multi-genre approach, through and across a variety of writings from fiction and poetry, to non-fiction, psychogeography, performance writing and beyond.

Studying English Literature at Essex will revolutionise the way you think about literature. We'll challenge you to reflect on how literature shapes, and is shaped by, the world.

Study a wide range of dramatic texts, from Ancient Greek times to the present day, and develop an understanding of the principal developments in European Theatre. You can benefit from our Lakeside Theatre, which has been established as a major venue for excellent drama, known for a commitment to new writing for the stage.

Refine your critical skills and nurture your thinking about film and literature. Explore cinema and other media through cultural analysis, the impact of changes in technology and aesthetics, and cinema as a creative outlet, to discover how film developed in the modern world.

All writers are first of all readers and all readers are writers, for without the active participation of readers a book is never fully realised. Our BA Literature and Creative Writing offers a unique approach to the practice of reading and writing, combining more familiar British and American perspectives and readings with other influential schools of writing, from the study of tradition and myth to the innovative practice of the Workshop of Potential Literature or Oulipo in France.

Our course combines hands-on practical filmmaking, creative writing workshops, and theoretical and contextual studies. We encourage you to forge links between theory and practice, and to make critically-informed choices in your own creative work through the knowledge you gain of film history, literary classics and writing across a range of genres.

Take yourself on a literary adventure around the world. Our BA English and Comparative Literature offers a unique opportunity to explore English literature alongside writings from across the globe, both in English and in translation.

You are inspired by the world around you, and you want to capture it in words. You are good at telling stories, and you like to experiment with form and language, creating new worlds to share with your reader.

Explore the urge to create and build new worlds, to share language and stories with others. On our course you will reflect on how literature shapes, and is shaped by the world, as well as honing the craft of writing through a multi-genre approach.

Our department offers a distinctively comparative approach to the study of literature; at Essex you don't just study English literature, you study world literature in English. You explore literature across time, geography, and genre, combining scholarly research with innovative, practical ways of engaging with texts.