Subject
Literature
Vibrant. Experimental. Supportive.
Turn your love of reading into something more.
The study of literature allows you to explore the world and other cultures. Through reading we can travel through time, but also see our present in a whole new light.
At Essex we specialise in changing perceptions. We love the classics, but here is where you’ll get a fresh take. We want you to discover that your new favourite author is someone you’ve never heard of before. Together, as we look at everything from sci-fi to Shakespeare, we’ll revolutionise the definition of literature.
Study your passion, improve your writing and research skills and develop the kind of intelligence employers really value.
Why study here?
- You can study a diverse range of literature, including Arthurian legends, writings from Europe, the US and the Caribbean, the plays of Shakespeare, Romantic poetry, science fiction and so much more.
- We encourage an interdisciplinary approach. Explore film, drama, journalism or creative writing alongside your degree of choice.
- Our graduates find employment in a range of industries, from publishing and education to media and the performing arts.
Be inspired by a breadth of literary traditions, cultures and forms.
As a well-established home to practising poets, novelists and critics, literature and creative writing at Essex has a reputation for nurturing the most radical writers and thinkers. Our concerns are local and global: as readers and writers, we adopt a comparative method as we traverse near and faraway places, discovering new modes of writing and reconsidering classics.
Why study here?
- You will explore connections with other art forms alongside world-renowned scholars, poets, dramatists, story-tellers and novelists.
- We’re ranked among the top 200 departments in the QS World University Rankings (2018).
- We have an impressive literary legacy. Our history of staff and students have been Nobel Prize winners, Booker Prize winners and Pulitzer Prize winners.
Dynamic. Innovative. Experimental.
Our research is internationally recognised across a wide range of specialisms in English, comparative, and world literature, including American, Caribbean, and European literature, Early Modern and Renaissance literature, Romanticism, translation studies and adaptation, as well as colonial and postcolonial literatures.
Why study here?
- Be part of an active and interdisciplinary research community where students and staff work together in a creative and intellectually challenging environment.
- We run weekly research seminars with speakers invited from UK and abroad, as well as regularly hosting major conferences.
- Our research students organise and present at our annual PhD conference.
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