Literature | Subject area | University of Essex

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You're curious. Well read. An analyst.

You’ve read the classics, but you want a fresh take on literature. You want to discover that your new favourite author is someone you’ve never heard of before. You want to study literature that allows you to explore the world and other cultures. You want to travel through time, imagine ahead to the future, but also see the present in a whole new light.

Learn about our teaching and assessment plans, in light of the pandemic, for the 2020/21 academic year on the department pages.

Our courses

We offer BA English Literature as a single honours.

If joint honours are more your thing check out:

BA English and Comparative Literature

BA English and United States Literature

BA English Language and Literature

BA Literature and Art History

BA Literature and Creative Writing

BA Literature and Sociology

BA Drama and Literature

BA Film Studies and Literature

BA History and Literature

BA Journalism and Literature

BA Philosophy and Literature

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.
You can respond both critically and artistically to your studies in our unique literary conservatoire.
All our undergraduate courses have the option of spending a term or a full year studying abroad.

Hear from our students and graduates

Eseabasi is a BA Literature and Sociology (including Placement Year) student. Here she shares what she enjoys most about her course and what she's gained from her work placement.

What do you enjoy most about your course?

My mind has been opened to so many things throughout the duration of my course; concepts of race, gender, class, social movements, fiction and non-fiction and how both have created what we call ‘history’ today. I love being able to have conversations about difficult topics and that there is a space to do so safely.

Where did you do your placement and what kind of work and tasks were involved?

I did my placement at The Sapphire Community Group based in London. I was a Media intern during my time at the charity but was given a wide variety of tasks on the admin, marketing and project management teams. I was able to send clients emails, plan events with my team, work on the company’s marketing strategies with the use of social media, amongst many other tasks.

Are there any ‘stand out’ moments from your experience on placement?

The realisation that I had grown and matured in terms of my confidence was a huge stand out moment. I was now able to speak up, plan events and look at my opinions as important, and my actions as part of a nucleus that would build the company up.

Read more from our graduates and find out about career prospects and opportunities while you study.

Be inspired by a literary legacy

As a well-established home to practising poets, novelists and critics, we have 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. You'll be part of an interdisciplinary department specialising in literature, creative writing, theatre, film and journalism.

We offer MA Literature and MA American Literatures, but if you would rather a joint honours we also offer MA Film and Literature and MA Translation and Literature.

Learn about our teaching and assessment plans, in light of the pandemic, for the 2020/21 academic year on the department pages.

Why study here?

You will explore connections with other art forms alongside world-renowned scholars, poets, dramatists, story-tellers and novelists
Discover an extensive range of world literature across time, geography and genre
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.

We have a fresh take on literature. We're specialists in 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. We're proud of the talent we nurture. Our history of staff and students have been Nobel Prize winners, Booker Prize winners and Pulitzer Prize winners.

Based in our Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies we like to utilise our interdisciplinary nature to push the boundaries. Our research projects are topical, with a strong focus on ecocriticism, green writing and literary geographies.

Read our academic biographies to find out more about us and use our research finder to find a topic and a supervisor to suit you.

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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Disclaimer

Following the impact of the pandemic, we made changes to our teaching and assessment to ensure our current students could continue with their studies uninterrupted and safely. These changes included courses being taught through blended delivery, normally including some face-to-face teaching, online provision, or a combination of both across the year.

The teaching and assessment methods listed on each course page show what is currently planned for 2021 entry; changes may be necessary if, by the beginning of this course, we need to adapt the way we’re delivering them due to the external environment, and to allow you to continue to receive the best education possible safely and seamlessly.

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