English Literature - BA (Hons) Degree

This degree can be studied as a three-year full-time degree or a four-year full-time degree that includes a year of foundational study. Our foundation year is intended to prepare you for your subsequent years of studying, offering you the chance to strengthen your skills, knowledge and confidence.

The foundation year will be relevant to:

1. Students who aspire to enrol onto the first year of a social science-based honours degree programme, who have not achieved the standard entry requirements to enter at year one of the chosen degree.
2. Students who have not studied subjects that provide the necessary background within the scientific disciplines required to enter at year one of the chosen degree.

Find out more about the foundation year and fees.

Please note: You will need to apply using a specific UCAS code if you wish to undertake the 4 years including foundation.

Please note: This course is currently undergoing validation, and some module titles and specific content may be subject to change.

Year 1

Reading Literature

From Beowulf (c. 700) to The Bluest Eye (1970), this module will introduce you to a wide range of texts from the literary canon and give you a foundation in the study of literature. Students will also question the ongoing value of a ‘literary canon’ and the idea of an ‘English literature’.

Children’s and YA Fiction

This module will explore the world of writing for young people, and consider how shifts in understanding of childhood are reflected in the books that young people read. Students will study texts from the Victorian era through to the present day, allowing them to contextualise children’s classics, illustrated books, graphic novels and the shifting fashions of contemporary YA literature, from dystopias to Romantasy.

The Writer and the Critic

This foundational module will give students the essential skills to write critically about books and about writing processes, introducing them to the array of ways we can explore ideas through texts. It will also give students an overview of the range of literary forms that writers might write in – from screenplay to essay, from play script to short story. Students will be equipped with the tools needed to analyse their texts and other authors’ writing, and to formulate critical arguments rooted in close reading, writing processes and literary theories.

Shakespeare and His Contemporaries

This module explores Elizabethan and Jacobean theatrical practice by examining not only Shakespeare’s dramas, but also his contemporaries’ plays. You will examine the histories, comedies, city comedies, and tragedies before finally turning to modern productions of Shakespeare in the theatre and on the big screen. Innovative teaching practices take you from the desk to the studio as you grow to understand how plays work in three-dimensional space.

World Literatures

This module explores twentieth- and twenty-first century writing from across the globe, from the wealth of writers writing in other Englishes, to works in translation. Students will consider these texts in the light of contemporary debates around what we consider ‘world literature’, colonialism and decolonialism, as well as ideas around nationalism, identity, and culture and its relationship to language.

Critical Approaches

This module will introduce you to literary theory so that you become more alert and responsive to the ways in which texts work. You will also learn about the variety of critical and theoretical approaches there are to literature and have the opportunity to apply these approaches to your own creative work as well as key works in literary history, such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847).

Year 2

Romantic and Victorian Literature

This module invites you to consider poetry, fiction and non-fiction as responses to some of the century’s most pressing social questions. Alongside the formal aspects of these texts, you will examine important themes and debates of the period, such as the role of the imagination, the nation, urbanisation and industrialisation, evolution and madness, class, gender and sexuality.

Make it New! Modernist Literature and Culture

This module is an exploration of revolutionary writing and culture from the first half of the twentieth century. You will explore a range of Modernist texts, including canonical works as well as lesser-known texts, to understand the radical changes shaking up literature and society at this time.

A United Kingdom? Literatures from the Union

This module considers the literature of the UK’s four nations since the last Act of Union (1801) up to the contemporary moment. Students will consider the connection between nation, culture and literature, and pose questions about the unity of the union, or the extent to which the four nations maintain independent cultures and literatures.

Gothic Literature

This module will consider the Gothic in literatures from the Golden Age of Gothic literature in the 18th and 19th centuries, to contemporary texts that have imbibed and adapted these same themes and ideas. Exploring works from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) to Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), students will gain a vivid understanding of the ways in which the aesthetic of the Gothic continues to resonate.

Imaginary Worlds and Possible Futures

This module explores literature that creates and studies new worlds. With a focus on the future and ‘the fantastical’, you will read a range of texts from the fantasy, science fiction, utopian/dystopian fiction genres.

Work Placement

This module will provide you with the opportunity to experience professional environments and expectations. Based on your career interests, you will be invited to pursue an external placement, or an approved project in archiving, researching and more.

Year 3

Hyper-contemporary Literature and the Book Prize

From the Nobel Prize to the British Book Awards, this module will explore the qualities inherent in brand-new, hyper-contemporary literature and prize-winning writing. Students will critique the importance of contemporary book-prize culture to the success of a written text, both in popular and critical estimations.

Narratives of Place and Belonging

This module will consider the relationship between identity and place in a range of literary and cultural sources from nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century literature. Using a variety of texts, you will interrogate the politics of space and the impact this has upon identities and belonging.

Reading the Planet: Literature and Ecology

This module investigates how literary texts from different times and places have understood the relationship between nature, the environment and culture. We will address human impacts on the environment as discussed in a series of literary texts from the 18th century to the present day. And we will explore the insights that literature can offer at a time of concern about climate change and other environmental issues.

Loneliness and Liberation: Queer Texts and Stories

This module explores queer literature from the late nineteenth century through to the present moment. Working with queer theory, students will examine how literary texts engage with the social, legal and cultural constructions of queerness at different historical moments, tackling topics such as intersectionality, censorship, kinship, trans identities, queer history and sexology.

Dissertation

This year-long dissertation module will offer you the opportunity to undertake a sustained, rigorous and independent project. Students will lead their own research questions, interrogating a set of critical queries about texts of their own selection. This is the pinnacle of an undergraduate’s research and writing career, and research-focused lecturers will guide students through the projects of their own choosing.

Course Delivery

We utilise a range of teaching environments to best fit your learning needs. Delivery may include workshops, seminars, research seminars, lectures, tutorials, away days, field trips and visits. Wherever possible, the emphasis is placed upon small group work and individual learning needs.

Extra-curricular

During your degree, you will be invited to attend literary festivals, theatre trips, films and other cultural events held in Cardiff and beyond. The department also regularly invites external speakers to give presentations and readings.

Technology and Facilities

Our degree is enhanced by the use of the University’s virtual learning system. You will also have access to all the resources created for our BA (Hons) English and Creative Writing degree, including the Creative Writing Opportunities Page, where you can find calls for submissions, writing competitions, reading recommendations, internship opportunities and more.

The Cardiff Met library also has a range of excellent physical and digital resources for readers and writers. Our lecturers regularly order prize-winning novels and poetry collections into the library so you can stay up to date with your reading.

Teaching Staff

Our degree is taught by a research active team including Dr Carmen Casaliggi, Dr Elizabeth English, and Dr Nick Taylor-Collins who have research interests in Romanticism, Modernist and Contemporary Literature, with specialisms in Irish literature, women’s writing, and the work of John Ruskin.

Their work is supported by a team of academics who are also published creative writers and practising researchers into the applications of writing in real world settings. This includes Dr Sabrin Hasbun, Dr Kate North, and Dr Ben Fergusson. Having active creative writers as part of the teaching team gives students a unique insight into current movements and shifts in the contemporary world of publishing and writing, and a large network of opportunities and contacts in the creative industries in Wales, the UK and beyond.

We’re committed to innovative assessment practices that match identified learning outcomes for your module and degree. This means assessment, wherever possible, is linked to enhancing not only your subject knowledge but skills vital in developing your employment opportunities.

Examples of assessment include essays, research portfolios, group work, writing portfolios, critical and reflective practice, reviews, poster presentations, blogs, annotated bibliographies and so on. You will also complete a placement, which will be assessed through a reflective text.

Throughout the degree, you will regularly be provided with written and verbal feedback on your academic work and will work closely with tutors to develop work suitable for publication.

You will also have a single personal academic tutor assigned to you for the duration of your degree, who will be able to support you throughout your academic journey at Cardiff Met.

Graduates from the BA (Hons) English Literature degree will be well placed to continue their journey in academia through an MA and PhD; to go into teaching at primary, secondary or tertiary levels; to join literary, media and publishing companies; to work in the arts and cultural sectors; and to become freelance writers and editors.

The critical thinking and extensive reading involved in the degree is also broad enough to set graduates up for careers in a wide range of new digital sectors that rely on creative thinking and a strong sense of the ways that we might think about the world.

Our degree has a strong contemporary focus and provides highly valued employability skills. These skills form the foundation for careers in:

• Academia
• Writing (fiction, nonfiction, poetry or script)
• Publishing
• Editing
• Media production
• Teaching
• Lecturing
• Advertising
• PR
• Copywriting
• Video game production
• Web content generation
• Law

Cardiff has one of the largest media and creative-industry sectors outside London, including BBC Wales, ITV Wales, S4C, BBC Radio Wales and Media Wales (walesonline.co.uk, the Western Mail and Echo). You will be well situated to draw upon a range of opportunities to combine theory with ‘applied practice’ and be supported and encouraged to develop a portfolio of highly valued skills and practices, putting you in a strong position when it comes to moving towards a career.

Many of the skills you will obtain as part of this degree are also useful in industries beyond those listed above. We ensure that our curriculum develops you as a graduate so that you demonstrate the following skills and attributes:

• Problem solving and analytical abilities
• Inter-personal and networking skills
• Global citizenship (with knowledge of diversity and sustainability)
• Flexibility and adaptability (life-long learning)
• Effective communication skills
• Creativity and innovation
• Digital literacy
• Reflective practice

You will also have the opportunity to advance to postgraduate study at MA and then PhD level.

Typical Offers

The following requirements are based on typical offers relevant to entering year 1 of the degree.

If you do not meet these entry requirements, we also offer a Foundation Year which allows progression to Year 1 upon successful completion.

• Tariff points: 104
• Contextual offer: See our contextual offers page.
• GCSE: Preferably five GCSEs at Grade C / 4 or above to include English Language / Welsh First Language, Mathematics / Mathematics – Numeracy.
• English Language Requirement: Academic IELTS 6.0 overall with at least 5.5 in all elements, or equivalent.
• A level subjects: Minimum three A levels to include grades CCC. No specific subjects required. Welsh Advanced Skills Baccalaureate considered as a third subject.
• BTEC National / Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma: MMM
• T Level: Merit.
• Access to Higher Education Diploma: No specific subjects required.
• International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma: No specific subjects required.
• Irish Leaving Certificate: 2 x H2. No specific subjects required. Higher level subjects only considered with a minimum grade H4.
• Scottish Advanced Highers: Grade DD. No specific subjects required. Scottish Highers are also considered, either on their own or in combination with Advanced Highers.

Combinations of the above qualifications are accepted if they meet our minimum requirements. If your qualifications aren’t listed, please contact Admissions or refer to the UCAS Course Search.

For those students coming back to study or who are coming to university from a non-traditional route, we also have a route into the degree through the Foundation Leading to Social Sciences.

Further information on Overseas qualifications can be found here.

If you are a mature applicant, have relevant experience or RPL that you would like us to consider, please contact Admissions.

How to Apply

Further information on how to apply can be found here.

For general enquiries, please contact the Admissions Team on 029 2041 6010 or email askadmissions@cardiffmet.ac.uk.

For course specific enquiries, please contact the Programme Director, Dr Ben Fergusson:

• Email: bfergusson@cardiffmet.ac.uk