BA Literature and History

This programme provides opportunities to study cultures and societies through both literary and historical materials and approaches.

The teaching is shared between two groups of specialists: the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing (from which the programme is organised), and the School of History. It enables students to combine the study of literary texts with that of the social and political worlds in which they were made and circulated. Historians and literary critics sometimes read the same documents, but they have different approaches and employ different methods of analysis: this programme presents the opportunity to explore both approaches. The combination leads towards an understanding not simply of literature and history, but of culture and cultural studies.

Course Structure:

After the first year which is made up of introductory modules in literature, history and cultural studies, you are encouraged to construct a programme that suits your own intellectual interests and enthusiasms. The available modules enable you to make choices of nationality as well as of period and issue. In the second year, for instance, students can choose between historical modules that include Landscape, The Holocaust, Modern Spain and Medicine and Society as well as more traditional modules, such as Norman and Plantagenet England and Nationalism. Within Literature the choice ranges across modules such as The Politics of Language, Cultural Theory and Analysis, Nineteenth Century European Drama, From Pushkin to Chekhov: Russian Fiction, and Postcolonialism. The presence of ‘free choice’ modules enables more study of Literature and History, or study in other disciplines; and in the final year you can undertake three quarters of your study in just Literature or History if you wish.

Year 1

The first year entails study in both disciplines as well as an introductory course in cultural studies that is based on their inter-relationship.

Year 2 and Year 3

The degree incorporates considerable flexibility in years 2 and 3, allowing you to construct a programme that reflects your own intellectual interests and enthusiasms. For example, you may wish to concentrate some of your work around the literature and history of a particular period: the Middle Ages; the Renaissance; the Restoration; the Eighteenth Century; the Victorian Era; Modernism; the Contemporary. Alternatively, you may prefer to develop a specialised knowledge of the history of one of the literary genres: drama; poetry; prose, or you may wish to select modules that deal with topics such as feminist theory or visual culture. Literature-based modules may focus on a particular genre (eg Contemporary Fiction), or a theme (eg Literature and Desire), or a historical period (eg Modernism), or an author (eg Chaucer). History-based modules cover the medieval, early modern and contemporary periods, with a range of both broad-based modules and more specialised investigations of particular topics in English and British history. Examples of history modules which have been available to students on this programme include: Anglo-Saxon England, c.500-1066; Late Medieval Religion and Society in England; Early Modern England; The Rise and Fall of British Power; Medicine and Society Before the 17th Century; Women and Society in Modern Britain.

The provision of two free choice modules in year 2 enables you to introduce other disciplines (eg. film and visual arts) and/or to adjust the balance of the two strands to your own needs.

Teaching and Assessment

Modules of study are taught in a number of different forms – often lectures and smaller seminar groups – designed to encourage student participation. In every module your work is assessed; forms of assessment also vary, including essays, project work, presentation, examination or a combination of any of these methods. A third-year dissertation in either literature or history enables you to undertake in-depth study in either subject or to consider their inter-relationship further.

The opportunity to lean towards History or Literature continues in year 3 when students are able to take three modules in one School and only one module in the other if they wish. The requirement that they undertake dissertation work in this third year enhances their academic progression and skills.

Course Organiser:Dr. Helen Smith

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Entry Requirements A Level: AAB-ABB to include English Literature and History International Baccalaureate: Baccalaureate 33-32 points overall with HL English and HL History, at grades 5 and 6. Scottish Advanced Highers: AAB-ABB to include English Literature and History Irish Leaving Certificate: AAAABB-AABBBB Access Course: Please contact the university for further information. HND: Please contact the university for further information. European Baccalaureate: 80-75% overall including English and History (one of which must be at 75% and one at 80%) Entry Requirement

The combined English Language and Literature A-level is acceptable instead of English Literature.

Students for whom English is a Foreign language

We welcome applications from students from all academic backgrounds. We require evidence of proficiency in English (including writing, speaking, listening and reading). Recognised English Language qualifications include:

• IELTS: 6.5 overall (minimum 6.0 in all components)
• TOEFL: Internet-based score of 88 overall (minimum 18 in the Listening and Writing components; 19 in the Reading component; and 21 in the Speaking component)
• PTE: 62 overall with minimum 55 in all components

If you do not meet the University's entry requirements, our INTO Language Learning Centre offers a range of university preparation courses to help you develop the high level of academic and English skills necessary for successful undergraduate study.

Interviews

The School does not currently interview all applicants for undergraduate entry as standard, however we may interview mature students, those returning to study or applicants with alternative qualifications. All applicants who are made an offer are given the opportunity to meet with an academic on a Visit Day in order to gain a deeper insight into the course(s) you have applied for.

Gap Year

Normally there is not a problem in deferring entry for a year. Offers are made in the usual way to applicants who ask for deferred entry.

Special Entry Requirements

As part of the A level entry requirements, you should hold A-level English Literature and A-Level History, one of which should be at grade A. Students taking the International Baccalaureate will be expected to have Higher Level English and Higher Level History, one at minimum grade 6 and the other at minimum grade 5.

Intakes

The School's annual intake is in September of each year.

Alternative Qualifications

If you have alternative qualifications that have not been mentioned above then please contact university directly for further information.

GCSE Offer

Students are required to have Mathematics and English at Grade C or above at GCSE Level.

Assessment

For the majority of candidates the most important factors in assessing the application will be past and future achievement in examinations, academic interest in the subject being applied for, personal interest and extra-curricular activities and the confidential reference. We consider applicants as individuals and accept students from a very wide range of educational backgrounds and spend time considering your application in order to reach an informed decision relating to your application. Typical offers are indicated above. Please note, there may be additional subject entry requirements specific to individual degree courses.

The School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing brings together writers, scholars, teachers and students in an exploration of the powers and possibilities of literature. Our aim is to make creative writing and critical reading confront one another in ways that sharpen and enliven both. We teach and research across the range of English Literature from the fourteenth century to the twenty-first. This coverage is supplemented by our interests in European Literature, in postcolonial writing in English across the world, and in literary and cultural theory.

Translation

UEA is home to the British Centre for Literary Translation, which is both a forum for professional translators and a focus for translation work with undergraduate and postgraduate students of literature. The School of Literature & Creative Writing runs the MA in Literary Translation course.

Creative Writing

For over thirty years UEA has been an important centre for established and upcoming writers, whether they come here as teachers, as students, as writers in residence, or to take part in the long-running literary festival organised by the Arthur Miller Centre and the Centre for Creative and Performing Arts.

Drama

Our drama programmes combine critical study with creative practice. The theoretical aspect draws on the expertise of LIT as a whole; the practical work is based in the purpose-built Drama Studio.

Literature

Literature at UEA is not a complete, finished object of study, but a living practice. Because we also do creative writing, translation and drama, we are aware that imaginative writing is not fixed; it is constantly being transformed, adapted, rewritten and reread. Students are invited to study these processes, and also to be part of them.

Among a diverse group of about twenty literature lecturers, there are experts on the various roles that the practice of literature can play, and has played, in society — how it can be something like praying, or like journalism, or like conversation, how it can be a form of political action, or a vehicle for ideas, or a working out of unmanageable experience, or a way of negotiating (or inflaming) differences of class and race and gender. We teach literature not in isolation, but in relation to this untidy bundle of social and psychological purposes.

It follows that we have no great respect for the boundaries that divide one academic discipline from another. We take a lively interest in the work of our colleagues in history, philosophy, film, the visual arts and music, and we encourage our students to do the same. That is why we offer a range of degree programmes which combine literature with other, related subjects. Our largest programme is the BA in English Literature: this is a single subject degree, but we work to keep it open and responsive to its multi-disciplinary surroundings.

UniStats Information Fees and Funding University Fees and Financial Support: UK/EU Students

Further information on fees and funding for 2012 can be found here

University Fees and Financial Support: International Students

The University will be charging International students £11,700.00 for all full time School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing undergraduate programmes which start in 2012.

Please click to access further information about fees and funding for International students