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We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

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Top reasons to choose this course

• Staff are active writers – you will learn from published novelists, poets and screenwriters.

• Strong local publishing connections – we organise a programme of visiting writers and publishing professionals. .

• Scrivener talks give you the chance to speak to a professional writer about their work.

• Our focus on employability, including a placement, ensures you will graduate as an emerging writer with a strong skillset.

• Extracurricular activities such as the Performance and Community Research and Enterprise Group and the student-led Creative Writing Society.

• Alumni making a difference – graduates from our programmes include Paris Lees, Merci Roberts, Munroe Bergdorf and Tanaka Mhisi.

• Excellent student support and a warm and encouraging community.

• Weekly roundup of writing competitions and opportunities to encourage you to promote your work and consider future careers.

• Workshops and spoken word events help you find your writing voice.

• Professional feedback on any aspect of your writing from our resident Royal Literary Fund Fellow.

Year 1

Your first year focuses on understanding the different approaches to literary texts from both a creative and critical standpoint. You will study a wide variety of texts, including film, novels, poetry, theatre, short stories and autobiography.

Modules

• Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ Writes

  Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ is a vibrant and unique place that has impacted on British and European culture, as well being at the forefront of social changes since the eighteenth-century. This module is a literary and cultural exploration of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ as a place. You will engage and connect with Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½’s history, literary culture and your own creative writing practice. The module benefits from several city trips, which will bring learning materials to life.

• The World, the Text and the Critic

  Taking inspiration from Edward Said’s book The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983), this module enables you to explore some of the key debates in contemporary literary studies. Organised around decolonial, feminist, queer, ecocritical and other approaches to texts, you'll develop critical writing skills and knowledge of social, cultural and political contexts in the interpretation of literary works and the wider world. 

• Poetry-Politics-Protest

  This module explores poetry from a diverse selection of writers, time periods and cultures. Learning how to analyse and interpret poetry and understand poetic forms and techniques, you'll discuss poetry as a political act, form of protest and agent of social change to discover the dynamic possibilities of poetry as a relevant means of communication and connection essential in our changing world. Students co-create this module and you'll develop your own practice through curating a poetry anthology.

• Staging Politics

  How might theatre engage audiences with the politics of class, race, gender, sexuality and the environment? You'll examine a range of plays in context, exploring how provocative stories develop through characterisation, stage directions, dialogue and dramatic action. Learn to think critically and creatively about theatrical texts and how to write scripts for stage in inclusive collaborations with your peers.

• Storying The Self

  This module will introduce you to practices of storying the self in writing and digital media. Through creating a first person story combining audio script, music and still image, you will engage with the expressive complexities of autobiographical representation. The module will also give you the creative writing tools to experiment with storying the self in a variety of written genre.

• Writers on Writing

  Explore the concept of a professional writerly identity, and consider a ‘writing life’ in personal, local and global terms. Through studying and by contact with professional writers, you will investigate writing as self-expression, craft, process and profession; curating a writerly identity/ persona; developing your writing towards your future career; and the writing life and its implications on the global stage, for example as an act of resistance to inequalities.

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through .

Year 2

In your second year you can tailor your degree to your interests. There are placement opportunities available in year 2 as well as field trips to theatres, museums, schools and other community projects.

You can also choose option modules from across our humanities and arts subjects.

At the end of your second year you will have the opportunity to study abroad.

Modules

• Stories that Transform
• The Nineteenth Century in Literature
• British Literature and Twentieth-century History
• Research and Practice

Options*

• Genres
• Travel Narratives through Time and Space
• Twentieth-century Literary Experiments
• Queer Writing
• Literature and Art History
• Professional Practice and Placement
• American Literature 1850–1945
• Image and Text: The Language of Comics and Graphic Novels
• Writing for Stage, Radio and Screen
• Contemporary Narratives and Society
• Power and Persuasion
• Television Studio Production
• Photography: From Painting with Light to Zeroes and Ones

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Placements 

In year 2 you can choose a placement module which will allow you to gain professional experience in industries such as publishing, broadcasting, social media marketing, PR and the charity sector. 

Recent placement hosts include:

In year 3 you can choose the Community Placement module aimed at further building your professional experience. This is 30 to 50 hours of voluntary work with a not-for-profit or community organisation. The placement is assessed and contributes to your degree.

Mia Kurian, graduate

“My placement was with Metropolitan City Church Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ as their Social Media Manager. I learnt a lot about myself and my interests and the type of career I may want to pursue. I got to try my hand at website design, something I had never done before, and it was a great opportunity for me to expand my creativity. Professionally, I gained a lot of experience that has been extremely useful in my career today. I learnt about creating brand cohesion and creating a brand image from scratch, something I’ve never done before.

"I absolutely loved it. It was an incredible learning experience as well as insightful. It allowed me to learn a lot about myself and the future I want. My placement manager was lovely and supportive and allowed me the freedom to explore my creativity.”

Final year

In your final year you will work towards your dissertation and choose from a wide range of option areas. In the second semester, you will collaborate with your peers on a conference where you will showcase your research and writing at a public event.

Modules

• Dissertation
• Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ Rocks: Final Year Show

Options*

• Community Placement: Theory in Practice
• Russian Literature and Culture: The Golden Age and Beyond
• (Re)viewing Shakespeare
• Apocalypse, Utopia and Dystopia
• Literature and Philosophy
• Post-war American Literature
• Literature and the World Wars
• Women's Writing and Feminist Theory
• Restoration Dramas
• Adaptations
• Citizen Journalism: Theory and Practice
• Creative Writing Project
• From Script to Screen
• Conflict, Migration, Borders
• Reading and Writing Landscape
• Autoethnography
• Gothic: Texts and Contexts
• Victorian Sexualities
• Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ Rocks
• Writing the Contemporary
• Postcolonial Literatures
• European Literatures and Film
• World Englishes
• Language of Gender and Sexuality
• Approaches to Analysing Discourse
• English Language Teaching
• Popular Culture: Europe and Beyond
• Autobiography of the Screen

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Lab facilities

Mithras House is home to all our School of Humanities and Social Science courses. It has a series of ‘labs’, which may be used for teaching on your course or in your independent research work.

Life lab
A comfortable space with lounge furniture intended for qualitative research with larger groups. Due to its relaxed layout and naturalistic environment, the space is suited to research using focus groups, research using observation-based methods and child research.

The space is also used for teaching on some social science courses, as well as for dissertation research for projects.
 
City lab
A space designed for collaborative student learning. It is used by students and staff involved in the university’s Global Challenges programme, our collective mission to contribute towards solutions to tackling the pressing issues facing our world.

Design lab
A space housing our extensive collection of historic dress and textiles, which are used in some teaching on our History of Art and Design courses. It has the space and equipment to work on textile projects. Displays created by students on these programmes are on view in the social spaces of the building.

Stats lab
A specialist workspace with computing equipment for statistical analysis and projects involving video and audio editing software. The lab is accessible as a study space to students on psychology courses.

It is also available to students studying courses involving video and audio recording and editing, such as politics degrees and our creative writing programmes. The stats lab contains eight soundproof booths for recording or transcribing interviews undertaken as part of dissertation research.

VR and eye tracking lab
This lab is used for psychological research, specifically eye-tracking research and virtual reality research. Equipment includes an electroencephalography (EEG) headset and Electrodermal Activity (EDA) equipment.

Meet the team

Dr Bea Hitchman, course leader

Beatrice's research interests are in critical and creative writing. Her work focuses on gender, queer writing and historical fiction, concepts of 'voice', endings and writing the remote past. Her 2013 novel Petite Mort was nominated for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Prize, the Polari Prize, the HWA Debut Novel Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and serialised as a ten-part Radio 4 drama. Her second novel is All of You Every Single One (2021). .

Dr Jess Moriarty

Course fees

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2024–25.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ Boost – cost of living help for our new undergrad students. Find out about how we can help with your study, accommodation or travel costs and more...
• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• Read our student contract and (pdf) for more on University of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ tuition fees.

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