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English Literature and History BA Honours

  • UCAS code: QV31
  • Full time
  • 3 years

Study social, political, and literary cultures across historical periods from the Ancient World to today.

You are currently viewing course information for entry year: 2024-25


Next start date:

  • September 2024

Fees (per year)

  • Home: £9250
  • International: £21000

Entry requirements and offers

  • A-Level: AAB
  • IB: 34 points

UCAS Institution name and code:

  • NEWC / N21

Course overview

Our English Literature and History course brings together cutting-edge research in two disciplines. You will have the chance to create your own balance between historical and literary material.

During this joint degree, you’ll work alongside world-leading researchers. You'll cover topics that range from postcolonial theory to medieval theology, and from Renaissance bodies to climate change protests.

In bespoke second and third-year modules, you’ll reflect on how literary and historical methods inform each other. You will also plan out your own research that draws on what you’ve learnt.

At the end of this degree, you’ll be a confident, knowledgeable, and highly independent learner. You will gain subject-specific research skills and the ability to think between disciplines.

Your course and study experience - disclaimers and terms and conditions  
Please rest assured we make all reasonable efforts to provide you with the programmes, services and facilities described. However, it may be necessary to make changes due to significant disruption, for example in response to Covid-19.

View our Academic experience page, which gives information about your Newcastle University study experience for the academic year 2023-24.

See our terms and conditions and student complaints information, which gives details of circumstances that may lead to changes to programmes, modules or University services.

Quality and ranking

Professional accreditation and recognition

All professional accreditations are reviewed regularly by their professional body.

Modules and learning

Modules

The information below is intended to provide an example of what you will study.

Most degrees are divided into stages. Each stage lasts for one academic year, and you'll complete modules totalling 120 credits by the end of each stage. 

Our teaching is informed by research. Course content may change periodically to reflect developments in the discipline, the requirements of external bodies and partners, and student feedback.

Optional module availability
Student demand for optional modules may affect availability.

Full details of the modules on offer will be published through the Programme Regulations and Specifications ahead of each academic year. This usually happens in May.

To find out more please see our terms and conditions.

Your compulsory modules will provide you with the core skills of analysis and interpretation for the study of literature and history.

These skills will underpin your learning and success in optional modules which cover a chronological, geographical and cultural range of topics.

Modules

Compulsory Modules Credits
Evidence and Argument 20
Doing Criticism 20
Optional Modules Credits
Slavery 20
Global Middle Ages 20
Stuff: living in a material world 20
Global Ancient Histories 20
Historical Sources and Methods 20
History Lab I 20
History Lab II 20
Public History 20
What is History For? 20
Introduction to Literary Studies 1 20
Introduction to Literary Studies II 20
Transformations 20

You will advance your understanding of literature and history through the ages, with a selection of modules that ensures historical coverage alongside optional modules of your choice.

An interdisciplinary independent research project provides you with the opportunity to bring together the methodologies of history and literature. Supported by scholars in each discipline, you will research, plan and write an essay on an area of particular interest to you.

Modules

Compulsory Modules Credits
Research Project in English Literature & History 20
Optional Modules Credits
Africa: History of a Continent 20
Social Histories of Alcohol: Britain and Ireland, 1700 - Present 20
Oral History and Memory 20
Greece from ancient times to the 21st century: Interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the past 20
1968: A Global Moment? 20
Communication in the Medieval World, from Europe to Asia: Prayer, Poetry, Pictures, and Travel 20
Crafting History: The Dissertation Proposal 20
War, Wounds, and Disabilities in Global Perspectives 20
Famines in History 20
Germany and Central Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries 20
History and Film: Representing the Past 20
Ideas and Belief in premodern East Asia 20
Violence in the American South: From the Colonial Era to Reconstruction 20
Researching History 20
The Aftermath of War in Europe and Asia, 1945-56 20
Revolutions of the Mind: European Thought, 1550–1750 20
Reformation and Revolution: Tudors to the Georgians 20
The Supernatural: The Cultural History of Occult Forces 20
Diversities of Sexuality and Gender in History 20
Britain since the 60s 20
The Mediterranean: a connected past 20
Career Development for second year students 20
Renaissance Bodies 20
Writing New Worlds, 1688-1789 20
Revolutionary Britain, 1789-1832 20
Victorian Passions: Victorian Values 20
Contemporary Cultures 20
Modernisms 20
Creative Practice 20
Monsters, Misery & Miracles: Heroic Life in Old English Poetry 20
Stagecraft in Early Drama 20
Literatures of Decolonisation 20
Overseas Exchange (Semester 1) 60
Overseas Exchange (Semester 2) 60

You only take one of the following modules if you undertake the Study Abroad exchange programme:

Overseas Exchange (Semester 1)

Overseas Exchange (Semester 2) 

Students will conduct a major piece of original, independent research, through a jointly-supervised interdisciplinary dissertation. This may involve archival research from local or digital archives or tapping into the University’s broad and impressive range of resources.

Alongside this research project, students will benefit from a huge range of optional modules that allow them to critically reflect on their disciplines, and the connections between them.

Modules

Compulsory Modules Credits
Dissertation in English Literature & History 40
Optional Modules Credits
Semester One Substitute for Stage 3 HIS Capped Special Subject 20
Semester Two Substitute for Stage 3 HIS Capped Special Subject 20
Reading History 20
Writing History 40
Why History Matters 20
Violence and social transformation in China and Taiwan, 1940s-1980s 20
The British Revolutions, 1640-1660 20
Reconstruction and the New South, 1865-1900 20
Living Together: Christians, Muslims and Jews in Medieval Iberia 20
British Foreign Policy since Suez 20
Birth Control in the 19th & 20th Centuries 20
Civil Rights and Armalites Northern Ireland since 1969 20
Civil Rights in America, 1948-1975 20
Viking-Age Scandinavia 20
Women in Colonial South Asia: Tradition, Reform and Modernity 20
Lunatic to Citizen? Madness and Society since 1900 20
The Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1961 - 1990 20
The Rising Generation: Youth, Age and Protest in Cold War Britain 20
Haitian Revolution 20
Buddhism and Society in Medieval Japan 20
Unfree Nation: Enslavement in the United States from the Colonial Era to Reconstruction 20
The Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps - Origins, Experiences and Aftermaths 20
Nineteenth Century Aotearoa New Zealand: Maori, Pakeha & Tauiwi 20
May 1968: all power to the imagination 20
British Colonialism in Sudan: Violence, Gender and Race, 1899-1956 20
Career Development for final year students 20
Sex and Money: Economies of the Victorian Novel 20
Romantic Poetry: Journeys of the Imagination 20
Documentary Storytelling: Theory & Practice 20
Documentary Storytelling: Theory & Practice 20
Enlightened Romantics: a Revolution in Feeling 20
Women on Trial: Gender, Power, and Performance in Shakespeare's England 20
The Victorian Novel: Time, Change, and the Life Course 20
American Poetry Now 20
Jazz-Age Magazines 20
Planetary Imaginations: Literature in the Time of Environmental Crisis 20
Writing Liberty in the Romantic era 20
Fiction and the Philosophy of Terror: From the Supernatural to the Sublime 20
Reading Freud: An Introduction to the Principles of Psychoanalytic Theory 20
Freedom and Imagination: US Literature 1850 – 1900 20
Deep North: Modern Literature of the North East 20
Unbinding Utopia, 1750 - 1832 20
Making Young Adult Literature 20
War Writing: Heroic and Hostile Discourses in Medieval Literature 20
Envious Show: Wealth, Power and Ambition in Narratives of the Country House, 1550-2000 20
Unsex'd Females: Feminism in the Age of Revolution and Reaction 20
Children's Literature and Black Britain 20

Teaching and assessment

Teaching methods

You can expect to spend around 10 hours per week attending lectures, seminars, workshops and film screenings.

You also spend around 25 hours per week on:

  • class preparation
  • reading
  • writing
  • other kinds of independent research recommended by your tutor

Assessment methods

You'll be assessed through a combination of:

  • Assessments

  • Assignments – written or fieldwork

  • Coursework

  • Dissertation or research project

  • Essays

  • Examinations – practical or online

  • Group work

  • Presentations

Skills and experience

Practical experience

All our modules offer practical experience. In history, this might take the form of interviews or archival research. Our literary studies might include staged readings or editorial work.

You'll also benefit from a range of regular field trips organised by the School. These include visits to:

  • The Wordsworth Trust (Dove Cottage)
  • Lindisfarne
  • various city theatres such as Northern Stage, Live Theatre, and Theatre Royal
  • Seven Stories (the National Centre for Children's Books)
  • Beamish Museum
  • the Great North Museum

Research skills

In Stage 2, you'll undertake an independent research project, and in your final year, you'll write a dissertation.

These projects will allow you to develop your skills across both disciplines and engage in interdisciplinary thinking.

You can also apply for a vacation scholarship and work alongside researchers. You'll have first-hand experience working on a project and will develop key skills, such as:

  • researching new material
  • collecting, analysing and interpreting social data
  • working on a lab project with a team
  • carrying out research in challenging environments

Employability

Employability and the engagement of literature and history with the wider world go hand-in-hand in this degree.

Many of our modules, particularly in Stage 3, model their assessments on the kind of tasks you might be employed to do:

  • constructing marketing briefs
  • drafting website copy
  • curating exhibitions
  • writing a clear and persuasive argument

Beyond our modules, there are plenty of extracurricular opportunities. These range from freelance work for Newcastle’s student newspaper to paid internships in the department.

The Newcastle Centre for Literary Arts, in particular, hires students to work on everything from event management to app design. The centre also runs workshops with professionals in the creative industries.

Chat with an English Literature and History student

Penelope Allen

Opportunities

Study abroad

You can study abroad for one semester in your second year as part of this degree. In Europe we have links with:

  • Ghent University, Belgium
  • Leipzig University, Germany
  • Groningen University, Netherlands
  • Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands

We also have links with universities in other parts of the world, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and the USA, including, but not limited to:

  • Monash University, Australia
  • University of Sydney, Australia
  • McGill University, Canada
  • University of Hong Kong
  • University of Vermont, USA

Find out more about Study Abroad.

Work placement

During your degree, you’ll have multiple opportunities to undertake a meaningful work placement. In your second and third years, you may choose to take the Career Development Module which offers academic credit for 50 hours of placement. You can choose to carry out your placement via part-time work, volunteering or in a local school. You will be assessed through a mixture of written work, presentations, and professional skills assessment.

In addition, you'll have the option to spend 9 to 12 months on a work placement with University support from our dedicated Careers team to help you secure your dream placement in the UK or abroad. Work placements take place between stages 2 and 3.

You'll gain first-hand experience of working in the sector, putting your learning into practice, and developing your professional expertise. Previous placements have been in a range of sectors, including:

  • Journalism and Broadcasting
  • Sustainable Energy
  • Politics
  • Digital Media and Marketing
  • Education
  • Finance
  • Museum and Heritage
  • Travel and Tourism

If you choose to take a work placement, it will extend your degree by a year. Placements are subject to availability.

Find out more about work placements.

Facilities and environment

Facilities

You'll be based in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics. The School is located in the Percy Building, which is at the heart of our city-centre campus. You'll join a lively community of students, academics, writers, and professionals.

You'll have access to:

  • a digital media lab – for students with documentary and film-making modules
  • a PC cluster
  • a student-led café
  • plenty of spaces to work and socialise

You will have exceptional library provision from our award-winning Library Service. It houses over one million books and a huge range of electronic resources.

Our literature and creative writing teaching is linked to the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (NCLA) programme. This will give you regular contact with leading creative artists. You'll also have access to a diverse programme of events, including spoken-word events and creative writing courses.

Find out more about the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics.

Support

You'll have the support of an academic member of staff as a Personal Tutor throughout your degree to help with academic and personal issues affecting your academic progress.

Peer Mentors will help you in your first year. They are fellow students who can help you settle in and answer questions you may have when starting university.

Your future

Students on this degree all acquire a range of valuable skills, which they can transfer to many different sectors. These skills include:

  • analysing and summarising
  • communication
  • time-keeping
  • arguing and debating
  • working independently and collaboratively
  • critical thinking

This is excellent preparation for a wide number of professions and as such, our graduates have gone into a variety of career areas, such as:

  • journalism
  • media
  • publishing
  • PR
  • politics
  • professional writing
  • libraries
  • marketing

Careers support

Our award-winning Careers Service is one of the largest and best in the country, and we have strong links with employers. We provide an extensive range of opportunities to all students through our ncl+ initiative.

Visit our Careers Service website

Recognition of professional qualifications outside of the UK

From 1 January 2021 there is an update to the way professional qualifications are recognised by countries outside of the UK

Entry requirements

All candidates are considered on an individual basis and we accept a broad range of qualifications. The entrance requirements and offers below apply to 2024 entry.

A-Level
International Baccalaureate

Other UK and the Republic of Ireland qualifications

Contextual Offers

Through one of our contextual routes, you could receive an offer of up to three grades lower than the typical requirements.

What is a contextual offer? Find out more and if you’re eligible for this or our PARTNERS Programme supported entry route.

Qualifications from outside the UK

English Language requirements

Entrance courses (INTO)

International Pathway Courses are specialist programmes designed for international students who want to study in the UK. We provide a range of study options for international students in partnership with INTO. 

Find out more about International Pathway Courses

Admissions policy

This policy applies to all undergraduate and postgraduate admissions at Newcastle University. It is intended to provide information about our admissions policies and procedures to applicants and potential applicants, to their advisors and family members, and to staff of the University.

Credit transfer and Recognition of Prior Learning

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) can allow you to convert existing relevant university-level knowledge, skills and experience into credits towards a qualification. Find out more about the RPL policy which may apply to this course.

Tuition fees and scholarships

Tuition fees for 2024 entry (per year)

Qualification: BA Honours

Home students

full time 3 years

Tuition fees (per year)

9250

International students

full time 3 years

Tuition fees (per year)

21000

Year abroad and additional costs

For programmes where you can spend a year on a work placement or studying abroad, you will receive a significant fee reduction for that year. 

Some of our degrees involve additional costs which are not covered by your tuition fees.

Find out more about:

Scholarships

Find out more about:

Open days and events

How to apply

Apply through UCAS

To apply for undergraduate study at Newcastle University, you must use the online application system managed by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). All UK schools and colleges, and a small number of EU and international establishments, are registered with UCAS. You will need:

  • the UCAS name and institution codes for Newcastle University (NEWC/N21)
  • the UCAS code for the course you want to apply for
  • the UCAS 'buzzword' for your school or college

If you are applying independently, or are applying from a school or college which is not registered to manage applications, you will still use the Apply system. You will not need a buzzword.

Apply through UCAS

Apply through an agent

International students often apply to us through an agent. Have a look at our recommended agents and get in touch with them.

Visit our International pages

Get in touch

By phone

Call us on +44 (0) 191 208 3333 and press option 1. Our opening hours are Monday to Friday 10am until 4pm.

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