English Language and English Literature BA (Hons)

English Literature Virtual Taster Event - ‘Ghosts, murder and mutation’: pandemic in Young Adult literature’ 

The value of reading outside the ‘A’ level curriculum can be overlooked, however, Young Adult writers have variously produced novels which give insight into how a pandemic can affect a society. Tragically this pandemic is not the only such event in history. ‘The Black Death’ swept across Europe from 1347 to 1351, followed by ‘The Great Plague’, 1665-1666, and ‘The Spanish Flu pandemic’, 1918-1920.

These life-changing events have stimulated historical fiction for older children, teenage readers and adults; writers have also employed memoirs, ghost stories, murder mysteries and dystopian science fiction to explore the effects of pandemics on individuals and societies.

The talk will cover a range of ‘pandemic’ novels and open up questions about how teenagers and young adults might deal with, be valued and contribute to their society and will be given by Prof Jean Webb, Director of the International Forum for Research in Children’s Literature.          

The event is due to take place on 28th January, from 5.30pm to 6.30pm and to book your place, please visit the booking page here.                          

Our courses are informed by research and current developments in the discipline and feedback from students, external examiners and employers. Modules do therefore change periodically in the interests of keeping the course relevant and reflecting best practice. The most up-to-date information will be available to you once you have accepted a place and registered for the course. If there are insufficient numbers of students interested in an optional module, this might not be offered, but we will advise you as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative. 

For more information about teaching, learning and assessment on this course, please see the course pages for English Language and English Literature.

Our English Language and English Literature degree provides continuous opportunities to develop employability skills and includes work experience options, a credited work project module, and a career and professional development module. There is a range of opportunities to study for a semester abroad in Europe and the USA in the second semester of the second year. 

Many graduates of English Language and English Literature will take a postgraduate education course as a fourth year of study and enter the teaching profession. Others will find that the skills acquired through the study of English Language are particularly highly regarded in all professions where good communication skills are prized such as publishing, journalism, public relations, human resources and web-based communication.

Graduates also often take a certificate in TEFL and become teachers of English as a second language at home or abroad. Those graduates who achieve particularly good results in their first degree may choose to progress to a Masters course, which will then often lead to a career as a researcher or further study to PhD. Many students progress to careers requiring good communication skills such as Public Relations or develop research careers with media or publishing companies.