| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2025-09-01 | - |
Program Overview
This joint degree program in English Literature and History combines critical analysis, historical understanding, and global perspectives. Students develop transferable skills in research, writing, and communication, preparing them for diverse careers in cultural heritage, media, education, and beyond. The program emphasizes research-driven teaching and a supportive learning environment that fosters intellectual curiosity and independent thought.
Program Outline
Outline:
Year One
- Introduction to Literature and Critical Writing: This module focuses on developing critical reading and writing skills through analysis of various literary genres and interpretive approaches.
- Optional modules in advanced literary theory, word-image relations, drama across the ages, and desire and identity in various periods.
- Introduction to History and Historical Practice: The module introduces the frameworks and approaches used in historical study and different ways to write history. Explores "global" connections, historical change, and challenges to set time periods and regional or national borders.
- Optional modules focusing on specific historical themes and regions, further developing historical knowledge and skills.
Year Two
- Students choose modules from various thematic, genre, period, and geographical focuses. Develop critical methodologies and knowledge of the subject through diverse texts and their historical and cultural contexts.
- Core module "Reading History" introduces key theoretical approaches and methods in historical writing.
- Wide range of optional modules allowing for a comparative approach to history and exploring themes across a narrower timeframe.
Year Three
- Choice between specialized modules engaging with current research and scholarship in relation to authors, texts, historical topics, and areas both familiar and less familiar.
- Independent research project in either discipline on a topic of choice, allowing for focus on a specific area/period or examination of the literature-history interface.
Modules:
English Literature:
Year One:
- The Making of The Modern World, 1750-1970
- Inventing a Nation: Politics, Culture and Heritage
- Medieval Worlds, AD 500 -1500
- Renaissance, Reformation and Revolution
- History in Practice Part 2: Sources, Evidence and Argument.
- Drama: Stage and Page
- Star-cross'd Lovers: the Politics of Desire
- Transforming Visions: Text and Image
- Transgressive Bodies in Medieval Literature
- Ways of Reading
Year Two:
- Past, Present and Future
- Making History: Historians, Evidence, Audiences
- Debating History
Year Three:
- Researching History: Dissertation
- Age of Arthur: Myths, History and Identity in Medieval Britain
- Crusading Worlds
- Divided Memory in post-1945 Germany
- East Asia in a Global Second World War
- Digital Games and the Practice of History
- Witchcraft and Witch-Hunting in Early Modern Europe, 1400-1750
- Health and Illness in Early Modern Britain
- Mobile Lives: Travel, Exile, and Migration in the Early Modern World
- Slavery and Enslaved Life in the United States, 1775-1865
- Native American History
- Utopias of Extremism: Revolutions in Comparative Context
- Czechoslovakia: The Twentieth Century in Miniature
- Inside the Third Reich
- Violence and Ideology in the Inter-War Soviet Union
- Gender and Imperialism, India c.1800- c.1900
- Change, Conflict, and Mass Mobilisation in Republican China, 1911-1945
- Peripheral Reverberations of the French Revolution
- Mayhem and murder: Investigating the Victorian Underworld
- The Making of British Socialism
- Britain at War: Culture and Politics on the Home Front, 1939-1945
- Public and Private: Gender, Identities and Power in Twentieth Century Britain
History:
Year One:
- History in Practice Part 1: Questions, Frameworks and Audiences.
- Global Histories
- Critical Reading and Critical Writing
Year Two:
- Core modules on theoretical approaches and historical evidence are available.
Year Three:
Assessment:
- Assessments include source criticisms, research projects, presentations, creative-critical portfolios, and traditional essays/tests/exams.
- Assessments may be individual or collaborative and involve written, oral, or digital presentations.
- Assessments aim to develop ideas, skills, and competencies, including critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication.
- Feedback supports reflection, improvement, and understanding of assessment expectations.
Teaching:
- Teaching methods include interactive lectures, discussions, workshops, group work, tutorials, and online environments.
- Learning resources include multimedia material, presentations, handouts, bibliographies, discussion boards, and electronic exercises.
Careers:
Skills developed:
- Critical analysis, literary styles, argumentation, historical understanding, global perspectives, collaborative problem-solving, research, writing, presentation, digital media creation.
Career opportunities:
- Graduates have diverse career paths due to the program's emphasis on transferable skills and critical thinking. Specific options may include:
- Cultural heritage industries (museums, libraries, archives)
- Publishing, education, research
- Media and communications
- Journalism
- Civil service, policy analysis
- Law
- Business, finance
- Non-profit and charity sectors
Career support:
- Module and curriculum design focus on skill development for diverse careers.
- Training and career events help students identify and articulate transferrable skills.
- Opportunities to develop enterprise skills through pitching ideas, collaborative projects, and internships/placements.
- Student Futures department provides career guidance, training, and resources.
Other:
- This is a joint degree program, allowing students to study both English literature and history in depth.
- Students benefit from a supportive learning environment that encourages intellectual curiosity, critical engagement, and independent thought.
Your tuition fees and how you pay them will depend on your fee status. Your fee status could be home, island or overseas. Learn how we decide your fee status Fees for home status We are currently awaiting confirmation on tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year. The University reserves the right to increase tuition fees in the second and subsequent years of a course as permitted by law or Welsh Government policy. Where applicable we will notify you of any change in tuition fee by the end of June in the academic year before the one in which the fee will increase. Students from the EU, EEA and Switzerland We are currently awaiting confirmation on tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year. Learn more about the undergraduate fees for students from the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man. We are currently awaiting confirmation on tuition fees for the 2025/26 academic year. Additional costs You may also want to buy copies of other books, either because they are particularly important for your modules or because you find them particularly interesting. The University Bookshop often provides significantly discounted ‘bundles’ that cover all the essential reading for your English Literature modules, alongside the course-specific readers. Course specific equipment Accommodation We have a range of residences to suit your needs and budget. Living costs We're based in one of the UK's most affordable cities. Find out more about living costs in Cardiff.
