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English Literature and History BA Honours

  • UCAS code: QV31
  • Full time
  • 3 years

Join our interdisciplinary Literature and History degree to learn how the stories of the past shape our present.

You are currently viewing course information for entry year: 2025


Next start date:

  • September 2025

Fees (per year)

  • Home: Not set
  • International: £23800

Entry requirements and offers

  • A-Level: AAB
  • IB: 34 points

UCAS Institution name and code:

  • NEWC / N21

Course overview

Our English Literature and History BA Honours degree brings together cutting-edge research in two disciplines.

Study the latest, most advanced thinking, whether that relates to the early medieval period or the very recent past.

Choose topics that range from postcolonial theory to medieval theology. From Renaissance bodies to climate change protests.

Collaborate with distinguished researchers from History and English Literature, developing your skills in both subjects.

Plan your research around topics that fascinate you. Draw on what you’ve learnt across your degree to create new ideas and insights of your own.

We develop graduates into informed, sophisticated thinkers, comfortable with complexity and nuance. You'll also gain subject-specific research skills and the ability to think between disciplines.

At the end of our degree, you’ll be a confident, knowledgeable, and independent learner.

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 2024-25.

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

This year is all about expanding your skills and knowledge, while supporting you in making the transition to university study. Your two 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 your four optional modules in Literature and History which cover a chronological, geographical and cultural range of topics.

You may swap one of these modules for an ‘outside’ module in a third subject of your choice. There are many options available to you such as creative writing, a language, or politics.

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
Introduction to Public History 20
What is History For? 20
Transformations 20
Beginnings 20
Revolutions 20

You will advance your understanding of literature and history by choosing five modules from a generous range of options. You can study courses from the Anglo-Saxon period to the contemporary moment, with rich choice in Renaissance and Romantic Literature, in global and European histories, and in Modern and Contemporary Literature.

Your interdisciplinary Independent Research Project provides you with the exciting opportunity to bring together history and literature in a single project. Supported by scholars in each discipline, you will plan and write an essay on a topic you have studied together.

Modules

Compulsory Modules Credits
Research Project in English Literature and History 20
Optional Modules Credits
Africa: History of a Continent 20
Oral History and Memory 20
Greece, from ancient to modern 20
Communication in the Medieval World, from Europe to Asia: Prayer, Poetry, Pictures, and Travel 20
Crafting History: The Dissertation Proposal 20
Famines in History 20
History and Film: Representing the Past 20
East Asia: from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century 20
Violence in the American South: From the Colonial Era to Civil Rights 20
Researching History 20
The Aftermath of War in Europe and Asia, 1945-56 20
Revolutions of the Mind: European Thought, 1550–1750 20
The Supernatural: The Cultural History of Occult Forces 20
Destroying Nature: Disasters, Diseases and Environmental Injustice 20
Diversities of Sexuality and Gender in History 20
A History of Contemporary Britain 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) 

This year builds in further opportunities to pursue the topics that interest you.

You will conduct a major piece of original, independent research, through a jointly-supervised interdisciplinary dissertation, on a topic chosen by you.

Your dissertation could be inspired, for example, by an archive in the University’s broad and impressive range of holdings, such as the Gertrude Bell archive.

Modules

Compulsory Modules Credits
Dissertation in English Literature and 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
The British Revolutions, 1640-1660 20
The Irish Revolution, 1879-1923 20
Reconstruction and the New South, 1865-1900 20
British Foreign Policy since Suez 20
Birth Control in the 19th and 20th Centuries 20
Civil Rights and Armalites Northern Ireland since 1969 20
Civil Rights in America, 1948-1975 20
Women in Colonial South Asia: Tradition, Reform and Modernity 20
Europe and the Ottoman Empire, 1453-1798 20
Punishing the Criminal Dead: Crime, Culture, and Corpses in Modern Britain 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
Healthy Spaces for Healthy Bodies: Medicine, Humans, Places 20
Buddhism and Society in Medieval Japan 20
The Renaissance World of Florence, 1450-1550: Machiavelli, Mayhem, and Strife 20
The Gulag: A History of the Soviet Camps - Origins, Experiences and Aftermaths 20
Nineteenth Century Aotearoa New Zealand: Maori, Pakeha & Tauiwi 20
War and Remembering: Recalling War in Oral Histories, c.1950-2022 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
Documentary Storytelling: Theory and Practice 20
Documentary Storytelling: Theory and Practice 20
Landscapes of American Modernism 20
Enlightened Romantics: A Revolution in Feeling 20
Time, Change, and the Life Course in Literature of the Long Nineteenth Century 20
American Poetry Now 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
Freedom and Imagination: US Literature 1850-1900 20
Deep North: Modern Literature of the North East 20
Popular Romance and Contemporary Political Discourse 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
Exposing Ourselves: Privacy, Contemporary Performance and the Public Sphere 20
Devolutionary Fictions: Literature, Politics, and the British State since 1960 20
Border Fictions: Migration, Memory, and Transgressions in Global Anglophone Literatures, 1900-Present Day 20
Keats and Romantic Epic 20
Shakespeare and Company: Gender, Power, Theatre 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

  • Portfolio submission

  • Presentations

  • Reflective report/journal

  • Seminar tasks/exercises

Skills and experience

Practical experience

Many of our modules offer practical experience. In history, this might take the form of conducting interviews with people who remember a particular historical event or undertaking archival research. In literary studies, this might include staged readings of plays, editorial work, or masterclasses with outside experts.

You'll also benefit from a range of regular field trips organised by both Schools. Depending on the module, these may include visits to:

  • The Wordsworth Trust (Dove Cottage) in the Lake District
  • Lindisfarne and Holy Island in Northumberland
  • City theatres such as Northern Stage, Live Theatre, and Theatre Royal
  • Seven Stories (the National Centre for Children's Books)
  • Beamish Living Museum
  • The Great North Museum
  • Hadrian’s Wall and other Roman sites in Northumberland
  • The National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
  • Country houses and estates

Research skills

In Stage 2, you'll undertake an independent research project, and in your final year, you'll write a dissertation. These introduce you to finding, using and understanding original sources for your own research. The capstone of your degree is your own personal research project which you complete at Stage 3.

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

Your Stage 2 and Stage 3 projects require a lot of independent working but you can also apply for a paid vacation scholarship and work alongside researchers on a shared project You'll have first-hand experience working on a project and will enhance your key skills of:

  • researching original topics
  • gathering, analysing and interpreting literary texts and historical sources
  • working on a research project independently or as part of a team
  • exploring archival collections

Employability

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

Our module assessments develop a wide range of skills. These can be applied to many different tasks you might be employed to do Your exceptionally strong communication, writing and reasoning skills, coupled with the creativity of your degree, might be used in:

  • researching and developing policy for public services and private companies
  • journalism and other writing in the public interest
  • constructing marketing briefs and drafting website copy
  • curating exhibitions and programming events
  • teaching and training

Beyond our modules, there are plenty of extracurricular opportunities to gain work experience or develop your portfolio. These range from writing for Newcastle’s student newspaper or volunteering in local primary schools 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.

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

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

  • researching and analysing
  • reasoning and summarising
  • thinking critically and creatively
  • writing and speaking persuasively and lucidly
  • working independently and collaboratively
  • working to tight and multiple deadlines

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

  • journalism
  • media
  • publishing
  • PR and marketing
  • law
  • teaching and education
  • librarianship
  • civil service

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 2025 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.

University Admissions Policy and related policies and procedures

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 2025 entry (per year)

The 2025 home fees have not yet been confirmed (see ‘Home Fee Students’ information below).

Qualification: BA Honours

Home students

full time 3 years

Tuition fees (per year)

Not set

International students

full time 3 years

Tuition fees (per year)

23800

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.

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

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