English Literature

At Salford you will study English Literature with a team of internationally-renowned researchers who are also enthusiastic and committed teachers. Our modules offer both traditional and innovative paths into literature, from Shakespeare's poetry and plays, to 'Monstrous Bodies' as conceived by the Romantic poets and novelists, 'Women Behaving Badly' in Victorian sensation fiction, 'Women's Writing between the Wars', the 'Twentieth-Century Working-Class Novel in Britain', Irish writers through history, all the way to 'Twenty-First Century Women's Writing'.

English Literature at Salford is studied in its cultural context, and you can also take wide-ranging options on 'Cinema and Psychoanalysis', ways of 'Representing the Holocaust' and a module on 'Reading the Page' which looks at visuals that crops up in books.

The first year takes you through some key texts organised along genre-specific modules on fiction, poetry and drama, accompanied by core modules on 'Popular Fictions', literary and cultural theory, research methods and essay-writing skills. By the time you enter your second year you will feel confident about how to analyse texts and write sharp essays. A free optional seven-week course specifically on essay writing, Wordscope, gives outstanding support for both academic and employability skills. In the second and third years we study the historic and thematic development of literature written in English from the Romantic period, via the Victorians and the Modernists right up to Postmodernism. Alongside these, you get to choose specialist option modules led by active researchers at the forefront of their fields. In both teaching and research we have close links with the Working-Class Movement Library, Chetham's Library and The Portico Library, and there are great opportunities for independent research for the Dissertation option in your third year at archives in and around Salford and Manchester.

Throughout your degree you will be taught by inspiring and dedicated academics, and we pride ourselves on having an unusually high ratio of professors and other senior members of academic staff among our teaching-active tutors. Our courses are designed to develop transferable skills such as problem-solving and analytical thinking which are key to many jobs, and 93% of English graduates go on to employment and/or further study within six months of graduating (DLHE 2010). With technological developments pushing the written word into increasingly diverse formats and to ever-wider audiences, being skilled at reaching informed judgements about literature, from novels to text messages, places you well on the job market.

Courses

Staff