English Literature

Skills

Graduate with a broad, transferable range of creative, analytical, and professional skills.

This incorporates:

• Being a sophisticated reader of literary and cultural texts and refining your professional reading, editing, and writing skills
• Becoming adept at switching your style to suit different creative and professional contexts
• Developing skills in research and analysis, problem solving, digital content creation, and copywriting
• Getting hands-on experience with our in-house publisher, Fincham Press, as well as getting involved with our literature and creative writing society and wider school events
• The option of learning and developing creative writing skills alongside your literary ones

Enhance your skill set

These strands will ensure that you are ready for an exciting career. Equally important are the following, which are also important to our teaching and learning

· Confidence: the ability to answer questions without fear

· Observation: seeing problems clearly

· Humility: knowing you don’t know everything

· Mindfulness: being aware of positive thought processes

· Curiosity: experimenting and exploring

· Resourcefulness: knowing where to come up with ideas

· Action: the ability to put ideas into action and to meet deadlines

With the BA English Literature, you will be ready for a wide range of jobs where you are able to think deeply and critically, and to communicate complex ideas persuasively and accessibly to different audiences – all important skills in a workplace that, in the current age of AI, will see an ever-increasing need for critical and creative thinkers.

Roehampton is also ranked in the top 8 universities in the UK for graduate salaries for English and Creative Writing (Longitudinal Education Outcomes, 2020 results, earnings one year after graduation).

Learning

In this exciting programme, you will learn through a mix of lectures, seminars, workshops, and personalised tutorials in a supportive campus environment.

You will have no written exams. Instead, you will evaluate critical and creative thinking through coursework made up of essays, presentations, creative options and digital portfolios of your choosing.

Our diverse curriculum spans from traditional topics like Shakespeare and Dickens to contemporary issues such as gender, multiculturalism, and environmentalism in literature.

Explore diverse topics, such as: 

• Fantasy literature and fantasy world-building 
• Literature in translation from authors all around the globe ·
• Global London through modern fiction, film, and television 
• Race, gender, and sexuality studies from the Early Modern period to the present day
• The relationship between literature, film, and philosophy
• Creative writing and experimental fiction
• Gods and Heroes in Renaissance and Middle English literatures
• Literature from the Romantic and Victorian periods
• Genre fiction, popular culture, and media studies
• Children's and young adult literature and culture
• Modernist writing and film
• Tragedy from Ancient Greece to Shakespeare and the present day

In addition you will have opportunities to be involved with some of the biggest literary festivals in London, including the Wimbledon Book Festival and the Barnes Children’s Literature Festival. 

We also have a thriving literary and cultural arts scene, involving public lectures, film screenings and discussions, and trips to Shakespeare’s Globe, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Library, the National Maritime Museum, the National Gallery, and the British Film Institute, to name a few.

Career

Shape the future landscape of literature. 

Graduates go on to work in a wide variety of fields. A degree in English Literature trains you in a variety of transferable critical skills. These are valued by employers across a whole range of literary and cultural arts industries, and beyond.

Our graduates have gone on to work as:

• Journalists
• Copywriters
• Podcasters
• Librarians
• Editors
• Teachers
• Social media marketers
• Policy advocates
• Fundraising strategists
• Radio presenters
• Script editors
• Theatre directors