English and Philosophy BA (Hons)

Core modules

World Philosophy

Explore philosophical themes and perspectives from around the world.  Develop an appreciation of the global reach and significance of philosophical perspectives and modes of inquiry - focusing on the universalism/relativism debate, the nature of the relationship between western philosophy at its non-western ‘others’, as well as philosophical themes in Judaism, Islam, Chinese Philosophy, Buddhism and Japanese Philosophy.

Rebel Literatures

Inspired by Nottingham’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature renowned for its ‘rebel writers’, this second-year core module explores how a spirit of rebellion has animated literary creativity over the past 150 years. From the fights for educational rights advanced by the New Woman authors of the late C19th to the voices of early C21st activist poets, this module invites you to consider the bold arguments advanced by authors at the forefront of cultural change. It includes the exciting opportunity to explore unique materials from the rich archives of radical literature held across Nottingham.

Transformation: Agency and World

This second-year module enables you to develop your understanding and practice of interdisciplinary study through a focus on the role and value of the humanities for understanding and engaging with sustainable futures and the future of work, beginning with addressing challenges we face in the present and actions we might take. Interrogating local, national, and global sustainability frameworks from a multi- and interdisciplinary perspective, the module provides an opportunity for you to bring together both of your subjects to address questions of sustainability and enterprise in a variety of sectors and contexts. The module enables you to reflect on your own place within these debates and their relation to your academic, personal, and professional development. As part of the module all students will complete an 80-hour work placement experience. You will be assessed through a professional portfolio and placement report.

Optional pathways

Pathway 1: Extended work-like experience

Get the experience you need for after you graduate, and really understand how the things you study translate into the world of work with a work placement. Your highly experienced Employability Team will help you find a placement to suit your career goals from our huge network of companies, charities, institutions, and beyond.

Pathway 2: An international exchange

Travel the world, meet new friends, and have experiences you will remember for the rest of your life.

Our flexible curriculum has been designed to allow some amazing opportunities for you. Your second year of study is divided into two semesters, giving you the opportunity to take part in an international exchange. You could study with one of international exchange partners in Australia, Europe, USA, Canada, Thailand and many, many more.

Our dedicated team will support you in finding and arranging a suitable exchange. And don't worry about the cost, they will help you apply for any grants or loans you may need, as no one should miss out on the chance to broaden their horizons.

Pathway 3: Taught modules

Interdisciplinary optional modules typically include:

Intercultural Communication at Work

Gain the knowledge, skills and strategies to build your intercultural communication competence. Analyse and reflect on the impact of culture(s) on your values, assumptions, perceptions, expectations, and behaviours. Build successful verbal and non-verbal communication strategies in different intercultural settings.

People and Planet: pasts, presents, and futures

In this module you will develop an understanding of the human impact on the environment from the 15th Century to the present as a form of slow but sustained violence enacted against the planet. It will also explore how such long-term change can interact with social justice in the present day.

Language, Inequality and Social Justice

Whether it’s racial abuse on social media, prejudice against regional accents in schools, or sexist advertising campaigns, discrimination is a social issue that affects us all in one way or another. This module examines how language can be used to both promote social justice and tackle prejudice and discrimination in a range of institutional and everyday contexts. This module will be particularly useful if you are looking to pursue a career in advocacy, human resources or journalism.

Philosophy optional modules typically include:

How to Win Every Argument

Develop the key critical thinking skills needed to assess reasons, solve problems, and construct compelling arguments, with a focus on how to apply these skills in everyday life and in a professional setting.  Learn the skills of persuasive speaking and understand how to detect logical fallacies and critically assess some of our most deeply held beliefs about ourselves and the world.

Happiness and Mental Health: Philosophy, Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis

Examine the roots of the current mental health crisis and how key philosophical techniques, both ancient and modern, can be deployed in order to alleviate mental health symptoms. Explore philosophical roots of psychotherapeutic treatments and interventions and learn of how ancient Greek philosophy provide the basis for happier and more fulfilled lives.

English optional modules typically include:

Working with Scripts

Develop your scriptwriting skills, whether for screen, stage, radio, or podcast. Learn about the working environment in which scripts are commissioned, written and produced, and develop important, exciting hands-on skills and experience.

Romantic Revolutions

This module explores Romantic literature from 1780-1840. This was the era of the French revolution and Napoleonic wars, and also a period of great social change and development in Britain. You will study fiction, poetry and other forms of writing from this era, exploring work by well-known writers such as Wordsworth and Shelley, as well as women’s writing, working-class writing and regional writing. The module will help you to develop your research skills and to engage in creative project ideas focusing on Romantic-era writing and thought. You will also explore how far revolutionary political and social change is reflected in the experimental themes and forms of Romantic writing, as well as considering the role of literature in encouraging social change, and its continued relevance today.

Shakespeare and Co.

Shakespeare was born in 1564 and so his life was coincident with the rise of the brand new, state of the art, professional theatre. On this module we'll explore these cutting-edge plays in a context of rapid social change and religious and political uncertainty.  We’ll introduce you to playwrights of the period, their dramatic techniques, reception, critical and theatrical history and we'll also consider modern spin-offs of their plays – film versions and modern retellings.  Topics covered will include colonialism, religious difference, sex and gender, nation and ethnicity, selfhood.

Black Writing in Britain

Bernardine Evaristo was the first Black British writer to win the Booker Prize, in 2019, more than seventy years after Sam Selvon and George Lamming moved to Britain in what is known as the Windrush migration, in 1948. This module reads novels, poetry and short stories from 1948 to the present day, to consider how to define Black Writing in Britain, and assess its relationship with the publishing industry. Students undertake committed, contextualised close reading of experimental literary texts and prioritise what they detect as important trends, patterns, concerns, and events, as we ask ‘what is Black Writing in Britain?’.

You may choose to take an optional year-long placement in Year Three, either in the UK or overseas.

You will be supported by our experienced Employability Team to source a suitable placement.

Core module

Major project

For your major project in your final year of your studies, you can choose to undertake a project in either one of your two Joint Honours subjects.

English Major Project

For your English Major Project, you have the choice of undertaking either a Dissertation, or a Creative Project, or a Staff-Student Research Project.
If you opt to undertake a Dissertation, you will be able to research a literary topic in depth guided by an academic with expertise in your chosen area of research. The Creative Project will allow you produce an individual piece or portfolio of creative writing in relation to a literary theme encountered on the course. The Staff-Student Research Project Pathway will assign you to a member of staff's research project, providing you with research aims and questions. You will work with the staff member to produce original research on the topic, culminating in a written project detailing findings and analysis.

Philosophy Major Project

The Philosophy Major Project will provide you with an opportunity to study a self-chosen philosophical topic in depth guided by expert supervision.  It will assist you in reflecting on the academic knowledge, creativity, and professional skills that you will have acquired in the first two years of study, in a way that fosters your intellectual authenticity, alongside a deeper appreciation of the contemporary relevance of philosophically informed modes of questioning, thinking, arguing, and concept creation. The ability of Philosophy to shape today's emerging social, cultural, and political agendas will also be a key focus of your project.

Humanities Research Project

The Humanities Research Project provides you with the opportunity to work with and further develop the combined knowledge and skills you have gained across your academic subjects to create a substantial and independent piece of interdisciplinary research. Supervised by academic staff, you will develop your own research topic, approach to the research and to the research outcome, delivered either through a 10,000-word dissertation or a substantial creative project with an accompanying 4,000-word essay. You are encouraged to approach your research project entrepreneurially; how might your research project contribute to future career opportunities and/or further study?

Transformation: Agency and Self

This final-year module challenges you to consider the role and value of interdisciplinary research through your academic subjects in advocating for and achieving meaningful social change at different scales. Building on your first- and second-year studies, you will conceptualise, develop, and deliver your own interdisciplinary approach to a live brief focused on an aspect of social change, considering the role of issues such as ethics, justice, power, rights and inequalities, reflecting on the role that is played, or could be played, by humanities disciplines in addressing these global issues. The module also provides you with an opportunity to bring together and reflect on your personal, academic and professional development throughout your degree. For this module you will be assessed through a creative project based on a live brief, and a piece of reflective writing focused on planning for your future beyond undergraduate study.

Philosophy optional modules typically include:

Philosophy, Film and Media

Examine the specificity of film and media and their relationship with philosophy by exploring the power of mediating processes and their role as a transmitter of philosophical material. Consider the status of the media artefact and its capacity to shape and inform contemporary identities and experiences.  You will also have the opportunity to study philosophical films. Understand the way in which philosophical discourses are able to shape, inform and critique contemporary media practices, experiences and cultures.

Being Good: The Foundations of Morality

Why be morally good? This question has been at the centre of philosophical debate for over two thousand years and has received a host of radically different and distinctive answers from thinkers across space and time. This module will examine and critically assess a key selection of these different views, and then consider their applications to contemporary ethical paradigms regarding moral status and equality.

Language, Communication and Power

What is the nature of linguistic meaning? How does language encode thought? How is language used as a tool for getting things done? Each of these questions have received considerable attention from philosophers, and this module will cover some of the main themes. You will address key issues in semantics and pragmatics, and study philosophical work in this area, including that of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Grice, and Foucault.

English optional modules typically include:

Contemporary Literature, Culture and Theory

Focusing on fiction and poetry published in the twenty-first century, this module will help you to develop an advanced understanding of some of the topics that define our contemporary period.  We look at celebrated and less well-known writers, alongside wider cultural developments and key directions in contemporary criticism and theory. Reflecting on some of today’s most pressing social and cultural issues, as well your ideas about the world and your place in it, you will study approaches to national, transnational, and global identities, environmental change, technology and digital culture, and war.

Modernist Writing

Modernism changed literature forever! In this module, you will have the opportunity to concentrate in detail on influential, exciting works by some of the major modernist writers of the twentieth century, including James Joyce, Langston Hughes, and Virginia Woolf.

Writing Justice, Changing Worlds

This module explores decolonial literature, poetry, and film, linking representation to anti-colonialism. You'll study marginalized traditions, postcolonial theory, and develop skills in critical reading and literary activism.

Gothic Rebels and Reactionaries

Gothic is known as the literature of the supernatural, the imaginary, and the darker aspects of being. However, it is also a literature that is deeply engaged with social and cultural issues, and frequently ahead of its time in terms of language, style and form. This module explores the gothic impulse in literature from the Romantic to the late Victorian era (1764-1897), considering how writers engage with cultural issues of the time, and the creative ways in which we, as readers, engage with their work in turn, through collaborative research including digital communities, and critical and creative responses in writing.

Early Modern Poetry and Prose: Nation, Self, Other

This period is one of great social change and literary invention - it saw Britain change its national religion and experience its only civil war. Against this background you shall find writers preoccupied with more enduring human concerns: gender and sexuality, religious conflict, humanity's relationship with nature, colonialism, and class. We consider how social change leads to writers attempting forms of writing not seen before in English literature and engage with contemporary thinking about literature’s importance in relation to national identity. Contemporary concepts of self and other are key to navigating writing from this fascinating time.