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BA (Hons) English Literature
- Course Type: Undergraduate Degree
- Institution Code: P56
What can this course lead to?
Each year, there are many students who complete the BA (Hons) English Literature course who go on to either secure a teaching placement locally or study a variety of postgraduate courses.
Just some of the future careers for graduates after completing the course include:
- Teaching
- Copy Writing
- Editing and Proofing
- Librarianship
- Academic and Professional Writing
- Arts Administration
- Journalism / Publishing
- Web Content Manager
Who is it for?
Are you passionate about stories? Are you an imaginative and creative person who wants to work in a career that uses these talents? If so, our English Literature degree might be the course just for you.
In your first year, you will be introduced to the key skills that have traditionally underpinned literary criticism (such as genre analysis, textual analysis, and writing for audiences), as well as those that are more akin to the publisher of today.
In your second year, you will build on this knowledge base with a set of modules that draw on and challenge the literary canon. A wide range of texts are selected to broaden your knowledge of literary movements and encourage you to become creative, critical, and free thinkers.
In your final year, you will undertake a dissertation project that will allow you to explore a topic of your choice. Students have proposed a wide range of topics in the past, from the vegetarian utopia of Shelley, to mental health, femininity and the supernatural in gothic fiction; representations of ‘The Oriental’ in Tintin; the links between hip-hop and poetry; through to dragons and their symbolic resonance in the fantasy genre.
The degree runs an annual Literary Festival featuring established authors and poets. These popular events are free for students and members of the public to attend.
The courses at University Centre Peterborough are studied in smaller class sizes compared with other universities; a typical class size is under 20 students.
To view the course specification, click here.
Malcolm Bradbury Grant
University Centre Peterborough is partnered with the Malcolm Bradbury Trust to offer a Malcolm Bradbury Scholarship Bursary of £7,500.
You can view The Open University regulations here.
You must take modules worth 120 credits at each level of the course. Each module is worth a specified number of credits.
YEAR 1 (Level 4)
- Writing Matters: Academic and Professional Skills (15 credits)
- Introduction to Creative Writing (15 credits)
- Dead Heroes Society: Tragedy (15 credits)
- Contexts and Canons: Murakami to Blake (15 credits)
- Approaching Criticism (15 credits)
- Contexts and Canons: Equiano to Chaucer (15 credits)
- Only Fools and Sources: Comedy (15 credits)
- 20th Century Practitioners (15 credits)
YEAR 2 (Level 5)
- Renaissance to Romantics (15 credits)
- Writing WW1: Memory and Forgetting (15 credits)
- The Image: Exploring Visual Literacy in Media, Culture and Literature (15 credits)
- Stranger on the Shore: Placing the Postcolonial (15 credits)
- Preparing for Employment: Research and Employability (15 credits)
- Shakespeare Unstuck (15 credits)
- Writing for Newspapers and Magazines (15 credits)
- Vampires, Virgins and Villains: Reading the Gothic (15 credits)
YEAR 3 (Level 6)
- Undergraduate Major Project (30 credits)
- Decade: The Literature of the 1950s (15 credits)
- Modernism and the City (15 credits)
- Adaptations: Crossing the Genre (15 credits)
- Working in English, Film and Media (15 credits)
- Neverland to Wonderland: Explorations in Children’s Literature (15 credits)
- Reading the Now: Contemporary Literature (15 credits)
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
88 UCAS Points from a related subject and 5 GCSE grades C/4 or above including English and maths.
Mature students or students who do not have the above qualifications can contact our admissions team on 01733 214466 or admissions@ucp.ac.uk to discuss equivalent qualifications or relevant work experience. For more information on EU and overseas qualifications, UCAS, accreditation of prior learning and failure to meet the entry requirements please visit www.ucp.ac.uk
When studying this course at University Centre Peterborough, we will timetable your lectures as two full days a week over two semesters per year (part-time will be one to two full days a week over two semesters per year).
We are able to offer this convenient timetabling to our students as we are a smaller institution so we can timetable our staff and resources more efficiently.
Over the duration of your course, teaching will be delivered by the following methods:
Year one for full-time students (Level 4)
- 20% Lectures
- 70% Seminars
- 10% Workshops
Year two for full-time students (Level 5)
- 20% Lectures
- 80% Seminars
Final year for full-time students (Level 6)
- 100% Seminars
There are two semesters per year and each semester is up to 15 weeks which includes up to 12 teaching weeks and 3 assessment weeks.
If studying full-time you will be in classes, seminars and tutorials for approximately 15 hours per week and will spend the rest of your time in independent study and extra-curricular activities including work placement if not embedded in your course. We recommend that full-time students allow an additional 30 hours per week for additional study.
The campus is open Monday to Friday throughout the year and you will also have 24/7 access to a virtual learning environment (VLE) with e-books, journals and abstracts plus teaching resources and interactive tools.
Timetables are available at least 6 weeks before registration and you can refer to the academic calendar for examination weeks and resit periods.
The days of the week you study may change each year and in some circumstances one of the full days might have to be split into two half days, but we aim to keep these as full days where possible.
Visit our published documents and policies page for The Open University regulations.
Throughout the duration of your course you will be assessed by the following methods:
Year one for full-time students (Level 4)
80% Coursework
20% Written Exams
Year two for full-time students (Level 5)
80% Coursework
20% Written Exams
Final year for full-time students (Level 6)
70% Coursework
20% Written Exams
10% Practical Exams
Your final degree classification is calculate as an average of all Level 5 and Level 6 credits with the Level 6 credits given twice as much weighting as the Level 5.
There may be additional costs for this course which are not covered by the tuition fee.
As part of the Working in English, Film and Media module in the final year, students on this course will undertake a 120 hour work placement with an arts or media organisation.
As the course is timetabled as full days during the week when studied full-time, this also gives you the flexibility to find a work placement, internship or volunteering opportunity which will improve your employability after you graduate. All students are encouraged to identify work experience in addition to their work placement to aid their career development.
Dr Andrew McDonnell is the Course Leader for the BA (Hons) English Literature and BA (Hons) English Literature with Creating Writing degrees at University Centre Peterborough. He joined University Centre Peterborough in April 2016 and teaches widely across the degree programme. Andrew has been teaching English Literature & Creative Writing since 2003 at various institutions as both a sessional lecturer and assessor, such as University of East Anglia (UEA), Anglia Ruskin and Birkbeck.
His first degree is in Cultural Studies with what was then Norwich School of Art & Design, before taking an MA in Creative Writing at UEA. He holds a doctorate in English and Media from Anglia Ruskin and a PGCHE teaching qualification.
He has been published widely and is the poetry editor for Gatehouse Press, home to Lighthouse Literary Journal as well providing leisure classes in arts and languages in Norwich. His current research is in and narrative point of view in working class literature as well as contemporary fenland literature. He is working on his first novel.
Recent conferences and symposiums:
- Advance HE: CBHE Network Festival of Scholarly Activity and Research 2023 – The Sheffield College (talk given: Where We Learn From)
- Advance HE: CBHE Network Festival of Scholarly Activity and Research 2024 – University Centre Peterborough (talk given: You Are the Writer: Using the second-person to explore self-agency)
- UNESCO Cities of Literature – Edinburgh University and Napier (2024)
- Writing the Fens Symposium – University Centre Peterborough (2025). Paper given: ‘A Realm Which Bites, Snags and Troubles: The East Anglian Fens as an Uncanny Space for Creative Writing’
Qualifications
- PhD English & Media, Anglia Ruskin
- MA Creative Writing, University of East Anglia
- BA (Hons) Cultural Studies, Norwich School of Art & Design
- Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE), Anglia Ruskin University
Recent Publications
- The Somnambulist Cookbook (Salt, 2019)
- Masculinity – An Anthology of Modern Voices (three poems) (Broken Sleep Books, 2023)
- Before the Dreadful Daylight Starts – Poems About Norfolk (Three poems) (Waterland Books, 2024)
- ‘Iron Bridge’ (poem) – The Rialto (2024)
- As editor: Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies – Voicing the Erased: Critical and Creative practice in the 21st Century Short Story (University of Nebraska, 2025)
- Ten Poems About Norfolk (contribution – poem) (Candlestick Press, 2025)
- Our Story Needs Your Story: Writing Working Class Experience (Story Machine, 2025)
- 55 Devotionals (Against Erasure) (Broken Sleep Books, 2026)
Incredible courses in partnership with The Open University
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Our partnership with The Open University ensures that a significant number of our foundation diplomas and undergraduate degrees are validated by one of the UK’s most respected institutions, enhancing the credibility and recognition of your qualification.
Quality Assurance
Each course validated by The Open University undergoes rigorous quality assurance checks, guaranteeing that our curriculum meets high academic standards and delivers an exceptional educational experience.
Flexible Pathways
Through our collaboration with The Open University, students at University Centre Peterborough benefit from flexible learning options and expertly designed courses that support both part-time and full-time studies, tailored to accommodate diverse student needs.
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