English Literature and Philosophy BA (Hons)

Cardiff University

The BA in English Literature and Philosophy provides you with the opportunity of specialising in two university honours subjects. Many students find joint honours both stimulating and rewarding as they observe both similarities and differences between the two subjects.

English literature at Cardiff offers access to the whole span of English literature, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 21st century. Nor is the curriculum restricted to the printed word – we are intrigued by the connections between literature and film, art, music, history, language, and popular culture and our teaching reflects these interests.

There are two related aspects of the philosophy course at Cardiff that mark it out among Russell Group universities. One is that there is a strong emphasis on ethics, politics, and aesthetics among the modules on offer. The other is that our research and teaching is spread equally across both the ‘analytic’ and ‘Continental’ styles of Western philosophy.

The degree provides the training necessary for students who wish to study English literature or philosophy at postgraduate level, and a valuable range of intellectual and transferable skills for students who enter other professions.

Distinctive features

The distinctive features of the course include:

•teaching across the whole chronological and geographical span of English literature, from the Anglo-Saxon period to the 21st century

•a reputation for theoretically informed reading, bringing texts from all periods into dialogue with contemporary concerns about gender, identity, sexuality, nationality, race, the body, the environment, and digital technology

•a strong tradition in creative writing, taught by writers making their mark on today’s culture

•emphasis on ethics, politics, and aesthetics