English and United States Literature (Including Foundation Year) BA (Hons)

Our four-year BA English and United States Literature (including foundation year), will be suitable for you if your academic qualifications do not yet meet our entrance requirements for the three-year version of this course and you want a programme that increases your subject knowledge as well as improves your academic skills in order to support your academic performance. This four-year course includes a foundation year (Year Zero), followed by a further three years of study. During your Year Zero, you study three academic subjects relevant to your chosen course as well as a compulsory academic skills module, with additional English language for non-English speakers. Vibrant. Experimental. Supportive. Literature at Essex has a great tradition of nurturing writers and thinkers. From past giants such as Robert Lowell, Ted Berrigan and Ben Okri who have shaped literature as we know it, to prize-winning contemporary writers such as Professors Derek Walcott and Marina Warner, Essex has always attracted people who are at the heart of defining and redefining literature. So come and study with us and find your voice. You experience a varied and flexible curriculum focused on the study of English and United States literatures, encompassing several genres and periods. In your first year, a core module on United States literature allows you to study classic texts regarded as establishing US literature as a specific literature from English. This study helps you answer questions like: what is American literature? What makes writing in the US different from other writing in the English language? Modules in your second and third years allow you to study major texts, problems and issues in 20th century United States literature, while optional modules mean you can choose topics of interest to you, like film, myth, postcolonial literature or science fiction.Essex has always been a major centre for American Studies, and our expertise across literature, film, art, history and politics allows you to unravel and understand the complexities of US society and the American dream. Your reading can take you beyond the US and Britain to the rest of the Americas and Europe; at Essex you don’t just study English Literature, you study world literature in English.