English | BA (Hons) | University of Lincoln

Dr Peter Sloane - Programme Leader

Dr Peter Sloane is a Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Literature. Peter writes on literature, film, and theatre, and has published books on David Foster Wallace and Kazuo Ishiguro. He is currently working on two edited volumes (Kazuo Ishiguro and Claire Denis), while his new book project explores Literature and Loneliness in the 21st Century.

Academic Staff List

Welcome to BA (Hons) English

Explore a lively and varied collection of texts, from medieval literature and the Renaissance through to postcolonialism and postmodernism, with an English degree at Lincoln. Students will benefit from research-led teaching in all modules, with particular areas of strength in nineteenth-century literature and the literary and visual culture of the 21st century.

The BA (Hons) English course covers poetry, fiction, and drama, as well as less traditional forms of "text" such as life-writing and contemporary television.

Throughout the course students are encouraged to consider literature within a variety of theoretical, historical and cultural contexts. There are opportunities to study texts from a range of historical periods - from the medieval to the modern - from regional and global perspectives.

The broad range of topics enables students to pursue areas of particular interest, while individual research projects are designed to develop critical thinking skills. Students on the course will gain a range of highly transferable skills, including research, writing, and project management.

Literary study at Lincoln is enhanced by talks from visiting speakers and contemporary writers. These have included: the previous Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy; the writer and cultural critic Will Self; TV presenter and naturalist Chris Packham; and Andrew Graham-Dixon, a TV presenter, art historian, and Visiting Professor at the University.

How You Study

Many of our English academics are engaged in research which directly informs their teaching. There are particular strengths in 21st Century literature, 19th Century literature, Gothic studies, American literature, and the medieval.

The first year of the course introduces narrative, poetry, drama, popular culture, literary history, and literary criticism. In the second year, students can choose from a range of optional modules that can include Arthur and his Court; Romanticism, Restoration Literature; and Experimental Writing.

Opportunities exist to study abroad for one term during the second year. Students who do so are responsible for any associated travel, accommodation, and general living costs.

In the final year, students have the opportunity to pursue specialist subjects, such as the literature of childhood, ecocriticism, detective fiction, American literature, gothic literature and film, or author-focused modules such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Bronte, or Dickens. They also undertake a dissertation on a research topic of their choice.

Modules are taught through a variety of methods from whole-cohort lectures through small-group seminar teaching to individual tutorials and supervision. Each of these modes is designed to facilitate your learning by developing a range of different approaches to engaging with texts.

In order to "read English" at university, students will be expected to read widely in the subject. This will mean self-guided study and reading in preparation for taught sessions, as will be indicated in the reading lists for each module.

What You Need to Know

We want you to have all the information you need to make an informed decision on where and what you want to study. To help you choose the course that’s right for you, we aim to bring to your attention all the important information you may need. Our What You Need to Know page offers detailed information on key areas including contact hours, assessment, optional modules, and additional costs.

Find out More

An Introduction to Your Modules

† Some courses may offer optional modules. The availability of optional modules may vary from year to year and will be subject to minimum student numbers being achieved. This means that the availability of specific optional modules cannot be guaranteed. Optional module selection may also be affected by staff availability.

Drama Theatre Performance 2023-24ENL1015MLevel 42023-24This module introduces students to the distinctive characteristics of drama, theatre, and performance as both literary forms and as performance practices. Students are encouraged to think about the relationship between written scripts and embodied live or recorded performance. The module explores key drama, theatre and performance concepts, such as theatre semiotics, performance spaces, audience and spectatorship, and the performance of identity.CoreIntroduction to Narrative 2023-24ENL1010MLevel 42023-24Narrative is everywhere in our lives: in books, on TV, in history, on the news, on social media, in our conversations and in our heads. This module aims to give students an understanding of how stories work, using the insights that have originated and developed from structuralist theory. Contemporary British fiction by writers such as Kate Atkinson, Hanif Kureishi, Irvine Welsh, Ian McEwan and Ali Smith will be used to introduce a set of critical concepts for the analysis of narrative fiction.CoreIntroduction to Poetry 2023-24ENL1009MLevel 42023-24This module looks at what makes poetic language different from 'normal' language, at how poets use the sounds and meanings of words, and at how poetry can be used to refresh, change or question our understanding of the world. We look at a range of poetry in English from nursery rhymes to rap and from the 14th century to the 21st. Our aim is to enable students to discuss poetry with confidence, accuracy and clarity, and, we hope, to enjoy more fully the only art form that you can carry around in your head in its original form.CoreIntroduction to Popular Culture 2023-24ENL1011MLevel 42023-24This module aims to provide students with a critical and theoretical vocabulary that will enable them to explore a range of twentieth century cultural activities. Students will be encouraged to read not only traditionally marginalised literary genres such as romance, crime fiction, science fiction and the comic book but also texts from other cultural realms such as film, television, news, fashion, advertising, music TV, radio and magazines.CoreTexts in Time: Medieval to Romantic 2023-24ENL1070MLevel 42023-24Texts in Time: Medieval to Romantic introduces students to a variety of materials from a range of cultural and historical contexts from the 12th century to 1830, and to methods of reading historically. Students will thus build a foundation on writers and historical periods which they can choose to pursue in greater detail at levels 2 and 3. Students will examine literature in English in a range of forms, such as poetry, drama, fiction, and essays, and the conditions under which these materials were created. There will be a particular emphasis throughout the module on questions concerning the self in society and the cultural tensions that arise when different understandings or definitions of identity clash. The chosen texts will demonstrate and explore understandings of the self in relation to matters such as sex, gender, race, nationality, class, religion, and age.CoreTexts in Time: Victorian to Contemporary 2023-24ENL1071MLevel 42023-24Texts in Time: Victorian to Contemporary introduces students to a variety of materials from a range of cultural and historical contexts from 1830 to the present, and to methods of reading historically. Students will thus build a foundation on writers and historical periods which they can choose to pursue in greater detail at levels 2 and 3. Students will examine literature in English in a range of forms, such as poetry, drama, fiction, and essays, and the conditions under which these materials were created. There will be a particular emphasis throughout the module on questions concerning the self in society and the cultural tensions that arise when different understandings or definitions of identity clash. The chosen texts will demonstrate and explore understandings of the self in relation to matters such as sex, gender, race, nationality, class, religion, and age.CoreDis-Locations: the Literature of Late Capitalism 2024-25ENL2023MLevel 52024-25Fragmentation, uncertainty and conflict characterise a world in aftermath of war, at end of empire, and at the beginning of a period of radical social and cultural change. This module aims to chart the emergence of the contemporary world from these fractured beginnings through an introduction to British literature of the period 19502000. From the post-war Windrush migration to the rise of the historical novel at the turn of the millennium, the Angry Young Men to new feminist perspectives and postcolonialism, this module explores relevant theoretical perspectives on the late 20th Century and encourages an appreciation of the relationship between texts and their social, political and cultural contexts.CoreTheory Wars 2024-25ENL2017MLevel 52024-25This module considers the range of theories that we can use when we read and think about literature. Students will have the opportunity to study psychoanalysis, feminism, Marxism and postmodernism, among others, to think about why and how we structure meaning and interpretation in certain ways. We consider questions such as what is an author?, what is gender? and why do certain things frighten us? through theorists such as Roland Barthes, Judith Butler and Sigmund Freud.CoreAfter The End: Reading the Apocalypse 2024-25ENL2027MLevel 52024-25This module explores apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic texts using a range of novels, short stories, poems and films. Lectures will establish cultural and historical contexts and address issues such as form and genre. The module will explore a range of significant periods from early Judeo-Christian fears regarding the purging moral apocalypse, through Romantic preoccupations with nature and industrialisation, postmodernism and more contemporary concerns about viral or cybernetic apocalypse. We will draw from a range of disciplines including literary theory, psychoanalysis, cultural theory, philosophy and trauma theory.OptionalAmerican Literature I 2024-25ENL2024MLevel 52024-25This module explores the nineteenth-century literature of the USA, chiefly focusing on fiction and poetry. Authors covered include Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Walt Whitman and Willa Cather, among others.OptionalAmerican Literature II 2024-25ENL2025MLevel 52024-25This module covers a broad range of twentieth-century American fiction and poetry. Beginning with Fitzgerald, other authors studied include Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace.OptionalArthur and His Court 2024-25ENL2043MLevel 52024-25This module examines Arthurian narratives, myths, and traditions within a variety of contexts and media, and traces a variety of themes associated with Arthur and his court, including history and national identity; violence; kingship and rule; loyalty and betrayal; and love, sex, and gender roles. Students will be expected to assess the importance of a myth that spans more than a millennium and address how medieval texts made meaning within their specific socio-cultural situations, as well as how later periods make meaning through their deployment of the medieval in new contexts.OptionalBritish Medieval Literature 2024-25ENL2044MLevel 52024-25This module examines key British medieval texts, primarily in Middle English, from the High and Late Middle Ages (that is, from approximately the twelfth century to fifteenth century). It explores the breadth of literary activity in the period through a variety of genres--such as debate poetry, ethnographies, beast fables, romance, dream visions, satire, devotional and mystical writings, and mystery plays--and the evolution of a new form of English (the precursor of modern English), revealing that the medieval period is, in truth, a far cry from the misnomer by which it is often identified, the dark ages.OptionalClass, Power and Performance on Stage and Screen 2024-25ENL2029MLevel 52024-25OptionalClassic and Contemporary Fantasy 2024-25ENL2064MLevel 52024-25This module examines one of the most varied literary genres extant, one that, at times, is often relegated to the margins because of its slippery nature. Students will examine early examples of fantasy and trace the genres development across a number of key historical epochs, from the classical and medieval periods to the twenty-first century. They will consider especially Tolkien as a pivotal force in the growth of fantasy literature and theory, as well as The Inklings, a group whose works had a profound influence on the evolution of the genre in the twentieth century. A range of subgenres of the fantastic will be explored, which may include high and low fantasy, ironic fantasy, historical fantasy, or magic realism, and, alongside primary texts, they will read selections from modern theoretical and critical texts that articulate different interpretations and approaches to the fantastic.OptionalExperimental Writing 2024-25ENL2066MLevel 52024-25This module, conceptually, textually, formally, and intellectually challenging, is designed to introduce students to a range of innovative literatures, in a variety of forms, in order both to interrogate the idea of experimental writing, and its own often aggressive interrogation of the expressive potential of literature.OptionalLiterature of the Fin de Siècle 2024-25ENL2065MLevel 52024-25This module examines some of the preoccupations of the fin de siècle through a series of texts and authors who helped to shape the cultural climate of the 1880s-1900s. These decades gave rise to a pervasive feeling of vital urgency and exhilaration in Britain, as well as a conflicted sense that society was teetering on a cliff edge of irredeemable degeneration. Texts will be read alongside and in light of social and political developments, such as anxieties about Britains empire and position on the global stage, evolution and degeneration, sexual identity, womens rights, the rise of occultism and spiritualism, Decadence, and radical politics. The study of fin de siècle writing will be set against the backdrop of the infamous Oscar Wilde trial, and the sensationalised Jack the Ripper murders, contemporary anxieties about criminality, the empire, and eugenics.OptionalMaking It New: An Introduction to Literary Modernism 2024-25ENL2016MLevel 52024-25In this module students will have the opportunity to explore the early twentieth century, one of the most creative periods in English literature, when writers like James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and D.H. Lawrence were challenging conventional ways of writing and reading, and rewriting how we experience and understand the world and ourselves. Required reading will include some of the most powerful works from the modern movement between 1910 and 1940 including James Joyces Ulysses and T.S. Eliots The Waste Land.OptionalModern Drama (Level 2) 2024-25ENL2011MLevel 52024-25OptionalPostcolonialism 2024-25ENL2022MLevel 52024-25This module examines literary representations of the world that emerge from the history of European exploration and expansion, and considers literary responses from groups that were marginalized through imperialism. Students will be encouraged to look at the treatment by white writers of issues of race and empire in the early twentieth century. They will also have the opportunity to explore ways in which postcolonial literatures develop strategies of 'writing back' to the imperial centre and re-thinking identity in terms of race, gender and nation. The final section offers a study of postcolonial Britain and some global implications of postcolonial writing.OptionalRenaissance Literature 2024-25ENL2018MLevel 52024-25Students studying Renaissance Literature have the opportunity to look in detail at a range of texts from the late Elizabethan period to the mid-1630s, including work by Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson and Mary Wroth. They also have the chance to explore the historical and cultural contexts in which these texts were produced, and the effects that they had on the politics and culture of the British Isles in the period. Lectures aim to examine post-Reformation England and late humanism, patronage, gender relations, early modern literary theory, education and philosophy.OptionalRestoration Literature 2024-25ENL2021MLevel 52024-25Students taking Restoration Literature, the companion module to Renaissance Literature, can study in detail a range of texts written between the era of the English Civil War and the first decade of the eighteenth Century, including work by John Milton; Andrew Marvell; Aphra Behn; and John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester. Students have the opportunity to also study the historical and cultural contexts in which these texts were produced. Lectures aim to examine the origins and effects of the civil war, the ethics of rebellion and reform, the Restoration theatre, religious controversies, gender relations, developing philosophical thought and Restoration manners.OptionalRomanticism: Literature 1780-1830 2024-25ENL2063MLevel 52024-25Students will study English literature of the Romantic period (1780-1830), including poetry, fiction, autobiography, and political polemic. The module will address revolutions in politics and literary form and ideas of nature, the sublime, sensibility and feeling, abolition and slavery, Enlightenment feminism, the Gothic, Orientalism, and childhood. Students will have the opportunity to study works by writers including William Wordsworth, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Jane Austen, and Olaudah Equiano, placing them in their cultural context.OptionalStudy Period Abroad - English 2024-25ENL2028MLevel 52024-25This module provides an opportunity for English students to spend a semester at second level studying at one of the Universitys partner institutions, developing academically and personally. During the semester abroad students undertake a course load at the partner institution of equivalent standard to that of one semester of the programme at Lincoln. Participation in study abroad also offers unique opportunities for personal student development in the wider sense, taking in cultural, sporting and social opportunities. In order to participate, students are usually expected to obtain a 2:1 or higher at Level 1, have a good record of attendance and participation, and must complete an application process. A limited number of places will be available each year, and participation is at the discretion of the Module Co-ordinator and the Programme Leader.OptionalVictorian Worlds: Literature 1830-1914 2024-25ENL2070MLevel 52024-25OptionalA Dream Deferred: Class in American Literature 2025-26ENL3072MLevel 62025-26OptionalAmerican Detective Fiction and Film: 1930 to the Present Day 2025-26ENL3081MLevel 62025-26Why have detective narratives proved so enduringly popular? This module will interrogate the iconic figure of the private eye in American popular culture, through the fiction and film of the twentieth and twenty-first century.OptionalContemporary Drama 2025-26ENL3004MLevel 62025-26OptionalGothic in Literature and Film 2025-26ENL3006MLevel 62025-26Monsters and attics, desolate landscapes, imprisonment and pursuit: the gothic genre emerged in the late eighteenth century to depict our darkest fears and desires. Termed 'the literature of nightmare', gothic departs from a realistic mode of representation and employs a powerful means of symbolic expression. Students are given the opportunity to investigate ways in which the genre has explored psychological and political anxieties, and themes of sexual and social transgression. We consider literary texts from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries, including literature and film, and we give attention to sub-genres such as female gothic, imperial gothic and childrens gothic.OptionalGrowing Up and Growing Old: Youth and Age across the Nineteenth Century 2025-26ENL3080MLevel 62025-26This module explores what it meant to grow up and to grow old in the nineteenth century, through often contradictory accounts of experiencing age categories from childhood to old age. Students will have the opportunity to examine various constructions of ageing, to reflect on age as a crucial facet of identity. This module considers age as a lens to explore the nineteenth century as a transitional period of growth and expansion as well as decay and decline, through a range of Romantic and Victorian texts.OptionalIndependent Study: English 2025-26ENL3043MLevel 62025-26In this module students have the opportunity to research in depth an author or topic of their choosing. Students are expected to commence research over the summer between Levels 2 and 3 and, on their return, have regular, one-to-one meetings with a tutor who is a research specialist in that field. The supervisor offers advice and direction, but primarily this module encourages independent research leading to the production of a 10,000 word dissertation.OptionalIrish Writing since 1900 2025-26ENL3071MLevel 62025-26This module is designed to examine how terms such as Ireland and Irishness have been constructed and questioned across the last century, a period of immense and often turbulent historical and social change. It aims to explore the representation of place, the nature of nationalism, the changing family unit, gender roles and Ireland's relationship to globalization in Irish poetry, drama and fiction.OptionalLife Writing 2025-26ENL3032MLevel 62025-26This module responds to the recent interest in the representation of lives within literary studies. It discusses a range of life representations (including biography, autobiography, letters, confessions, memoirs, and poems) from the Romantic period to the contemporary moment. Students may consider the origins of autobiography, address Modernist experiments with life representations, and discuss twentieth-century and contemporary innovations, including disability narratives and cross-cultural autobiographies. Themes such as the construction of selfhood, conceptions of memory, the relational self, and the ethics of life writing are addressed.OptionalLiterature and the Environment 2025-26ENL3050MLevel 62025-26The first principle of ecological thinking is that it is not only human beings that are meaningful, and that we are neither so separate from, nor so dominant over, the non-human as we tend to think. In this module students can explore what difference it makes to read literature from this perspective. We study literature as part of our complex interaction with our environment, and, perhaps sometimes, as a uniquely valuable one. Students can read texts from ancient Greek pastoral to contemporary dystopias, and from the poet John Clare to the woodland historian Oliver Rackham.OptionalLiterature and the Visual, 17701870 2025-26ENL3095MLevel 62025-26OptionalLiterature, Film and Gender 2025-26ENL3005MLevel 62025-26OptionalLost in the Funhouse: Experimental American Literary Fiction Since the Sixties 2025-26ENL3011MLevel 62025-26OptionalMadness, The Body, Literature 2025-26ENL3069MLevel 62025-26OptionalMonsters and Violence in Middle English Romance 2025-26ENL3077MLevel 62025-26This module explores the representation of East-West contact in Middle English romances, with a particular emphasis on the interlacement of racial and ethnic otherness and on different types of violence, from martial exploits and religious coercion to rape and cannibalism. Students will have the chance to experience the breadth of the romance genreits many thematic and topical branches, and its many sub-genres and their respective conventionsas well as insight to the actual act of crusading, and the cultural and social crises that arose from this act.OptionalMoving Home: Literatures of American Migration 2025-26ENL3070MLevel 62025-26OptionalPoetry and Innovative Form 2025-26CRW3005MLevel 62025-26This module enables students to practice advanced techniques and develop innovative strategies for writing poetry. Students will read and reflect upon a range of contemporary works (including emergent forms) in order to further develop their own poetics and poetic practice. Furthermore, the study of poetics as a writerly and speculative discourse will accompany and influence the students' own writing - and the reflection upon the writing - and suggest emergent writing possibilities that students might engage in beyond the module, i.e. various creative environments and cultural economics.OptionalPostmodernism: Apocalypse and Genesis 1967-2000 2025-26ENL3031MLevel 62025-26OptionalScience Fiction 2025-26ENL3036MLevel 62025-26This module considers the genre of modern science fiction and its evolution into one of todays most popular narrative genres. Analysing a variety of forms novel, short story, drama, graphic novel and film students will have the opportunity to examine the socio-historical contexts of some of the most influential narratives of this period. This ranges from the emergence of scientific romance in the late nineteenth century, to late twentieth-century forms like cyberpunk and radical fantasy; from the problems of defining genre fictions and privileging science fiction over fantasy, to our enduring fascination with alternate histories, non-human agents (robots, animals, genetic hybrids, the environment), ecocatastrophe and post-apocalypse.OptionalSex, Texts and Politics: The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer 2025-26ENL3078MLevel 62025-26This module concentrates on the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, with a particular emphasis on The Canterbury Tales, perhaps Chaucers most famous work. Students will have the opportunity to examine the General Prologue and a variety of tales in relation to their historical context and literary antecedents, and, throughout, specific attention will be given to questions of genre (ranging from fable and epic to satire and romance), literary authority, narrative construction, and medieval aesthetics.OptionalShakespeare I 2025-26ENL3074MLevel 62025-26This module provides an opportunity for students to study the works of Shakespeare in detail. The dissemination, influence, and adaptation of Shakespeare is unrivalled, and without an understanding of the conventions that the works dissolved and those that they initiated, a full appreciation of the canon of English literature is inevitably lessened. This modules challenges Shakespeares status as an icon of tradition and elitism by reading the texts in the light of recent developments in critical theory, and by locating them in the culture of their age. Students will be invited to examine the ways in which different theoretical approaches might have a bearing upon the interpretation of Shakespeare, they will also be conversant with the religious climate of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the conditions of performance and play-going in Shakespeares theatre, and the significant cultural and historical events of the period.OptionalShakespeare II 2025-26ENL3075MLevel 62025-26This module allows students to study the works of the Bard in detail, and to read them in the light of critical theory and literary history. Shakespeares plays are a cornerstone of the canon of English literature, but in wider culture they are often treated as inflexible repositories of truth and human nature. This module will resist such approaches, and concentrate instead upon the ways in which the plays address the concerns of their day, as well as how they have been made to signify in other eras. Students can develop an understanding of how Shakespeares work dealt with early modern dramatic conventions, politics, and thought; how it addressed questions of history, religion, and race; and how it shaped the culture within which it was written. This module considers Shakespeares mature comedies, histories, and tragedies.OptionalSingle Author Study A 2025-26ENL3085MLevel 62025-26This module allows students to pursue an in-depth study of one authors literary or dramatic works. The author of choice varies from year to year according to academics current research interests, but potential authors may include writers of fiction and/or poetry such as Angela Carter, Charlotte Bronte, Iain Banks, Thomas Pynchon, M.R.James, Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath; and dramatists such as Caryl Churchill, Thomas Middleton, Aphra Behn, Ben Johnson and debbie tucker green. Students will explore the writers oeuvre in terms of themes, style, and engagement with form and genre traditions, and with contemporary cultural debates. We also address practicalities of authorship such as the role of editors, publishing/performance formats, and different readerships/audiences. Students will also consider the writers legacies including the afterlife of their works in adaptation. As well as studying texts, students will engage with conceptual debates about the role of the author : is attention to the authors life an outmoded and over-deterministic approach to the study of a text? or a necessary part of contextualisation? As we scrutinise the figure of the author in biography, literary societies, literary tourism and popular culture, we ask : what purposes does the author as a cultural construction serve ? and does this have anything to do with reading?OptionalSingle Author Study B 2025-26ENL3086MLevel 62025-26This module allows students to pursue an in-depth study of one authors literary or dramatic works. The author of choice varies from year to year according to academics current research interests, but potential authors may include writers of fiction and/or poetry such as Angela Carter, Charlotte Bronte, Iain Banks, Thomas Pynchon, M.R.James, Jane Austen and Sylvia Plath; and dramatists such as Caryl Churchill, Thomas Middleton, Aphra Behn, Ben Johnson and debbie tucker green. Students will explore the writers oeuvre in terms of themes, style, and engagement with form and genre traditions, and with contemporary cultural debates. We also address practicalities of authorship such as the role of editors, publishing/performance formats, and different readerships/audiences. Students will also consider the writers legacies including the afterlife of their works in adaptation. As well as studying texts, students will engage with conceptual debates about the role of the author : is attention to the authors life an outmoded and over-deterministic approach to the study of a text? or a necessary part of contextualisation? As we scrutinise the figure of the author in biography, literary societies, literary tourism and popular culture, we ask : what purposes does the author as a cultural construction serve ? and does this have anything to do with reading?OptionalSouthern Accents 2025-26ENL3009MLevel 62025-26OptionalThe 21st Century American Short Story 2025-26ENL3097MLevel 62025-26The short story is a peculiar and idiosyncratic form, but one that coalesces from a long tradition of fables, folktales, fairy tales, parables, and even sermons. Despite this lengthy heritage, it was not until the early 19th century, with writers such as Washington Irving, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Edgar Allen Poe, that the short story became a recognised literary form. Since then, through writers such as Raymond Carver, Earnest Hemmingway, John Cheever, Donald Barthelme, William Gass and others, the short story has evolved into a complex, myriad, ambiguous literary art. In this module we will be reading 21st century US short fiction, in order to gain an understanding of the mechanics of the form in its contemporary incarnation, as well as its themes and structures. While working explicitly in the contemporary, we will also be thinking about the history of the short story as it has developed in the US. The primary texts move from standard realism, through speculative fiction, the gothic, and into science fiction.OptionalThe Literature of Childhood 2025-26ENL3010MLevel 62025-26This module explores how childhood is constructed in a wide range of literary texts texts by adults for adults, by adults for children, and by children themselves. Underpinning the module is the notion of childhood as a cultural construct into which writers invest various, even contradictory, meanings. Students have the opportunity to explore texts by adults who idealise or demonise the child to suit their personal and philosophical agendas. Students may then analyse the mixture of didactic and therapeutic agendas in enduring genres of childrens literature such as the fairytale, adventure story and cautionary tale. Finally, we turn to children as authors in a study of juvenilia.OptionalThe Making of English Literature: Georgian Literature, 1710-1832 2025-26ENL3030MLevel 62025-26Students reading Georgian Literature have the opportunity to study a selection of canonical and less well-known texts from the period and explore the historical and cultural context of their production. The module discusses developments in the novel from Daniel Defoe to Jane Austen and innovations in poetry from Alexander Pope to Romantic writers such as William Wordsworth. Important themes include satire, sensibility, the Gothic, popular and polite culture, authorship, and Georgian theatre. Contextual discussion focuses on the construction of nation, gender, class and empire, and the relationship of British literature to the Enlightenment and to Revolution.OptionalThe Psychological Thriller and Crime Fiction 2025-26CRW3002MLevel 62025-26This module aims to introduce students to some of the specific elements of writing contemporary fiction in the field of crime and the psychological thriller. The module will consider the origins of crime fiction in the nineteenth century before concentrating on what has become one of the most popular genres in contemporary publishing.OptionalTwenty-First Century British Fiction 2025-26ENL3079MLevel 62025-26This module aims to explore new thematic trends, stylistic innovations and cultural developments in post-millennial British fiction, including a focus on globalising processes, transnational migration and digital technology. The module also addresses the development (and rethinking of the concepts) of gender and class in literature of the period and account for the continuing importance of the literary form in an age of digital publishing.OptionalWomens Writing and Feminist Theory 2025-26ENL3002MLevel 62025-26Students can study a diverse range of prose, poetry, and drama written by women from the eighteenth century to the present is considered alongside key concepts in feminist theory and the history of the womens movement. Writers range from Mary Wollstonecraft to Zora Neale Hurston to Jeanette Winterson. Topics range from the feminine aesthetic and French feminism to feminist utopianism and cyberfeminism.OptionalWriting Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025-26CRW3007MLevel 62025-26This module will introduce students to some of the specific elements of writing science fiction and fantasy. Although these two genres only emerged fully during the twentieth century, they have their roots in literature that is as old as the classics in the case of fantasy and the writings of Jonathan Swift and Mary Shelley with regard to science fiction. Frequently a medium for satire and social commentary, this module will explore some of the ways in which science fiction and fantasy authors offer means to develop thought experiments and oblique commentary on contemporary developments.Optional

How you are assessed

The University of Lincoln's policy on assessment feedback aims to ensure that academics will return in-course assessments to students promptly - usually within 15 working days after the submission date.

The way students are assessed on this course may vary for each module. Examples of assessment methods that are used include coursework, such as written assignments, reports or dissertations; practical exams, such as presentations, performances or observations; and written exams, such as formal examinations or in-class tests. The weighting given to each assessment method may vary across each academic year. The University of Lincoln aims to ensure that staff return in-course assessments to students promptly.

Fees and Scholarships

Going to university is a life-changing step and it's important to understand the costs involved and the funding options available before you start. A full breakdown of the fees associated with this programme can be found on our course fees pages.

Course Fees

For eligible undergraduate students going to university for the first time, scholarships and bursaries are available to help cover costs. The University of Lincoln offers a variety of merit-based and subject-specific bursaries and scholarships. For full details and information about eligibility, visit our scholarships and bursaries pages.

Course-Specific Additional Costs

Students on this course are expected to obtain their own copies of primary texts indicated for use and discussion in seminars (where available) and will be responsible for any additional costs incurred.

Those who choose to study abroad are responsible for any associated travel, accommodation, and general living costs.

Field Trips are optional and participation on trips will not impact upon grades awarded on this programme. The costs of transport and entry fees, where applicable, are covered by the School. Students are, however, expected to cover their own subsistence costs whilst attending field trips.

Entry Requirements 2023-24

United Kingdom

A Level: BBC (112 UCAS Tariff points from a minimum of 3 A levels or equivalent qualifications).

International Baccalaureate: 29 points overall.

BTEC Extended Diploma: Distinction, Merit, Merit or equivalent.

T Level: Merit

Access to Higher Education Diploma: 45 Level 3 credits with a minimum of 112 UCAS Tariff points.

A combination of qualifications which may include A Levels, BTEC, EPQ, etc.

Applicants will also need at least three GCSEs at grade 4 (C) or above, which must include English. Equivalent Level 2 qualifications may be considered.

The University accepts a wide range of qualifications as the basis for entry. We will also consider applicants with extensive and relevant work experience and will give special individual consideration to those who do not meet the standard entry qualifications.

International

Non UK Qualifications:

If you have studied outside of the UK, and are unsure whether your qualification meets the above requirements, please visit our country pages:

https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/studywithus/internationalstudents/entryrequirementsandyourcountry/ for information on equivalent qualifications.

EU and Overseas students will be required to demonstrate English language proficiency equivalent to IELTS 7.0 overall, with a minimum of 6.5 in each element. For information regarding other English language qualifications we accept, please visit the English Requirements page:

https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/studywithus/internationalstudents/englishlanguagerequirementsandsupport/englishlanguagerequirements/

If you do not meet the above IELTS requirements, you may be able to take part in one of our Pre-sessional English and Academic Study Skills courses.

If you would like further information about entry requirements, or would like to discuss whether the qualifications you are currently studying are acceptable, please contact the Admissions team on 01522 886097, or email admissions@lincoln.ac.uk

Study Abroad

Students undertaking this degree have the option to study abroad at one of the University’s partner institutions for one term during their second year. This can provide an insight into alternative approaches to the study of the subject and gives students the opportunity to experience another culture. Those who choose to study abroad are responsible for any associated travel, accommodation, and general living costs.

Field Trips

Field trips organised by the School include visits to Newstead Abbey, former home of the poet Lord Byron, and Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. These are optional and participation on trips will not impact upon grades awarded on this programme. The costs of transport and entry fees, where applicable, are covered by the School. Students are, however, expected to cover their own subsistence costs while attending field trips.

Our medieval modules typically include sessions working with manuscripts in the archives at Lincoln Cathedral or optional workshops with local artisans on medieval arts and culture.

Students on this course are also able to attend organised activities such as play readings, film showings, and performances.

These optional events aim to enrich the student experience at Lincoln, and they cement the sense of community fostered by the School of English and Journalism.

Research

Our research-active staff are engaged in work which directly informs their teaching. There are particular strengths in 21st Century literature, 19th Century literature, Gothic studies, American literature and the medieval. Current research projects include studies on:

Shakespeare
Women’s life writing
The literature of homelessness
Ecogothic
The literature of Brexit
Detective fiction
Literature and loneliness
Ageing in Victorian fiction
Werewolves in medieval texts
The reception of William Blake
Nineteenth-century religious writing
Literature and the visual
Women’s writing in the time of Covid

Details about staffs’ research interests and recent publications can be found here.

Students studying English are welcome to attend the numerous research events hosted by the school, which provide opportunities to learn more about the work in which members of staff are engaged, and to hear more about specialist research by visiting speakers. These include events run by the Medieval Studies Research Group, Nineteenth-Century Research Group, 21st-Century Research Group, and the English and Creative Writing Seminar Series.

Students with interests in creative writing and contemporary literature benefit from readings and masterclasses by published authors and other guest speakers in creative industries, such as publishing and journalism. In the past guests have included former Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy, Dame Penelope Lively, and Patience Agbabi.

"Staff ensure that students grow in confidence. They nurture students' passion and determination."

Tayler Stevens, BA (Hons) English graduate

Career Opportunities

Graduates can go on to careers in publishing, journalism, advertising, public relations, the civil service, and communications. Some choose to continue their studies at postgraduate level, while others undertake qualifications in teaching.

Visit Us in Person

The best way to find out what it is really like to live and learn at Lincoln is to join us for one of our Open Days. Visiting us in person is important and will help you to get a real feel for what it might be like to study here.

Book Your Place

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Key Information

BA (Hons) English