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With this BA Spanish and English Literature course you can combine your study of English literature with learning the Spanish language and exploring the cultures in which it is central.
Join our friendly and dynamic Department of Languages and Cultures, which offers the opportunity to study in a lively, multilingual community with staff and students from all over the world. We offer a flexible and supportive approach to learning which allows you to tailor your degree to your interests, including the opportunity to learn other languages.
Through this course you will become confident and highly skilled in written and spoken Spanish. You will master the fundamental elements of the language, to the point where you will graduate with a near-native command of it. Direct access to expert staff for help and feedback ensures you develop your language skills to the best of your ability.
In Spanish, you will learn the language in the political, social and cultural contexts of the countries in which it is spoken. You can study a wide range of optional modules in Spanish and Latin American culture, history, literature, politics and film with staff who are internationally recognised experts. These include comprehensive first-year modules including Icons of Spain and Latin America and Introduction to Spanish and Latin American Culture; second-year narratives including Literature and Society in the Modern Hispanic World and Culture and Revolution in Modern Latin America; and final-year modules including Memory, Dictatorship and Cultural Resistance in the Southern Cone, Writers and Publishers in Spain and Testimonial Writing from Modern Latin America.
In your English Literature modules, you will read more of authors and genres that you already know (from tragedy to Gothic, from Shakespeare and Dickens to Plath and Beckett). But you will also encounter aspects of literary studies that may be less familiar to you, from children’s literature to publishing studies and the history of the book. Our academics have published research on everything from medieval poetry to contemporary Caribbean and American fiction. As you progress through your degree, your module choices become more diverse and specialised: you can do archive work on Studying Manuscripts, or look at the politics of literature in Class Matters. Everyone in the Department of English Literature, from new lecturers to professors, teaches at every level of the degree: this gives you the benefit of our expertise and makes you part of the conversation about our research and its impact outside the classroom. We place a strong emphasis on small-group learning within a friendly and supportive environment. In your first and second years, you will have a mix of lectures (which can be quite large) and seminars (which will never have more than 16 people).
An integral part of the degree is the opportunity for you to spend up to a year in a Spanish-speaking country, either studying at a partner institution through the Erasmus+ programme, undertaking a work placement or working as a British Council language teaching assistant. It enables you to directly immerse yourself in the culture and develop your language to a near-native level. The core language module in the second year will prepare you for your time abroad, equipping you with the skills and knowledge required to work and live in a different culture.