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BA ART AND CREATIVE WRITING

  • UCAS code
    QW32
  • Typical offer
    BBB
  • Year of entry
    2022/23
    See 2021/22 entry
  • Course duration
     4 years
  • Year of entry
    2022/23
    See 2021/22 entry
  • Course duration
     4 years
View all

COVID-19 update


Find out how we're adapting during COVID-19.

Develop as an artist, curator and writer with our BA Art and Creative Writing programme.

This four-year, joint honours course reflects recent developments in art and culture. For example, you will:

  • learn about new digital art and publishing platforms
  • expand your understanding of contemporary literature and art theories
  • develop your skills in art writing.

Art and creative writing are a stimulating combination at degree level – they enhance and inform one another. Additionally, studying theories and practitioners across the art and literature disciplines will inspire and influence your own art and writing as you hone your technique and form.

Art

Studying at the Reading School of Art allows you to explore a vast range of media and experiment with emerging art forms.

Over the course of your four years of study, you will:

  • work with academics who include artists, curators and researchers
  • be encouraged to participate in exhibitions, public art commissions and events
  • receive dedicated studio space, accessible 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, and a studio tutor to help develop your individual and professional practice.

You will complement your practical art with modules in contemporary art theory and the history of art. Through the lectures, seminars and studio teaching – as well as weekly visiting artist talks – you will be exposed to the language, vocabulary and debates that have emerged historically and evolved to forge contemporary art.

Creative writing

Explore literature creatively as you develop characters, shape poems, and draw on your imagination.

You will learn from prize-winning authors and academics who have published research on everything from medieval poetry to contemporary Caribbean fiction.

We are committed to teaching through the workshop model. These small group sessions are the heart of Reading’s writing community: guided by one of our lecturers, you and your fellow students will gain confidence as your share your writing and help each other improve.

You will also have the opportunity to publish your work – and gain experience in editing and publishing – by participating in our annual Creative Writing Anthology.

Find out more about our creative writing studies, including information about our academics, on our Department of English Literature’s creative writing webpage.

Your learning environment

You will learn through a mixture of:

  • seminars
  • lectures
  • studio teaching
  • group workshops
  • technical inductions
  • one-to-one tutorials
  • museum and gallery visits.

You will also receive academic guidance through oral and written feedback.

Your creative writing modules will place a strong emphasis on small-group learning within a friendly and supportive environment, and you will have access to our resident professional writer who advises our students individually.

For your art modules, you will have access to our range of facilities. These include:

  • studios for construction, printing and casting
  • darkrooms for photography
  • digital tools for film and video editing, imaging, sound and web building
  • a dedicated audio-visual room and sound-recording booth.

Placement

You will be encouraged to undertake academic placements during your studies.

The Department of English Literature has an innovative placement scheme, and previous art students have:

  • interned at Studio Voltaire and the Frieze Art Fair
  • performed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
  • taken part in an Arts Council-supported film project at the Museum of Rural Life
  • participated in an international exhibition at the Seoul Institute of Arts in South Korea.

Study abroad

In your second year, you can spend a term studying abroad at one of our partner institutions in the USA, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, France, Switzerland or Finland.

To find out more, visit our Study Abroad site.

 

Overview

Develop as an artist, curator and writer with our BA Art and Creative Writing programme.

This four-year, joint honours course reflects recent developments in art and culture. For example, you will:

  • learn about new digital art and publishing platforms
  • expand your understanding of contemporary literature and art theories
  • develop your skills in art writing.

Art and creative writing are a stimulating combination at degree level – they enhance and inform one another. Additionally, studying theories and practitioners across the art and literature disciplines will inspire and influence your own art and writing as you hone your technique and form.

Art

Studying at the Reading School of Art allows you to explore a vast range of media and experiment with emerging art forms.

Over the course of your four years of study, you will:

  • work with academics who include artists, curators and researchers
  • be encouraged to participate in exhibitions, public art commissions and events
  • receive dedicated studio space, accessible 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, and a studio tutor to help develop your individual and professional practice.

You will complement your practical art with modules in contemporary art theory and the history of art. Through the lectures, seminars and studio teaching – as well as weekly visiting artist talks – you will be exposed to the language, vocabulary and debates that have emerged historically and evolved to forge contemporary art.

Creative writing

Explore literature creatively as you develop characters, shape poems, and draw on your imagination.

You will learn from prize-winning authors and academics who have published research on everything from medieval poetry to contemporary Caribbean fiction.

We are committed to teaching through the workshop model. These small group sessions are the heart of Reading’s writing community: guided by one of our lecturers, you and your fellow students will gain confidence as your share your writing and help each other improve.

You will also have the opportunity to publish your work – and gain experience in editing and publishing – by participating in our annual Creative Writing Anthology.

Find out more about our creative writing studies, including information about our academics, on our Department of English Literature’s creative writing webpage.

Your learning environment

You will learn through a mixture of:

  • seminars
  • lectures
  • studio teaching
  • group workshops
  • technical inductions
  • one-to-one tutorials
  • museum and gallery visits.

You will also receive academic guidance through oral and written feedback.

Your creative writing modules will place a strong emphasis on small-group learning within a friendly and supportive environment, and you will have access to our resident professional writer who advises our students individually.

For your art modules, you will have access to our range of facilities. These include:

  • studios for construction, printing and casting
  • darkrooms for photography
  • digital tools for film and video editing, imaging, sound and web building
  • a dedicated audio-visual room and sound-recording booth.

Placement

You will be encouraged to undertake academic placements during your studies.

The Department of English Literature has an innovative placement scheme, and previous art students have:

  • interned at Studio Voltaire and the Frieze Art Fair
  • performed at the Institute of Contemporary Arts
  • taken part in an Arts Council-supported film project at the Museum of Rural Life
  • participated in an international exhibition at the Seoul Institute of Arts in South Korea.

Study abroad

In your second year, you can spend a term studying abroad at one of our partner institutions in the USA, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, France, Switzerland or Finland.

To find out more, visit our Study Abroad site.

 

Entry requirements A Level BBB | IB 30 points overall

Select Reading as your firm choice on UCAS and we'll guarantee you a place even if you don't quite meet your offer. For details, see our firm choice scheme.

Typical offer

BBB including a grade B in English Literature or a related subject. Related subjects include: English Language, English Language and Literature, Drama and Theatre Studies, and Creative Writing.

All suitable applicants will be interviewed and will need to provide a portfolio of their work.

International Baccalaureate

30 points overall including 5 in English at higher level.

Extended Project Qualification

In recognition of the excellent preparation that the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) provides to students for University study, we can now include achievement in the EPQ as part of a formal offer.

BTEC Extended Diploma

DDM

English language requirements

IELTS 7.0, with no component below 6.0

For information on other English language qualifications, please visit our international student pages.

Alternative entry requirements for International and EU students

For country specific entry requirements look at entry requirements by country.

Pre-sessional English language programme

If you need to improve your English language score you can take a pre-sessional English course prior to entry onto your degree.

  • Find out the English language requirements for our courses and our pre-sessional English programme

Structure

  • Year 1
  • Year 2
  • Year 3
  • Year 4

Core modules include:

  • Art Studio
  • Reading Objects, Writing Images
  • Introduction to Creative Writing
  • Genre and Context
  • Poetry in English

Please note that all modules are subject to change.

 

Core modules include:

  • Art Studio including Career Management Skills

Optional modules include:

  • Introduction to Old English
  • Lyric Voices
  • Renaissance Texts and Cultures
  • Chaucer and Medieval Narrative
  • Early Modern Theatre Practice
  • Restoration to Revolution
  • The Romantic Period
  • Modernism in Poetry and Fiction
  • Critical Issues
  • Victorian Literature
  • Contemporary Fiction
  • Writing America
  • Writing Poetry
  • Writing Fiction
  • Writing Creative Non-Fiction
  • Shakespeare
  • Writing Genre, Identity
  • Writing, Genre and the Market
  • The Business of Books

Placement modules include:

  • Communications at Work
  • Literature, Language and Media
  • Literature, Language and Education

Please note that all modules are subject to change.

 

 

Core modules include:

  • Art Studio

Optional modules include:

  • Image Action Text
  • Affect, Aesthetics and the Event
  • Utopias and Other Worlds
  • Landscape and Memory
  • Independent Study
  • Family Romances: Genealogy, Identity, and Imposture in the Nineteenth-Century Novel
  • Holocaust Testimony: Memory, Trauma and Representation
  • Restoration Literary Culture: Drama and Poetry, 1660-1700
  • 'Eyes on the Prize': Literature of the US Civil Rights Movement
  • American Poetry: Bishop to Dove
  • Black British Fiction
  • Children's Literature
  • City of Death and Desire: Henry James and Venice
  • Class Matters
  • Classical and Renaissance Tragedy
  • Colonial Explorations
  • Contemporary American Fiction
  • Decadence and Degeneration: Literature of the 1890s
  • Dickens
  • Editing the Renaissance
  • Fiction and Ethnicity in Post-War Britain and America
  • Hitchcock
  • Holocaust Fiction
  • Irish Poetry after Yeats
  • James Joyce
  • John Milton: Poet of the English Republic
  • Literature and the Railway
  • Margaret Atwood
  • Modern Epic
  • Modern Scottish Fiction: from Jean Brodie to Trainspotting
  • Modern and Contemporary British Poetry
  • Nigerian Prose Literature: from Achebe to Adichie
  • Nineteenth-Century American Fiction
  • Packaging Literature
  • Psychoanalysis and Text
  • Samuel Beckett
  • Science in Culture
  • Shakespeare on Film
  • The Eighteenth-Century Novel: Sex and Sensibility
  • The Writer's Workshop: Studying Manuscripts
  • Victorian and Edwardian Children's Fantasy
  • Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury
  • What is the Contemporary?
  • Writing Global Justice
  • Writing Women: nineteenth-century poetry

Please note that all modules are subject to change.


Core modules include:

  • Art Studio
  • Creative Writing Dissertation

Please note that all modules are subject to change.


Fees

New UK/Republic of Ireland students: £9,250 per year

New international students: £19,500 per year

UK/Republic of Ireland fee changes

UK/Republic of Ireland undergraduate tuition fees are regulated by the UK government. These fees are subject to parliamentary approval and any decision on raising the tuition fees cap for new UK students would require the formal approval of both Houses of Parliament before it becomes law.

EU student fees

With effect from 1 August 2021, new EU students will pay international tuition fees. For exceptions, please read the UK government’s guidance for EU students.

Additional costs

Some courses will require additional payments for field trips and extra resources. You will also need to budget for your accommodation and living costs. See our information on living costs for more details.

Financial support for your studies

You may be eligible for a scholarship or bursary to help pay for your study. Students from the UK may also be eligible for a student loan to help cover these costs. See our fees and funding information for more information on what's available.

Careers

A degree in art and creative writing will prepare you to enter professions across the cultural field. For example, you could choose to work in:

  • museum and gallery education
  • publishing
  • postproduction
  • theatre
  • television
  • public relations.

You will enter the job market with practical experience and highly-developed research and communication skills. You will know how to access reliable information and present your findings in clear and persuasive language. These are valuable skills in today’s economy, where information and communication skills are vital. You will also have the critical and cultural awareness necessary for working in the public sector and the media.

Some of our students decide to continue their studies at postgraduate level; others have successful careers in fields as diverse as law, business administration, web design, teaching, and journalism.

Overall, 93% of our art graduates are in work or further study within six months of graduating (Destination of Leavers from Higher Education survey, 2016/17).

Past art and literature graduates have gone on to work for employers such as:

  • Tate
  • Whitechapel Gallery
  • The Burlington Magazine
  • Christies
  • Microsoft
  • BBC
  • The Telegraph
  • Oxford University Press
  • Waterstones
  • Cisco Systems
  • Royal Mint.
 

Contextual offers


We make contextual offers for all our courses.

Take the next step


How to apply

Come to an Open Day

Get a prospectus

Ask us a question

Chat to our students

Related Courses

  • BA English Literature with Creative Writing Q3W8
    Full Time: 3 Years
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2021/22
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Undergraduates
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Undergraduates
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Subjects A-B

  • Agriculture
  • Ancient History
  • Animal Science
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Architectural Engineering
  • Architecture
  • Art
  • Biological Sciences
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Biomedical Sciences
  • Building and Surveying
  • Business and Management, Accounting and Finance

Subjects C-E

  • Chemistry
  • Classics and Classical Studies
  • Climate Science
  • Computer Science
  • Construction Management
  • Consumer Behaviour and Marketing
  • Creative Writing
  • Drama
  • Ecology
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Engineering
  • English Language and Applied Linguistics
  • English Literature
  • Environment

Subjects F-G

  • Film & Television
  • Food and Nutritional Sciences
  • Foundation programmes
  • French
  • Geography
  • German
  • Graphic Communication and Design

Subjects H-M

  • Healthcare
  • History
  • International Development
  • International Foundation Programme (IFP)
  • International Relations
  • Italian
  • Languages and Cultures
  • Law
  • Linguistics
  • Marketing
  • Mathematics
  • Medical Sciences
  • Meteorology and Climate
  • Museum Studies

Subjects N-T

  • Nutrition
  • Pharmacology
  • Pharmacy
  • Philosophy
  • Physician Associate Studies
  • Politics and International Relations
  • Psychology
  • Real Estate and Planning
  • Spanish
  • Speech and Language Therapy
  • Surveying and Construction
  • Teaching
  • Theatre

Subjects U-Z

  • Wildlife Conservation
  • Zoology

Subjects A-C

  • Agriculture
  • Ancient History
  • Animal Sciences
  • Archaeology
  • Architecture
  • Art
  • Biological Sciences
  • Biomedical Sciences
  • Business (Post-Experience)
  • Business and Management (Pre-Experience)
  • Chemistry
  • Classics and Ancient History
  • Climate Science
  • Computer Science
  • Construction Management and Engineering
  • Consumer Behaviour
  • Creative Enterprise

Subjects D-G

  • Data Science
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Energy and Environmental Engineering
  • Engineering
  • English Language and Applied Linguistics
  • English Literature
  • Environmental Science
  • Film, Theatre and Television
  • Finance
  • Food and Nutritional Sciences
  • Geography and Environmental Science
  • Graphic Design

Subjects H-P

  • Healthcare
  • History
  • Information Management and Digital Business
  • Information Technology
  • International Development and Applied Economics
  • Languages and Cultures
  • Law
  • Linguistics
  • Management
  • Medieval History
  • Meteorology and Climate
  • Microbiology
  • Nutritional Sciences
  • Pharmacy
  • Philosophy
  • Physician Associate
  • Politics and International Relations
  • Project Management
  • Psychology
  • Public Policy

Subjects Q-Z

  • Real Estate and Planning
  • Social Policy
  • Speech and Language Therapy
  • Strategic Studies
  • Teaching
  • Theatre
  • Typography and Graphic Communication
  • War and Peace Studies
  • Zoology

Subjects A-B

  • Agriculture
  • Ancient History
  • Animal Science
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Architectural Engineering
  • Architecture
  • Art
  • Biological Sciences
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Biomedical Sciences
  • Building and Surveying
  • Business and Management, Accounting and Finance

Subjects C-E

  • Chemistry
  • Classics and Classical Studies
  • Climate Science
  • Computer Science
  • Construction Management
  • Consumer Behaviour and Marketing
  • Creative Writing
  • Drama
  • Ecology
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Engineering
  • English Language and Applied Linguistics
  • English Literature
  • Environment

Subjects F-G

  • Film & Television
  • Food and Nutritional Sciences
  • Foundation programmes
  • French
  • Geography
  • German
  • Graphic Communication and Design

Subjects H-M

  • Healthcare
  • History
  • International Development
  • International Foundation Programme (IFP)
  • International Relations
  • Italian
  • Languages and Cultures
  • Law
  • Linguistics
  • Marketing
  • Mathematics
  • Medical Sciences
  • Meteorology and Climate
  • Museum Studies

Subjects N-T

  • Nutrition
  • Pharmacology
  • Pharmacy
  • Philosophy
  • Physician Associate Studies
  • Politics and International Relations
  • Psychology
  • Real Estate and Planning
  • Spanish
  • Speech and Language Therapy
  • Surveying and Construction
  • Teaching
  • Theatre

Subjects U-Z

  • Wildlife Conservation
  • Zoology

Subjects A-C

  • Agriculture
  • Ancient History
  • Animal Sciences
  • Archaeology
  • Architecture
  • Art
  • Biological Sciences
  • Biomedical Sciences
  • Business (Post-Experience)
  • Business and Management (Pre-Experience)
  • Chemistry
  • Classics and Ancient History
  • Climate Science
  • Computer Science
  • Construction Management and Engineering
  • Consumer Behaviour
  • Creative Enterprise

Subjects D-G

  • Data Science
  • Economics
  • Education
  • Energy and Environmental Engineering
  • Engineering
  • English Language and Applied Linguistics
  • English Literature
  • Environmental Science
  • Film, Theatre and Television
  • Finance
  • Food and Nutritional Sciences
  • Geography and Environmental Science
  • Graphic Design

Subjects H-P

  • Healthcare
  • History
  • Information Management and Digital Business
  • Information Technology
  • International Development and Applied Economics
  • Languages and Cultures
  • Law
  • Linguistics
  • Management
  • Medieval History
  • Meteorology and Climate
  • Microbiology
  • Nutritional Sciences
  • Pharmacy
  • Philosophy
  • Physician Associate
  • Politics and International Relations
  • Project Management
  • Psychology
  • Public Policy

Subjects Q-Z

  • Real Estate and Planning
  • Social Policy
  • Speech and Language Therapy
  • Strategic Studies
  • Teaching
  • Theatre
  • Typography and Graphic Communication
  • War and Peace Studies
  • Zoology

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