BA Modern Languages and English Literature

Compulsory modules

Language modules in French, German, Italian and/or Spanish, depending on your chosen core language(s)

Ideas of Frenchness (if French is a core language)

The Making of Contemporary Germany (if German is a core language) 

Making Italians: A Journey in the History and Culture of Modern Italy (if Italian is a core language)

Introduction to Spanish and Latin American Culture (if Spanish is a core language)

Poetry in English

From the Renaissance to the present, uncover the history of poetry as you explore key genres related to love, politics, pastoral, elegy, satire, the sonnet, the ode, and the dramatic monologue. You’ll study poems drawn from the wider English-speaking world including Ireland, the Caribbean and North America, encountering the diversity of voices found in gender and sexuality. 

Theory and Practice of Writing

Discover the key concepts that shape our understanding of literature from the perspective of composition and of critical work. Consider how writers are connected to other authors, editors and publishers as you articulate your own and others’ ideas in a portfolio of written work.  

Optional modules

Introduction to Drama

Discover the genre of drama as you explore a historical range of texts from the early modern periods. You’ll focus on four plays as you explore comedy, tragedy, form, structure, and the elements of change and continuity found within the genre. 

Modern American Culture and Counterculture

Discover American countercultures in work, from 1950s Beat poetry to fiction responding to the Black Lives Matter movement. You’ll study the perspectives of African-American, Native American and white American creatives in a variety of genres: poetry, short stories, YA fiction, science fiction, drama, songs, films, war reportage and the graphic novel. 

Thinking Translation: History and Theory

Shelf Life

Become acquainted with English literature’s material dimension and how writers, both past and present, have depicted the library as a symbol. As you study, you'll interpret poems, novels and plays, and investigate books and other archival documents as physical objects.

What is Comparative Literature?

These are the modules that we currently offer for 2024/25 entry. They may be subject to change as we regularly review our module offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Please note that the University cannot guarantee that all optional modules will be available to all students who may wish to take them.

You can also register your details with us to receive information about your course of interest and study and life at the University of Reading.

Compulsory modules

Language modules in French, German, Italian and/or Spanish, depending on your chosen core language(s)

Further compulsory modules will depend on your chosen core language(s), for example

How to Think in French (if French is a core language)

Cinema of Germany (if German is a core language)

Fictions of Italy: Themes and Genres (if Italian is a core language)

Literature and Society in the Modern Hispanic World (if Spanish is a core language)

Optional modules

Science, Perversion and Dream in Global Fantastic Literature

Society, Thought and Art in Modern Europe

Unity, Nationalism and Regionalism in Europe

Global Ecologies: Discourse, Environment and Society

Early Modern Literature

Eighteenth-Century Satirists and Novelists

Romantics and Victorians

Myth, Legend and Romance: Medieval Storytelling

Explore storytelling in medieval England as you take in the fantastical tales of ancient heroes, drama that blends comedy and religious devotion, and magic and supernatural beings. You’ll consider the stark contrast of narrative structure, character development and language use by medieval writers in contrast to our own.  

Modernism in Poetry and Fiction

Examine the concepts of modernity, modernism, and the history of early twentieth-century poetry and fiction. You’ll explore experimentation and innovation in poetic and narrative form, and their relation to wider social upheaval and cultural movements in the period. 

Contemporary Fiction

Study a selection of fiction from the 1980s to the present day, exploring the formal, thematic and cultural diversity of Anglophone fiction produced in this period. You’ll consider these texts within a number of social, political and historical contexts, such as multiculturalism, feminism and globalisation.  

The Business of Books

Writing America: Perspectives on the Nation

Writing the Public Sphere

Study literature designed to prompt social and political change as you examine speeches, pamphlets, tracts and political posters from the early modern period to the present. Consider how such literature shapes debates on race, class, religion, nationality and women’s rights across Britain and Ireland.  

Critical Thinking

These are the modules that we currently offer for 2024/25 entry. They may be subject to change as we regularly review our module offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Please note that the University cannot guarantee that all optional modules will be available to all students who may wish to take them.

You can also register your details with us to receive information about your course of interest and study and life at the University of Reading.

Study Year Abroad

Compulsory modules

Language modules in French, German, Italian and/or Spanish, depending on your chosen core language(s)#

Future Worlds in Film

Identity and Conflict in Modern Europe

Language and Power

Further compulsory modules will depend on your chosen core language(s), for example

The French Caribbean: Language, Literature and Identity (if French is a core language)

Writers of the Weimar Republic: At Home and in Exile (if German is a core language)

Crisis, Change, Opportunity: Italy from 1968 to the Present (if Italian is a core language)

Narrating the Colombian Conflict (if Spanish is a core language)

Optional modules

Black British Fiction

Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury

Publishing Cultures: Writers, Publics, Archives

Nigerian Prose Literature: From Achebe to Adichie

Medieval Otherworlds

Environment, Ecology and Literature

Decadence and Degeneration: Literature of the 1890s

Bibliotherapy: Writing and Health

Literature and Mental Health

Discover how literature engaged with mental health in the first half of the twentieth century, a crucial turning point in psychology. You’ll consider the de-stigmatisation of mental health in the wake of World War I, the disciplines of psychiatry and psychology that emerged from it, and how literature engages with trauma, anxiety and obsession.  

Children's Literature

The Bloody Stage: Revenge and Death in Renaissance Drama

From Romance to Fantasy

These are the modules that we currently offer for 2024/25 entry. They may be subject to change as we regularly review our module offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Please note that the University cannot guarantee that all optional modules will be available to all students who may wish to take them.

You can also register your details with us to receive information about your course of interest and study and life at the University of Reading.