2025/26 entry Applications also open for 2024/25
BA (Hons) History and English Literature
Why study History and English Literature at Liverpool John Moores University?
- Taught by a passionate team of academics
- 97% of students surveyed said academic support on our English courses was good or very good (National Student Survey 2024)
- 94% of students surveyed said the teaching staff on our History courses were good at explaining things (National Student Survey 2024)
- Teaching from leading academics who have written scholarly works on topics ranging from American foreign policy to sport in the Soviet Union, through to Sherlock Holmes and Irish rock music
- A broad range of module topics that includes Britain, Ireland, Europe, Japan and sub-Saharan Africa
About your course
Studying BA (Hons) History and English Literature at Liverpool John Moores University is designed to enable you to understand the past and present, and how that is captured in literature.
This degree is inspired by and is firmly rooted in the city of Liverpool. It draws on the cultural, social, historical and literary context of the city across a range of modules, including 'Liverpool Legacies and Exploring History where students work with cultural partners and institutions across the city region, including the Museum of Liverpool, the Museum of Popular Music, the Tate, the Maritime Museum and Granby Winter Gardens. You will also be given extended, more formal opportunities to work with cultural partners and local businesses and schools to gain valuable work experience.
The dual elements of the History and English Literature programme are complimentary, allowing students to study innovative topics and texts, following bespoke pathways through the programme which speak to your specific interests, be that Post-colonialism; the Victorians; or modern America. This distinctive programme encourages students to become a part of a vibrant community of students, post-graduate researchers and staff, to develop their own academic interests, and to prepare for next steps after graduation.
"LJMU offers diverse history modules and histories that stretch the globe - from the English Civil War to the Japanese Meiji Restoration period. You'll come across themes and issues in the literary texts and accumulate knowledge that you can apply to your history studies. The support you receive is excellent and the lecturers, from both departments, go above and beyond to provide entertaining, structured and worthwhile lectures."
Fees and funding
There are many ways to fund study for home and international students
Fees
The fees quoted above cover registration, tuition, supervision, assessment and examinations as well as:
- library membership with access to printed, multimedia and digital resources
- access to programme-appropriate software
- library and student IT support
- free on-campus wifi via eduroam
Additional costs
Although not all of the following are compulsory/relevant, you should keep in mind the costs of:
- accommodation and living expenditure
- books (should you wish to have your own copies)
- printing, photocopying and stationery
- PC/laptop (should you prefer to purchase your own for independent study and online learning activities)
- mobile phone/tablet (to access online services)
- field trips (travel and activity costs)
- placements (travel expenses and living costs)
- student visas (international students only)
- study abroad opportunities (travel costs, accommodation, visas and immunisations)
- academic conferences (travel costs)
- professional-body membership
- graduation (gown hire etc)
Funding
There are many ways to fund study for home and international students. From loans to International Scholarships and subject-specific funding, you'll find all of the information you need on our specialist funding pages.
Employability
Our former students are to be found working in occupations including advertising, marketing, museums, arts administration and publishing to industrial, retail, leisure and charitable organisation management, educational administration, accountancy, law, the social and Civil Services and teaching.
Some graduates complete teacher training PGDE courses at LJMU or other providers or use their skills in other types of teaching, such as English as a second language or adult education. Another option is to continue in education with a masters, PhD or vocational course such as journalism or marketing.
Student Futures - Careers, Employability and Enterprise Service
A wide range of opportunities and support is available to you, within and beyond your course, to ensure our students experience a transformation in their career trajectory. Every undergraduate curriculum includes Future Focus during Level 4, an e-learning resource and workshop designed to help you to develop your talents, passion and purpose.
Every student has access to Careers Zone 24/7, LJMU's suite of online Apps, resources and jobs board via the LJMU Student Futures website. There are opportunities for flexible, paid and part-time work through Unitemps, LJMU's in-house recruitment service, and we also offer fully funded Discovery Internships.
One-to-one careers and employability advice is available via our campus-based Careers Zones and we offer a year-round programme of events, including themed careers and employability workshops, employer events and recruitment fairs. Our Start-Up Hub can help you to grow your enterprise skills and to research, plan and start your own business or become a freelancer.
A suite of learning experiences, services and opportunities is available to final year students to help ensure you leave with a great onward plan. You can access LJMU's Careers, Employability and Start-up Services after you graduate and return for one-to-one support for life.
Go abroad
LJMU aims to make international opportunities available to every student. You may be able to study abroad as part of your degree at one of our 100+ partner universities across the world. You could also complete a work placement or apply for one of our prestigious worldwide internship programmes. If you wanted to go abroad for a shorter amount of time, you could attend one of our 1-4 week long summer schools.
Our Go Citizen Scheme can help with costs towards volunteering, individual projects or unpaid placements anywhere in the world. With all of these opportunities at your feet, why wouldn’t you take up the chance to go abroad?
Find out more about the opportunities we have available via our Instagram @ljmuglobalopps or email us at: goabroad@ljmu.ac.uk.
A life-changing experience
There's so much more to university than just studying for a degree.
What you will study on this degree
Please see guidance below on core and option modules for further information on what you will study.
Learn more about the modules you'll be studying on the course with this useful module guide.
Further guidance on modules
Modules are designated core or optional in accordance with professional body requirements, as applicable, and LJMU’s Academic Framework Regulations. Whilst you are required to study core modules, optional modules provide you with an element of choice. Their availability may vary and will be subject to meeting minimum student numbers.
Where changes to modules are necessary these will be communicated as appropriate.
Level 4
Core modules
Making History
20 credits
The aim of this module is to introduce you to locating, comprehending and analysing secondary and primary sources. This module will give you the experience with multiple staff members in an interactive group environment.
Exploring History
20 credits
Exploring History gives the chance to choose a historical research project and, working in groups, research the material and transfer it into a public presentation, which will be exhibited at the end of the year.
Literary and Cultural Theory
20 credits
The aim of this module is to provide you with an understanding of the basic strands of literary and cultural theories, such as feminism, Marxism, postcolonial theory, and psychoanalysis. It will allow you to explore and evaluate these theoretical perspectives through practical application to literary texts as well as to other primary sources.
The American Age: People, Politics and Power
20 credits
This module will broaden your understanding of key moments in America's history that have shaped its development as a nation. It will also provide you with the opportunity to engage with a variety of sources and historical tools to better understand America's past.
Critical Keywords for English
20 credits
This module introduces you to the interdisciplinary study of English at undergraduate degree level through a variety of texts drawn from different historical periods and in different genres. It defines and demonstrates the use of key terms of critical writing, especially in close reading and the formal analysis of texts, and ensures that you understand and use these terms accurately and carefully. It further aims to establish the core studying and writing skills needed for the study of English at degree level, including attentive close reading, reading quickly and efficiently, the use of secondary criticism and research resources, and clear critical prose writing.
Liverpool Legacies
20 credits
This module will introduce you to Liverpool as a global city with a rich literary heritage, tracing the creativity and multiculturalism which has shaped, and continues to shape, our world-famous city. You will read a range of works authored by or about Liverpudlians and consider the historical, social, and geographical contexts for writing in and of the city.
Level 5
Core modules
Debates in History
20 credits
This module will introduce you to historiographical debates in a range of different national, social, cultural and political contexts. The aim of the module is to equip you with analytical skills that will allow you to understand and contextualize historiographical arguments.
Optional Modules
Body, Mind and Soul: seventeenth-century literature and culture
20 credits
The aim of this module is to introduce you to a range of seventeenth-century writings in their historical and cultural context to enable you to recognise different forms and genres used in the period. This module will also facilitate an understanding the concept of the Early Modern and issues of historical change and continuity.
Research Paper
20 credits
You will undertake an in-depth and defined research paper on a topic arising from studies undertaken in another module or modules at Level 5. This will allow you to develop the ability to plan, implement and complete a substantial piece of written work under the guidance of a supervisor who has subject expertise.
The Soviet Experiment, 1917-1991
20 credits
This module will provide an understanding of the early Soviet state and its relationship to society. You will gain knowledge and skills to understand, identify and critically assess different kinds of source material.
Colonial Africa, 1880-1994
20 credits
The aim of this module is to introduce you to modern African history in order to develop an understanding of colonial rule and decolonisation in Africa.
Modernism and Modernity
20 credits
This module focuses on the emergence of a modernist movement in Europe and America at the beginning of the 20th century and lasting until the decades after the close of the Second World War. You will be introduced to the literature, culture and politics of modernity through an engagement with a variety of modernist texts.
Gendering the Past
20 credits
This course will introduce you to an exciting and burgeoning area of social and cultural history. We will turn to the expanding areas of material culture studies, sensory studies and gender studies in order to analyse the most intimate areas of peoples lives in the long nineteenth-century
Postcolonial Writing: Power, Art and Protest
20 credits
This module will introduce you to the field of postcolonial studies through a selection of literary and critical works. It will introduce the debates on the relationship between art, politics and culture at the heart of postcolonial literary criticism.
Romanticism: Revolution, Reaction and Representation
20 credits
In this module, you will develop an understanding of the manifestations of Romanticism in nineteenth-century literature to assess the cultural afterlife and importance of Romanticism and its modes. You will explore the connections between politics, social history, and literary culture in Britain during a period of social instability and intense and rapid changes in many areas of life at home and abroad.
From Shogun to Showdown: Japan, 1853-1941
20 credits
Between 1853 and the Second World War, Japan was transformed from an isolated feudal country to a great power capable of challenging the great powers of the West. This module explains this emergence by examining the interactions between the natural environment, politics, society and economic development.
Short Cuts: Writing in Brief
20 credits
The aim of this module is to analyse a wide variety of short writing from the post-Second World War era to develop skills of close reading and textual analysis. You will also explore the relationship between short writing and modernity/contemporary culture.
The Victorians: Realism and Sensation
20 credits
Within this module, you will extend your familiarity with a range of Victorian texts including novels, poetry and essays. You will explore how the Victorian age was characterized by rapidly developing scientific discourses and popular interest in them and understand how contemporary understanding of genre and cultural prestige were inherited from the Victorian period.
Supernatural Britain
20 credits
Within this module, you will examine various supernatural/paranormal phenomena and place them in context. You will be able to develop an understanding of the meanings and interpretation of supernatural/paranormal phenomena to foster an appreciation of the way in which the supernatural/paranormal have been represented in texts and images.
Study Year Abroad History
120 credits
The aim is to provide students with an additional year of study at an approved overseas partner that will complement their programme at LJMU. This is an additional year of full-time study at an approved higher education institution. The modules to be studied must be agreed in advance, and must be appropriate for the student's programme of study. Assuming successful completion of this year, mark-bearing credit will be awarded by the Faculty Recognition Group. The grade conversion scale to be used will be made available in advance of the year abroad.
English Work Experience
20 credits
This module will enable you to develop a range of professional and transferable skills relevant to the world of work. You will be able to critically reflect on your self-development and acquisition of skills and attributes through experience of work in conjunction with their academic studies.
Study Semester Abroad History
60 credits
The aim is to provide students with a semester of study at an approved overseas partner that will replace one semester of their LJMU programme at level 5.This is a semester of full-time study at an approved higher education institution which will replace one semester of level 5 study at LJMU. The modules to be studied must be agreed in advance, and must be an appropriate substitute for the modules being replaced. Assuming successful completion of this semester, mark-bearing credit will be awarded by the Faculty Recognition Group. The grade conversion scale to be used will be made available in advance of the year abroad.
English Independent Study
20 credits
This module promotes independent learning activities to give you an opportunity to pursue their own research-informed projects. This module promotes key skills relating to Level 5 work identifying a set of aims or key questions exploring a body of published literature relevant to the project, and effectively communicating information, arguments and analysis.
A History of Modern Latin America
20 credits
This module will introduce you to modern Latin American history and allow you to develop an understanding of social and political change in Latin America. This will enable you to think comparatively in geographical and temporal terms.
An International History of the Cold War Era
20 credits
The aim of this module will enable you to understand and articulate different interpretations of the 'Cold War' to develop an understanding of historiographical interpretations of the Cold War and how they have evolved over time. It will also provide an understanding to how the Cold War affected different geographical regions and how it intersected with other major issues, such as decolonization.
Life Stories: Telling Tales and Keeping Secrets in Auto/Biographical Writing
20 credits
The aim of this module is to introduce you to the diversity of auto/biographical writing. It will equip you with the critical vocabulary and analytical tools to explore and analyse modern life-writing. You will understand key critical topics relating to life-writing, including the relations of subjectivity and form; the intersections of gender, race, class and embodiment; the role of memory and nostalgia; narrative strategies of confession and secrecy.
Age of Terror 1850-1914
20 credits
This module will allow you to develop knowledge of the phenomenon of international terrorism and the police and intelligence responses to it, in the 19th century. You will be able to reflect on the societal, cultural and political consequences of terrorist attacks and counter-terrorist policing to build focused knowledge of a specific aspect of the 19th century "war on terror".
Forms of Slavery
20 credits
This module examines slavery from a long historical interdisciplinary and transnational perspective. It will analyse a range of 'slave texts' such as autobiographies, novels about slavery, abolitionist poetry, and contemporary film, to interrogate the diverse ways in which slavery has been represented historically, and contemporary debates around that history.
Gender, Race and Slavery in the United States
20 credits
This module will enable you to understand the development of ideas of slavery, race, gender in the United States. It will also allow you understand historiographical interpretations of slavery in the United States and how they have changed over time.
Gender Trouble
20 credits
This module will develop your understanding of the relationships between gender, sexuality, and literature. Building on the feminist theory you will encounter in your first year, you will explore literature’s role in the developments of the sexual politics and gender norms of Western society and culture since the nineteenth century and up to the present day.
Tanzimat to Tahrir 2.0: the modern and contemporary history of the Middle East
20 credits
The aim of this module is to consider the modern history of the Middle East from both chronological and thematic perspectives. It will also emphasise the importance of Middle Eastern historiographical perspectives for an understanding of the contemporary Middle East. You will be able to develop further the ability to use a wide range of primary and secondary source material in historical analysis.
Writing Race in Britain
20 credits
This module focuses on post-1948 literature about ethnic diversity in Britain. You will explore a tradition of writing by and about post-colonial migrants and their British-born children, including works of prose, poetry, and drama, and read these texts in relation to contemporary debates about multiculturalism, race and (anti-)racism, and British identity and society.
International Fieldwork: Modern Germany
20 credits
This module will introduce key themes and debates in modern German history and key historiographical works and scholarly debates in modern German history. You will also be encouraged to critically reflect on the representations of history in public spaces, monuments, exhibitions and museums.
Words and Music
20 credits
This module helps to gain a deeper understanding of poetic form and how it relates to musical form. It also helps to understand how politics and poetics inform lyrics. You will also gain knowledge of how gender, race, intertextuality, and acculturation processes can influence musical production.
Teaching History
20 credits
The aim of this module is to develop key transferable skills including communication, presentation, practical classroom skills and team working. You will be provided with teaching experience if you are considering teaching as a potential career.
Working Class Writing
20 credits
This module covers a range of working-class literary traditions and genres from the nineteenth century to the present. You will examine the relationship between literary form and social class, consider how working-class writers have appropriated and developed particular genres, and explore the intersections between class and other markers of identity.
History Works
20 credits
Within this module, you will have the opportunity to acquire a work-based or work-related learning experience. This will help you to identify the links between your degree and employability prospects. LJMU will support you to identify, enhance, and deploy transferable skills and abilities relevant to the workplace.
Theories 2.0
20 credits
Building on your encounters with key strands of critical theory in your first year, this module offers you the opportunity to further explore contemporary theoretical concepts and ideas, including postmodernism, posthumanism, gender and queer theory, and critical race theory.
‘Until I am free, you are not free either’: the U.S. Civil Rights Movement
20 credits
This module will introduce you to the everyday experiences of activists and African Americans during the civil rights movement in the U.S. Throughout the module you will have opportunities to collaborate with peers on an independent study, utilising different types of primary sources, in a presentation format. This module will encourage you challenge established narratives of social movements by engaging with individual perspectives and accounts.
Revolutionaries: International Communism from the Great War to the Cold War
20 credits
The module incorporates the following LJMU Employability Skills:
- Analysis, problem solving and decision making.
- Planning and organisation.
- Creativity and enterprise.
- Intercultural skills.
Level 6
Core modules
Dissertation
40 credits
The aim of the Dissertation is to develop the ability to identify a relevant historical topic and formulate a research proposal designed to explore aspects of that topic to a high level. You will develop the ability to analyse and interpret primary and secondary historical sources in pursuit of a self-defined problem.
Optional Modules
Living with Defeat: France and the Second World War, History and Legacies
20 credits
This module aims to introduce key social, cultural and political contexts and historical debates concerning everyday life in France in the period leading up to, during and following the Second World War. You will be introduced to key historiographical debates such as the legacies of the First World War, the significance of political and social divisions in 1930s France and the reasons for the defeat of 1940.
Feminist Fictions: Contemporary Women’s Writing and the Politics of Feminism
20 credits
This module will extend your understanding of contemporary women's fiction and its relationship to feminist theory, politics, and practice. You will be equipped with an advanced understanding of the complexity and diversity of the history of feminism and feminist theory from the 1960s to the present day.
Brummies, Geordies, Scousers and others
20 credits
The aim of this module is to trace the origins and trajectory of place identities and examine the ways in which different place identities are depicted. You will also explore the similarities and differences between place identities.
We would not know there was a war on. Life on the British Home Front During the Second World War.
20 credits
The aim of this module is to provide an insight into the people's experience of living day-by-day in Britain during the Second World War. You will be introduced to the theoretical approach of cultural history on how people situate themselves within society irrespective of the greater events being played out around them.
Laws of War
20 credits
The aim of this module is to develop an understanding of the historical development of the laws of armed conflict and engage in historical debate on the success and failures of the international humanitarian law regime. You will also understand the relationship between societal change, mass culture and the practice of war.
English Independent Study
20 credits
This module will give you an opportunity to pursue your own intellectual interests to undertake an independent academic study, working on your own initiative and building strong time management skills.
Soviet Body Politics: Sport, Leisure and Health, 1917-1945
20 credits
The aim of this module is to introduce you to Bolshevik concepts of the body, and how these related to wider social, political, economic and cultural issues. You will be provided with an in-depth understanding of the early Soviet state and society, developing their analytical, critical, and communication skills.
Our House: Representing Domestic Space
20 credits
The aim of this module is to analyse domestic space as an important aspect of contemporary culture, to familiarize you with a range of disciplinary and philosophical traditions which have focused upon domestic space.
C21: British Fiction Now
20 credits
This module will extend your knowledge of the diversity and range of British writing in the twenty-first century in order to explore key events that shape literary culture in Britain today.
Victorian Cities
20 credits
The aim of this module is to introduce the history of Victorian cities. You will investigate the themes of class and gender in the Victorian city which will enable you to think critically about and historicise urban identities.
Shakespeare
20 credits
This module will reinforce the ability to critically analyse texts in close detail to examine a range of Shakespeare's plays in the context of their original cultural production.
Interpreting conflict in post-colonial Africa
20 credits
This module will encourage you to think historically about conflict in post-colonial Africa, paying attention to continuity and change over time. It will also encourage you to think about local, national, regional and global dimensions to so-called 'civil wars' in Africa.
Terrorism and Modern Literature
20 credits
Terrorism and Modern Literature will establish terrorism as a significant and persistent literary, political and cultural preoccupation in modern literature (1880s to present), and examine key instances in which the language and concept of terror is at issue.
Vamps and Villains: Exploring Gothic Fiction
20 credits
This module will examine the genre of Gothic fiction as it has developed over two centuries to explore the cultural, historical and intellectual contexts that shape the moment of its production.
World Literature: Writing from the Periphery
20 credits
This module will introduce the concept of 'world literature' through a selection of texts from the twentieth to the twenty-first centuries in relation to the rise and expansion of a global modernity. You will examine on-going critical debates around key areas of research in the global humanities: a singular modernity, the politics of translation, the periphery and the world system.
When the Sun Set in the East: End of Empire in Southeast Asia
20 credits
This module will apply historiographical themes in the study of decolonisation to a set of case studies in the Southeast Asia region to examine the programme themes of 'nation, state and power', 'structure and agency' and 'culture, locale and identity' in relation to decolonisation in the developing world, and specifically in Southeast Asia. You will be able to demonstrate variety and diversity in the experience of decolonization, particularly in Southeast Asia.
Transitions: Identities in the Interwar Years
20 credits
This module examines shifting identities and the intersections of class, sexuality, gender and regionality in British literature of the interwar years. It moves across popular, middlebrow and experimental fiction and looks at poetry, non-fiction and magazine publishing as a means of examining the changing cultural formations of the period.
Violence in Nineteenth-Century Literature
20 credits
This module will establish violence as a significant and persistent literary, political and cultural preoccupation in nineteenth-century literature (1800-1900), and examine key works in which the issues of class, empire and gender were explored by authors of this period in relation to conflict and crisis.
Green Victorians
20 credits
This module explores how Victorian writers responded to environmental changes. It examines key historical and intellectual developments shaping debates about the natural world in the Victorian period; you consider links between the historical past and current modes of environmentalism.
Celebration and Commemoration in Irish History
20 credits
The aim of this module will enable you to engage in a critical debate about the historiography associated with key events in Irish history. You will engage with different methods of teaching history to different audiences to critically assess the way in which the 1798 Rebellion, the Great Irish Famine and the 1916 Easter Rising have been commemorated and celebrated by later generations.
Mind Readings
20 credits
This module explores the representation of the mind and mental states in literary texts, with a focus on madness and unconventional states of mind. It introduces students to the interdisciplinary study of literature alongside psycho-sciences, including psychoanalytic literary criticism, the history of psychiatry, medical-model psychology, and cognitive literary studies. Students will question established discourses and modes of representing madness and the mind in contemporary culture, challenging scientific and medical authority.
The Hatred that Never Dies: the Long History of Contemporary Global Antisemitism
20 credits
This module will demonstrate the long historical trajectory of anti-Semitic belief through the systematic study of primary and secondary sources. You will learn how to compare and contrast the developments and mutations of anti-Semitic belief in both European and Middle Eastern historical and contemporary contexts.
Space and place: travel writing at home and abroad
20 credits
This module enhances students' understanding of non-fiction travel literature, encouraging nuanced interpretations and effective long-form writing. It explores travel narratives' reflection of encounters with otherness, reassessment of the familiar, and their link to human identity and the non-human world. Indicative texts range from Mary Wollstonecraft to Robert Macfarlane, spanning from the late-eighteenth to the early 21st century.
Developments in Contemporary Writing and Publishing
20 credits
This module delves into contemporary literature, covering fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and explores current debates in the English-speaking publishing world. It emphasizes how production circumstances shape contemporary texts and encourages reflection on the writer's role in modern society. Topics include women's history in the era of #Me Too, climate fiction, diversity in publishing, gender identity, freedom of speech, 'cancel culture,' and pandemic writing. Students will engage with works by various authors such as Hallie Rubenhold, Reni Eddo-Lodge, and Akwaeke Emezi.
Nazi Germany: Dictatorship and Genocide
20 credits
This module provides students with specialized knowledge about the history of Germany during the National Socialist dictatorship, including totalitarian rule and the persecution of political opponents, ethnic and religious minorities. It extensively covers the Holocaust and offers a deep understanding of historiographical debates related to the Third Reich and the Holocaust. The syllabus includes lectures and seminars on various topics, such as the rise of the Nazis, establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, opposition to the Nazi regime, Nazi foreign policy, anti-Jewish policies, the Holocaust, and the aftermath of the Third Reich and the Holocaust.
Modern Fiction and Environment Crisis
20 credits
This module focuses on modern fiction focused on the urgent environmental crises with which we are now obliged to reckon. Some of the issues you will engage with on this module include climate, the environment as a concept, the non-human, and the alternative approaches to nature represented in indigenous narrative systems.
Black Lives in American Literature
20 credits
This module explores writing by and about African Americans from the mid-twentieth century to the present; you will consider how Black writers and artists have contested racial injustices, articulated new identities, and identified grounds for solidarity and alliance.
‘Like a Rolling Stone’: Activism and Revolution in the Long Sixties
20 credits
This module will introduce you to the social activism and change of the 1960s, specifically that which occurred in the U.S. It will inspire you to think critically about the intersections of social change, racial backgrounds, gender, and sexuality in the 1960s. We hope tis will encourage you to challenge established narratives of social movements by engaging with individual perspectives and accounts.
Migrants to the Screen
20 credits
This module focuses on recent works of transnational fiction that have been adapted for the screen. Drawing on literary studies, film studies, adaptation studies, and postcolonial studies, you will examine novels about migrants alongside their film adaptations, considered as ‘migrants’ from page to screen.
History Works
20 credits
Within this module, you will have the opportunity to acquire a work-based or work-related learning experience. This
will help you to identify the links between your degree and employability prospects. LJMU will support you to
identify, enhance, and deploy transferable skills and abilities relevant to the workplace.
The Literature of Extinction: American Writing and the Environment
20 credits
This module explores how extinction on various scales, from the local and national to the planetary, is conceptualized and represented in American environmental and ecocritical texts, including fiction, nature writing, and ecocritical theory.
Teaching and work-related learning
Excellent facilities and learning resources
We adopt an active blended learning approach, meaning you will experience a combination of face-to-face and online learning during your time at LJMU. This enables you to experience a rich and diverse learning experience and engage fully with your studies. Our approach ensures that you can easily access support from your personal tutor, either by meeting them on-campus or via a video call to suit your needs.
Teaching is delivered via a combination of lectures, online activities and tutorials, with additional information available on Canvas (our virtual learning environment) and in our Learning Resource Centre. Tutorials are fairly informal and provide an opportunity to further discuss material covered in the lectures. Once you reach your final year, your dissertation offers the chance to work more independently and focus on an area that particularly interests you.
Work-related Learning
This programme is centred on helping you to develop first-rate skills in communication and critical analysis, which are highly valued by employers. This is why a History and English Literature degree is a good basis for so many different careers.
At Level 5, you also have the opportunity to spend at least one month on a work placement in the United States after undertaking a specially designed module to help you prepare for it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get invaluable work experience in a different culture and could even lead to employment once you graduate.
Past students have worked for the editor of Vogue, an advertising agency and a film company in New York, a Hollywood celebrity magazine, theatres on Broadway, a jazz magazine in New Orleans, an architects office in California and theme parks in Florida and New Jersey.
Support and guidance
Dedicated personal tutor, plus study skills support
History and English Literature students at LJMU form part of a lively and supportive learning environment. If you join us, you will be given the support needed to enable you to reach your full potential in your studies and to help you make a decision about your future career. Lecturers in History and English Literature are supportive and approachable. We are proud of our students' achievements both during their studies and after graduation.
From the moment you begin your studies at LJMU, you will be allocated a personal tutor who will meet with you one-to-one to discuss course-related issues, monitor your progress and help you to put your career plans in place. They will be a point of contact for you throughout the degree. You will also receive advice and feedback on your assignments from module tutors.
Assessment
Assessment varies depending on the modules you choose, but will usually include a combination of exams and coursework.
We acknowledge that all students perform differently depending on the way they are assessed, which is why we use a combination of assessment methods. Half of your assessments will be coursework in the form of essays, portfolios, short written pieces, independent studies and dissertations. The rest of your assessment is by seen and unseen exam. Exam questions are available two weeks before the start of seen exams so you have the chance to prepare fully for them.
Your tutors will provide feedback on coursework assessments within 15 days of submission via Canvas, face-to-face or as written comments. We believe constructive feedback is vital in helping you to identify your strengths as well as the areas where you may need to put in more work.
Course tutors
Our staff are committed to the highest standards of teaching and learning
Dr Olivia Saunders
Programme Leader
Olivia specialises in the history of modern Latin America with a particular interest in the region’s foreign relations during the Cold War. With responsibility for the everyday running of the history undergraduate degree programme, she has a particular interest in student academic and personal development. This includes supporting students as they transition into and through university, enabling them to make the most of their time studying with us. To help develop work-related learning experiences for students on the history programme, she also focuses on building partnerships with external organisations in the Liverpool City Region.
We invest a lot in collaborative learning with our students, challenging them to think in different ways and often completing tasks beyond the norm. This inclusive and communal aspect is a crucial factor in allowing our students to realise their full potential.
Facilities
What you can expect from your School
The School of Humanities and Social Science offers an ideal environment in which to expand your knowledge and horizons. Situated on Mount Pleasant in the new ‘Knowledge Quarter ' of Liverpool, the School is home to five subject areas: English, History, International Relations, Sociology, and Media, Culture & Communication. It has a lively programme of cross-disciplinary research seminars, conferences, visits from international scholars and public events. Research from the School is recognised nationally and worldwide.
Entry requirements
Please choose your qualifications below to view requirements
Grades/points required from qualifications: BCC-BBB (104-120)
Qualification requirements
GCSEs and equivalents
A levels
BTECs
Extended Diploma: DMM
Access awards
International Baccalaureate
Acceptable on its own and combined with other qualifications. Must include a relevant subject at Higher Level
OCR Cambridge Technical
Extended Diploma: DMM
Irish awards
Acceptable on its own and combined with other qualifications From a relevant subject
T levels
International requirements
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IELTS
6.0 overall with no component below 5.5, taken within two years of the course start date.https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/study/courses/international-entry-requirements
Further information
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DBS, Occupational Health requirements
Is a DBS check required?
No
Can this course be deferred?
Yes
Please Note: All international qualifications are subject to a qualification equivalency check.
Application and selection
Securing your place at LJMU
UCAS is the official application route for our full-time undergraduate courses. Further information on the UCAS application process can be found here https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/study/undergraduate-students/how-to-apply.
An enthusiasm for the study of both History and English.
Demonstrate a willingness to take on new ideas about and new perspectives on History and English, as well as a desire to seek out evidence to support such fresh perspectives.An awareness of History as a discipline.
Desire in finding out about the societies and ideas that produce and infuse English.
Hence, if you have a love of history and literature, an enquiring mind and a desire to engage in debate and argument about the past and the nature of the contemporary world then we will be very happy to receive an application from you.
The university reserves the right to withdraw or make alterations to a course and facilities if necessary; this may be because such changes are deemed to be beneficial to students, are minor in nature and unlikely to impact negatively upon students or become necessary due to circumstances beyond the control of the university. Where this does happen, the university operates a policy of consultation, advice and support to all enrolled students affected by the proposed change to their course or module.
Further information on the terms and conditions of any offer made, our admissions policy and the complaints and appeals process.