History and English Literature

Our joint honours BA History and English Literature course allows you to explore the richness of English literature alongside the great variety of human history around the world.

Discover a thousand years of history whilst experiencing all the specialist areas on offer at the University of Reading. The History Department's expertise covers a wide range of world regions – from Europe and Africa to America, South Asia and the Middle East – and historical periods, with module choices ranging from the Crusades to the 1960s, slavery in America to Tudor monarchy, and Cold War Berlin to medieval magic.

In your first year, your core History modules will explore people, politics, and revolution – finding out how people struggled for power in past societies – and the culture and concepts those societies developed. We will teach you the skills you need to study and research history through an individual project of your choice.

In your English literature modules, you will read more of authors and genres that you may 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. 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).

You can study abroad for a term in your second year at one of the University's partner institutions, including those in Europe, the USA, and Australia. The University also offers all students the chance to learn a modern language alongside their core subjects.

This course is flexible and enables you to shape your study to match your interests. Taught in small interactive seminar groups, you will regularly be able to discuss and debate topics with teaching staff and fellow students.

**Placement**

Placements are a prominent feature of our degree courses and are highly encouraged. Through our links with the Careers Centre, you can source potential employers and help with CVs and letters of application.

You also have the option to study abroad for a term in the second year. Some of the universities we have links with include University of Ottawa, Canada; University of Maastricht, Netherlands; University of Georgia, USA; and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

**Careers**

Throughout your degree you can select career and skills related modules, encouraging you to think about what career you would like and what skills you will need. If you would like a career in teaching, or in archives or records management, try our optional third-year modules, History Education and Discovering Archives and Collections. We have had a high success rate from students who have completed History Education, with many of our graduates gaining places for Initial Teacher Training. Additionally, these modules develop a wide range of interpersonal, organisational, presentational and research skills readily transferable to other areas of employment.

Overall, 96% of our History graduates are in work or further study within six months of graduating (Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education survey, 2016–17). As a graduate you will have a broad range of transferable skills, including the ability to think clearly and critically, to communicate with confidence and work effectively both individually and as part of a team. Recent employers have included The British Museum, The Football Association, The House of Commons, Marks and Spencer, MI5, Morgan Stanley and Siemens Financial Services.