BA Humanities English, European & World Literatures (AYS2)

The BA Humanities is an innovative, interdisciplinary four-year programme that combines multiple subjects to provide coherence and depth to student learning within nine carefully structured pathways. Taught by expert academics in the Arts and Humanities, the BA Humanities programme offers both intensive training in particular disciplines and unique skill sets that are developed by bringing together subjects that and relate closely to each other. Students will gain essential life and employment skills, including critical, analytical and creative thinking, and expert communications, while learning how to be adaptable and flexible in preparation for employment in a dynamic work environment.

The English, European and World Literatures pathway develops an in-depth understanding and a questioning of the literary and intellectual legacies of European languages, including English. Students will look at the ways in which these literatures have impacted, and continue to impact, beyond their countries of origin as well as the relationship between writing and place, examine how other cultures respond to key/global issues, and assess how languages encode and challenge cultural identities. Students will read English and one of the modern languages (French/Spanish/Italian/German).

Curricular information is subject to change

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This programme develops an in-depth understanding and a questioning of the literary and intellectual legacies of European languages, including English, and the ways in which these languages and literatures have migrated and mutated across the world. The pathway offers the opportunity to examine literature from the middle ages to the contemporary period, from the anglophone world to continental Europe to the broader French-speaking and Spanish-speaking worlds, through a diverse range of theoretical perspectives, from gender studies to postcolonialism to eco-criticism, and allows students to assess the role of literature in encoding and challenging cultural identities.


1 - Use skills of inquiry, research, critical thinking, and problem solving to pursue and evaluate knowledge.
2 - Evaluate ideas, challenge assumptions and develop creative solutions to problems including through the independent pursuit of knowledge and making connections between different disciplinary approaches and methods.
3 - Demonstrate effective communication, digital expertise, collaboration and leadership skills to convert decisions and commitments into action.
4 - Understand the ethical implications of ideas, communications, and actions including demonstrated awareness of the historical and cultural construction of knowledge systems and traditions.
5 - Understand the relevance and contribution of the Humanities to contemporary society and cultural practice including an ability to articulate the links between past and present as well as the influence of the past on shaping community and societal structures and beliefs.
6 - Articulate advocacy of human, social and cultural values with a propensity towards and awareness of the value of life-long learning, an understanding of how to learn, including an appreciation of the complexity of ideas, of societies, cultures and language.

UCD Arts & Humanities Programme Office,
Newman Building,
Belfield,
Dublin 4
Tel: +353 1 716 8321/8102

Web: www.ucd.ie/ahss


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