BA Humanities Classics, English & History (DN530/CAS2)

Undergraduate (Level 8 NFQ, Credits 240)
Academic Year 2024/2025

Study Abroad

Scholarships Available

Duration:: 4 Year(s)
Next Intake:: 2024/2025 September
General Entry Requirements (A-Level): CCC
General Entry Requirements (IB): 24
Country Specific Entry Requirements:: Visit the UCD Global Undergraduate Entry Requirements webpage.

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Curricular information is subject to change.

Knowing what happened and why is essential in life. Studying History at UCD provides you with the skills necessary to understand the world we live in. Explore the past, examining a wide range of periods and topics that cover many parts of the globe. Study controversies and different ways that the past can be understood. Learn how to research, use evidence and think critically, and develop the transferrable skills desired by employers.

About this Course

Do you want to develop a deep understanding of human experience in Europe and its associated cultures from earliest times to the very present? Do you want to explore issues of memory, truth, curiosity and understanding that have fascinated people at all times and at all places? This programme will bring students to the heart of vital questions about society, history, culture and life itself, and deep into the array of texts that are the result of millennia of lives lived.

Students will not only encounter written words but gain key skills in interpreting evidence of every kind – material, oral, visual and aural – through dynamic lectures and small group tuition. Key modules from the three cognate subjects of Classics, English and History will be consolidated by small-group tuition in thematic cross-disciplinary modules on issues such as cultural transmission, intertextuality, history of ideas and political thought.

First Year

You will take a dedicated inter-disciplinary module, Interpreting Evidence, and you will choose from the full range of modules in Classics, English and History, including:

Classical Greece
Age of Augustus
War and the Hero (Homer and Virgil)
Classical Myth
Contemporary Irish Writing
Literary Genre
How to Read Poetry
Writing the Body
Critical Reading/Creative Writing
Modern Europe
Creating History
Modern Ireland
Rome To Renaissance.

Second Year

You will take an interdisciplinary core module based in UCD Special Collections and choose from the full range of modules in Classics, English and History, including:

Alexander the Great
Greek Tragedy
Heracles the Hero
Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians
The Oedipus Myth
Pompeii
Eating and Drinking in Antiquity
Magic in the Ancient World
Reading Medieval Literature
Irish Literature in English
Modern American Literature
Renaissance Literature
Romanticism
Victorian to Modern Literature
Twentieth-Century Drama
History Today
French Revolution
Islam & Christianity
Northern Ireland
Early Modern Europe.

For detailed information on subject content click here.

Third Year

You will choose from a range of options that will enable you to broaden your horizons and enrich your academic experience:

Apply for a competitive internship in an area that interests you and/or relates to your area of study.
Study abroad for a trimester/year to develop your language skills and immerse yourself in a new culture.
Deepen your knowledge by studying a full range of Classics, English and History modules.

Fourth Year

Undertake a research dissertation drawing on the disciplines studied and choose from a range of modules including:

Modern Japan
Orwell’s Twentieth Century
Making Shakespeare
Apocalypse Then: Old English Literature
Magic in the Ancient World
Pompeii

Below is a list of all modules offered for this degree in the current academic year. Click on the module to discover what you will learn in the module, how you will learn and assessment feedback profile amongst other information.

Incoming Stage 1 undergraduates can usually select an Elective in the Spring Trimester. Most continuing undergraduate students can select up to two Elective modules (10 Credits) per stage. There is also the possibility to take up to 10 extra Elective credits.

Module ID	Module Title	Credits
Stage 1 Core Modules
CEH10010	Interpreting Evidence	5
ENG10030	Literary Genre: the Art of Criticism and the Craft of Writing	5
ENG10220	Literature and Crisis	5
ENG10230	Reading World Literature	5
GRC10130	Ancient Rome: An Introduction	5
GRC10190	War and the Hero: The Epics of Homer and Virgil	5
GRC10200	Classical Greece	5
HIS10070	The Making of Modern Europe: 1500-2000	5
HIS10080	Rome to Renaissance	5
HIS10320	The Making of Modern Ireland, 1800-2000	5
Stage 1 Core Modules
Stage 1 Options
ENG10130	Contemporary Irish Writing	5
GRC10140	Classical Myth: An Introduction	5
GRC10170	Lost Cities of the Ancient World	5
HIS10310	Ireland's English Centuries	5
Stage 1 Options
Stage 2 Core Modules
ENG20450	Writing and Performance in the Age of Shakespeare: Renaissance Literature	5
GRC20220	Greeks, Romans, and Barbarians	5
HIS21140	History Today	5
HUM20040	Primary Source Research in the Humanities A: Exploring UCD Cultural Heritage Collections	5
Stage 2 Core Modules
Stage 2 Options
ENG20410	Reading Medieval Literature	5
ENG20430	Modern American Literature	5
ENG20440	Reading the story of Ireland: Irish Literature in English	5
ENG20490	Romanticism	5
ENG20790	Global 19th C. Literature	5
ENG20800	Global Eco-Literature	5
GRC20040	Greek Tragedy	5
GRC20100	Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Transformation of Myth	5
GRC20130	Study Tour of Ancient Greece	5
GRC20270	The Athenian Empire	5
GRC20280	Near Eastern Myth and Religion	5
GRC20300	Women in Ancient Greece	5
HIS20460	Islam and Christianity in the Middle Ages	5
HIS20670	The French Revolution	5
HIS20820	Nazi Germany	5
HIS20950	European Statecraft, Strategy & Culture, c. 1470-c.1770: Personalities & Power	5
HIS21120	Northern Ireland, 1920-2010: from partition to Paisley	5
HIS21180	Landscapes Remade: People and Place in Ireland, 1500-1800	5
HIS21240	Celts, Romans and Vikings: The Formation of Early Ireland	5
HIS21320	Sport and the modern world	5
HIS21330	Global Asia	5
HIS21340	The Irish at War, 1914-1998	5
HUM20030	Career Readiness (Humanities)	5
Stage 2 Options
Stage 3 Options
ENG31780	Contemporary European Crime Fiction	5
ENG31930	Irish Fiction After 2010	10
ENG31940	Global Science Fiction	10
ENG31950	Architecture and Narrative	10
ENG31960	Apocalypse Then: Old Eng. Lit.	10
ENG31980	Women and the Novel in Romantic-era Britain	10
ENG31990	Reading Gender and Sexuality	10
ENG32020	Detecting Fictions: the Crime Novel in America, Britain and Ireland	10
ENG32030	Theatre of Martin McDonagh	10
ENG32050	Reading Joyce	10
ENG32060	Talking Animals	10
ENG32070	Medieval Celluloid	10
ENG32080	Social Networks in Fiction: from Jane Austen to Conan Doyle	10
ENG32090	Masculinities and Manhood in Irish Writing and Culture	10
ENG32100	Fin-de-Siecle	10
ENG32110	Literature and Science	10
ENG32130	Irish Gothic	10
ENG32180	Poetry in Performance	10
ENG32200	Sexuality & American Modernism	10
ENG32220	Popular Fiction in Britain	10
ENG32270	Pursuits of Happiness: Fictions of America Since 1945	10
ENG32290	Reading Ulysses	10
ENG32300	Making Shakespeare	5
ENG32340	The Modern Short Story: Critical and Creative Approaches	10
ENG32380	Sexuality and the State in Irish Drama and Culture	10
ENG32490	Seventeenth-Century Women: Texts, Lives, Documents	10
ENG32500	Fiction and Financial Crises	10
ENG32510	Writing Dublin	5
ENG32520	Ugly Feelings	5
ENG32560	Writing Black: African American Literature and Racial Consciousness	10
ENG32600	Creative Non-Fiction	10
ENG32640	Girlhood in 21stC American YA	10
ENG32670	Dark Romanticism	10
ENG32680	Global Renaissance	10
ENG32690	Writing Habits	10
ENG32740	King Arthur: History & Romance	5
ENG32760	Life Writing: Text and Self	10
ENG32780	Presenting Tennessee Williams	10
ENG32790	Shakespeare in Film&Television	10
ENG32800	Wasted Wor(l)ds	10
GRC20030	Early Roman Empire	5
GRC20100	Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Transformation of Myth	5
GRC20270	The Athenian Empire	5
GRC20280	Near Eastern Myth and Religion	5
GRC30070	Family Life in Ancient Greece	5
GRC30210	Eating and Drinking in Classi	5
GRC30290	Magic in the Ancient World	5
GRC30330	Death and the Afterlife in the Ancient World	5
GRC30350	Sparta	10
HIS31250	Dynastic Politics, Culture & Diplomacy in Post-Westphalian Germany	10
HIS31280	Rise, Fall, Rise of Modern Japan	10
HIS31310	Madness and Civilisation	10
HIS31320	The Irish Revolution, 1910-1923	10
HIS31400	British Atlantic History, 1607-1776	10
HIS31510	Religion & Society in Independent Ireland, 1922-1968	10
HIS31760	Irish Foreign Policy, 1919-73: A Place Among the Nations	10
HIS31840	The First World War: cultures and consequences	10
HIS31860	Slavery and the New World	10
HIS31900	Roads to Heaven & Hell	10
HIS31960	Satan in the Middle Ages	10
HIS32310	Revolutionary Russia, 1905-1921	5
HIS32330	A History of Decadence: Sex, Spectacle and Corruption in Eighteenth-Century Venice	10
HIS32350	Alcohol, Drugs & Society	10
HIS32380	Genocide & Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century	5
HIS32430	Florence 1200 - 1400	10
HIS32460	Conquering Ireland, 1579-1691	5
HIS32540	Everyday life in War and Revolution in Ireland, 1914-23	10
HIS32620	US Pivots To Asia, 1890s-1950s	10
HIS32650	Migration Nation: The Irish Migration Experience since 1945	10
HIS32690	Revolution and War in Twentieth-Century Vietnam	10
HIS32710	Manufacturing Truth in the Modern World	10
HIS32720	Frontiers of Empire	10
HIS32730	The Digital Humanities	10
HIS32850	Settler colonialism	10
HIS32860	Jonathan Swift and Ireland	10
HIS32900	Questions in History	5
HIS32940	Devolution, Dominion, Democracy: Ireland's constitutional history north and south, 1870-2007	10
HIS32950	Weimar Germany	10
HIS32960	Pills, Patents & Policies	10
HIS32970	The 1641 Rebellion	10
HIS32980	Britain's War Northern Ireland	10
HIS32990	1942: The World at War	10
HIS33000	Political Violence in Ireland	10
HIS33010	Global History before AD 1000	10
HIS33020	United States and the World	10
HIS33030	Women and Ethical Action in the First Millennium CE	10
HIS33040	Medicine and Miracles	10
HIS33050	Science and Environment	10
HUM30020	Internship-Autumn (Humanities)	30
HUM30030	Internship- Spring (Humanities)	30
HUM30050	Writing for Life: employability skills for arts and humanities students	5
IRFL20010	The Study of Folklore: Origins and Development	5
IRFL20030	The Narrative Art	5
Stage 3 Options
Stage 4 Core Modules
CEH30010	Heroes and Heroism	10
Stage 4 Core Modules
Stage 4 Options
CEH30020	Dissertation	15
ENG30970	Dissertation Research Methods	5
ENG31780	Contemporary European Crime Fiction	5
ENG31930	Irish Fiction After 2010	10
ENG31940	Global Science Fiction	10
ENG31950	Architecture and Narrative	10
ENG31960	Apocalypse Then: Old Eng. Lit.	10
ENG31980	Women and the Novel in Romantic-era Britain	10
ENG31990	Reading Gender and Sexuality	10
ENG32020	Detecting Fictions: the Crime Novel in America, Britain and Ireland	10
ENG32030	Theatre of Martin McDonagh	10
ENG32050	Reading Joyce	10
ENG32060	Talking Animals	10
ENG32070	Medieval Celluloid	10
ENG32080	Social Networks in Fiction: from Jane Austen to Conan Doyle	10
ENG32090	Masculinities and Manhood in Irish Writing and Culture	10
ENG32100	Fin-de-Siecle	10
ENG32110	Literature and Science	10
ENG32130	Irish Gothic	10
ENG32180	Poetry in Performance	10
ENG32200	Sexuality & American Modernism	10
ENG32220	Popular Fiction in Britain	10
ENG32270	Pursuits of Happiness: Fictions of America Since 1945	10
ENG32290	Reading Ulysses	10
ENG32300	Making Shakespeare	5
ENG32340	The Modern Short Story: Critical and Creative Approaches	10
ENG32380	Sexuality and the State in Irish Drama and Culture	10
ENG32490	Seventeenth-Century Women: Texts, Lives, Documents	10
ENG32500	Fiction and Financial Crises	10
ENG32510	Writing Dublin	5
ENG32520	Ugly Feelings	5
ENG32560	Writing Black: African American Literature and Racial Consciousness	10
ENG32600	Creative Non-Fiction	10
ENG32640	Girlhood in 21stC American YA	10
ENG32670	Dark Romanticism	10
ENG32680	Global Renaissance	10
ENG32690	Writing Habits	10
ENG32740	King Arthur: History & Romance	5
ENG32760	Life Writing: Text and Self	10
ENG32780	Presenting Tennessee Williams	10
ENG32790	Shakespeare in Film&Television	10
ENG32800	Wasted Wor(l)ds	10
GRC20030	Early Roman Empire	5
GRC20270	The Athenian Empire	5
GRC20280	Near Eastern Myth and Religion	5
GRC30070	Family Life in Ancient Greece	5
GRC30210	Eating and Drinking in Classi	5
GRC30290	Magic in the Ancient World	5
GRC30330	Death and the Afterlife in the Ancient World	5
GRC30350	Sparta	10
GRC40310	Greek Political Thought	10
HIS30550	Research Skills Seminar	5
HIS31250	Dynastic Politics, Culture & Diplomacy in Post-Westphalian Germany	10
HIS31280	Rise, Fall, Rise of Modern Japan	10
HIS31310	Madness and Civilisation	10
HIS31320	The Irish Revolution, 1910-1923	10
HIS31400	British Atlantic History, 1607-1776	10
HIS31510	Religion & Society in Independent Ireland, 1922-1968	10
HIS31760	Irish Foreign Policy, 1919-73: A Place Among the Nations	10
HIS31840	The First World War: cultures and consequences	10
HIS31860	Slavery and the New World	10
HIS31900	Roads to Heaven & Hell	10
HIS31960	Satan in the Middle Ages	10
HIS32310	Revolutionary Russia, 1905-1921	5
HIS32330	A History of Decadence: Sex, Spectacle and Corruption in Eighteenth-Century Venice	10
HIS32350	Alcohol, Drugs & Society	10
HIS32380	Genocide & Mass Violence in the Twentieth Century	5
HIS32430	Florence 1200 - 1400	10
HIS32460	Conquering Ireland, 1579-1691	5
HIS32540	Everyday life in War and Revolution in Ireland, 1914-23	10
HIS32620	US Pivots To Asia, 1890s-1950s	10
HIS32650	Migration Nation: The Irish Migration Experience since 1945	10
HIS32690	Revolution and War in Twentieth-Century Vietnam	10
HIS32710	Manufacturing Truth in the Modern World	10
HIS32720	Frontiers of Empire	10
HIS32730	The Digital Humanities	10
HIS32850	Settler colonialism	10
HIS32860	Jonathan Swift and Ireland	10
HIS32900	Questions in History	5
HIS32940	Devolution, Dominion, Democracy: Ireland's constitutional history north and south, 1870-2007	10
HIS32950	Weimar Germany	10
HIS32960	Pills, Patents & Policies	10
HIS32970	The 1641 Rebellion	10
HIS32980	Britain's War Northern Ireland	10
HIS32990	1942: The World at War	10
HIS33000	Political Violence in Ireland	10
HIS33010	Global History before AD 1000	10
HIS33020	United States and the World	10
HIS33030	Women and Ethical Action in the First Millennium CE	10
HIS33040	Medicine and Miracles	10
HIS33050	Science and Environment	10
HUM30050	Writing for Life: employability skills for arts and humanities students	5

You may apply to study abroad for either a trimester or a year through the Erasmus programme or on a non-EU exchange. UCD has over 200 Erasmus partners in Europe and an increasing number of non-EU exchange agreements with universities in the USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and elsewhere.

Please click here to visit the Erasmus section of the UCD Global website.

The year abroad takes place when you have accumulated at least 110 credits and satisfied any subject prerequisites, adding a fourth year to the BA programme and turning it into a BA International.

Opportunities currently include:

University of Vienna, Austria
Université de Rouen, France
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany
University of Pisa, Italy
University of Bergen, Norway
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
University of New South Wales, Australia

A strong focus on the fluent articulation and analysis of ideas means students on this course will gain numerous transferrable skills, highly valued by employers.

This programme prepares students for graduate study in many areas, including: Classics, English, History, Film, Drama, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Education, Archives.

Graduates can find employment in:

Broadcasting and Journalism
Business
Civil Service
Law
Publishing
Public Relations
Politics
Research
Teaching
Marketing
Policymaking
Tourism
Heritage

Graduates are also eligible to apply for UCD MA programmes in History, which include specialisms in Irish, European, International and Medieval History, Public History and History of Medicine.

Non-EU Undergraduate Fee information can be found here.

UCD offers a number of competitive undergraduate scholarships for full-time, self-funding international students, holding an offer of a place on a UCD undergraduate degree programme. For information on Undergraduate Scholarships, please see the UCD International Scholarships webpage.

The following advice is for Non-EU applicants. For Irish/EU/UK students, please apply via MyUCD.

The following entry route(s) are available:

BA Classics, English & History (CAS2) Undergraduate Degree (Non EU)	Entry in Sep 2024	Full Time - 4 Year(s)	Apply from Oct 2023	Apply

“Classics, English & History at UCD was a fantastic choice for me. I had always been interested in these subjects and now I get to study each of them in depth, as well as interdisciplinary modules to really analyse how they impact each other. I have gained research and critical thinking skills and learned about a wide range of topics from each discipline. I also spent a trimester on an internship in the Little Museum of Dublin gaining hands-on professional experience. The academic, professional and personal growth opportunities I’ve been able to explore over my time in UCD have made my learning experience here so enriching.”

Niamh Scully, Student