English (ENS1)

In your first year (called Stage 1) you take 12 modules over two semesters. You must study core modules in English and typically two further Arts subjects.

Stage 2 students progress with a major in English, students also get the chance to take a small number of elective modules from any School across the University during their degree programme.

See below for the full list of subjects. Further details per stage will be displayed when browsing through subject. Please note that some subject combinations may not be possible, for timetable or other reasons.

(Please Note:Stage 1 below is only applicable to direct entry students. Students entering the BA programme via DN500 (Omnibus) do not select specific majors until stage 2. DN500 students must apply to the relevant School for entry to a single major).

Curricular information is subject to change

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The Single Honours English programme is aimed at students who love reading, who value literature and appreciate its fundamental role in shaping society and the individual. This  programme aims to attract students who wish  to specialise in a single subject and who wish to deepen and refine their critical engagement with a wide variety of English-language texts and cultures from the early middle-ages to the present. By concentrating on a single subject, students are educated in the history of literary and cultural production, in current theoretical methods and approaches, and in a wide range of generic, historical and national literatures. Through innovative teaching, learning, and assessment methods, we promote our core values – independence, creativity, collaboration, critical reflection, cultural engagement, and social and political consciousness.  Lecture, seminar, workshop, and small group work are at the core of our teaching. In these supportive learning environments students and their lecturer/tutor come together in the spirit of mutual inquiry, reflection, discussion, and debate.  Work is assessed by a variety of methods including exam, essay, reflective journals, presentations, worksheets, portfolios, creative writing, individual and group projects. Together these diverse modes of assessment foster the development of a range of important qualities and proficiencies.  We work to equip our students with the knowledge, skills, resources and inspiration useful for a range of professions and beneficial for life, and to produce graduates capable of fulfilling their highest potential as critically-minded and creative citizens. The challenges, experiences and opportunities provided in this educational environment prepare students for a variety of different workplaces.


1 - Benefit from the concentration on a Subject Strand and Situate a text within appropriate thematic, critical, historic and cultural contexts, and to interrogate it in the light of current critical debates and their own ideas
2 - Apppy in-depth knowledge of literary production in a wide range of specific time periods and cultures, and capable of identifying aesthetic innovations and trends
3 - Demonstrate an extensive command of literary terminology, and the ability to apply this knowledge to the analysis of texts in a range of genres and media
4 - Illustrate refined and sophisticated skills in detailed textual analysis and close reading, and highly attentive to the tensions and ambiguity of texts and language
5 - Express nuanced understanding of form, genre and mode, and an ability to connect ideas across different periods and cultures from the early middle ages to the present
6 - Communicate ideas and concepts with clarity, precision, depth and style, while demonstrating an awareness of genre (e.g. essay, reflective journal, oral presentation), modes of argument, rhetorical skills, and audience
7 - Inform scholarship by appropriate academic and theoretical skills
8 - Apply creative, innovative and idependent thinking in approach and response to complex issues, with a significant capacity to transfer skills and ideas from one intellectual sphere to another
9 - Develop a proficiency in reading Old and Middle English language, and ability to critically analyse key works of medieval literature
10 - Generate a lifelong commitment to the value of reading with an ongoing desire to explore the rich variety of literary and cultural production and cultural history
11 - Articulate the value and radical transformative potential of literature and literary studies, and become an enthusiastic advocate for the discipline in wider society
12 - Carry out effective research, and be able to identify gaps in knowledge and locate and evaluate appropriate sources of information, and having completed independently an extended research project
13 - Advance to Postgraduate studies will all the necessary critical, writing and research skills
Students of English study all aspects of language and literature from Anglo-Saxon to contemporary times.

If you have a particular interest in and enthusiasm for reading, discussing and writing about literature, you should read on and look at the single subject degree in English as a great education base for your future.  Refer to Arts Omnibus page for subject description.

It is recommended that you have at least Grade C3 in Higher Level Leaving Certificate English.

In your first year (called Stage 1) you take 12 modules over two semesters. You must study core modules in English and typically two or three other subjects including up to two modules from outside the BA Programme area

Stage 2 students progress with a major in English. Students also take foour elective modules from within or outside their main subject area at Stages 2 of their degree programme.
With up to 60 modules, English is one of the widest ranging subjects within the BA and as a result many students choose to take the degree as a single subject.

Stage 1 introduces you to a range of novels, poems and essays; you are shown how to deploy criticism in a dynamic way and to address the relationship between texts and the politics and history of their time. The emphasis is on raising your ability to read literature at a university level.

Stage 2 introduces the medieval world of Old and Middle English. You also take courses in contemporary Drama and contemporary Irish Literature. You can choose options from a wide variety of modules ranging from Shakespeare to Yeats; from Contemporary Fiction to Medieval Humour. Stage 2 expands on your core learning and lets you explore deeper or further across the spectrum of literary creativity with core courses on 19th Century Literature and Culture and American Modernism, amongst others, and a wide range of options from literatures of nations, single-author studies and specific modules dedicated to theory, genre and historical periods (e.g. on Canadian Fiction, Seamus Heaney, the Contemporary Novel and 17th Century Women's Writing).

You may apply to study abroad for either a semester 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 International Office 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.

Graduates in English have found employment as writers and dramatists, and in areas including:

 




  • Journalism and broadcasting

  • Research and administration

  • Civil Service

  • Education

  • Business

  • Advertising and Public Relations

  • Tourism





The UCD School of English, Drama and Film also offers a wide range of master's programmes and opportunities for PhD study.

One year full time MA programmes include:




  • Creative Writing

  • Drama & Performance Studies

  • Film Studies

  • Gender, Sexuality & Culture

  • Irish Literature & Culture

  • Literature & Culture

  • Theatre Practice

  • Writing for Stage & Screen


Stage 3

Students must register to the 2 core modules, Dissertation Research Methods and Dissertation,

3 x 10 credit English option modules and 1 x 5 option credit module.

Module ID Module Title Trimester Credits
Stage 3 Core Modules
     
ENG30970 Dissertation Research Methods Autumn 5
ENG32460 Dissertation Spring 15
Stage 3 Core Modules
     
Stage 3 Options - B)1OF:
Students should choose 1 x 5 credit module
     
ENG32510 Writing Dublin Autumn 5
ENG32520 Ugly Feelings Autumn 5
ENG31780 Contemporary European Crime Fiction Spring 5
ENG32300 Making Shakespeare Spring 5
ENG32310 Climate and Environment in Global Literature Spring 5
Stage 3 Options - B)1OF:
Students should choose 1 x 5 credit module
     
Stage 3 Options - C)MIN3OF:
Students should choose 3 x 10 credit modules.
     
ENG31950 Architecture and Narrative Autumn 10
ENG31960 Apocalypse Then: Old Eng. Lit. Autumn 10
ENG31980 Women and the Novel in Romantic-era Britain Autumn 10
ENG31990 Reading Gender and Sexuality Autumn 10
ENG32050 Reading Joyce Autumn 10
ENG32060 Talking Animals Autumn 10
ENG32070 Medieval Celluloid Autumn 10
ENG32090 Masculinities and Manhood in Irish Writing and Culture Autumn 10
ENG32100 Fin-de-Siecle Autumn 10
ENG32230 Reading Beckett Autumn 10
ENG32340 The Modern Short Story: Critical and Creative Approaches Autumn 10
ENG32490 Seventeenth-Century Women: Texts, Lives, Documents Autumn 10
ENG32560 Writing Black: African American Literature and Racial Consciousness Autumn 10
ENG32580 Staging Conflict and Human Rights Autumn 10
ENG32600 Creative Non-Fiction Autumn 10
ENG32690 Writing Habits Autumn 10
ENG32720 Feminist Theory Autumn 10
ENG31930 Irish Fiction After 2010 Autumn and Spring (separate) 10
ENG32020 Detecting Fictions: the Crime Novel in America, Britain and Ireland Autumn and Spring (separate) 10
ENG32110 Literature and Science Autumn and Spring (separate) 10
ENG32180 Poetry in Performance Autumn and Spring (separate) 10
ENG32270 Pursuits of Happiness: Fictions of America Since 1945 Autumn and Spring (separate) 10
ENG32670 Dark Romanticism Autumn and Spring (separate) 10
ENG31900 Yeats and the Arts Spring 10
ENG31940 Global Science Fiction Spring 10
ENG32080 Social Networks in Fiction: from Jane Austen to Conan Doyle Spring 10
ENG32130 Irish Gothic Spring 10
ENG32200 Sexuality & American Modernism Spring 10
ENG32220 Popular Fiction in Britain Spring 10
ENG32250 Irish Women's Writing Spring 10
ENG32290 Reading Ulysses Spring 10
ENG32380 Sexuality and the State in Irish Drama and Culture Spring 10
ENG32500 Fiction and Financial Crises Spring 10
ENG32590 Memory and Testimony in Performance Spring 10
ENG32640 Girlhood in 21stC American YA Spring 10
ENG32680 Global Renaissance Spring 10
ENG32710 Culture of the1641 Rebellion Spring 10
ENG32730 Literature of Migration Spring 10
ENG32750 Resources,Environment,Climate Spring 10
ENG32760 Life Writing: Text and Self Spring 10
ENG32770 Shakespearean Comedies Spring 10
Stage 3 Options - C)MIN3OF:
Students should choose 3 x 10 credit modules.
     
See the UCD Assessment website for further details

Module Weighting Info  
  Award GPA
Programme Module Weightings Rule Description Description >= <=
BHACS014 Stage 3 - 50.00%
Stage 2 - 50.00%
Standard Honours Award First Class Honours

3.68

4.20

Second Class Honours, Grade 1

3.08

3.67

Second Class Honours, Grade 2

2.48

3.07

Pass

2.00

2.47

BHACS001 Stage 3 - 50.00%
Stage 2 - 50.00%
Standard Honours Award First Class Honours

3.68

4.20

Second Class Honours, Grade 1

3.08

3.67

Second Class Honours, Grade 2

2.48

3.07

Pass

2.00

2.47


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