Program Overview

At Bath Spa University many of our undergraduate programmes can be combined, so you don’t have to limit yourself to one subject. If you choose to study a combined award then in Year One you’ll start by studying both subjects in equal depth, then from Year Two you can choose whether to continue with an equally joint course, or a Major/Minor route.

Drama

BA Honours Drama is designed as a liberal arts program which engages with creativity, culture and enterprise, and which seeks to bring into contact academic and industry relationships. It includes collaborations with the subject areas English, Creative Writing, Music and Theatre Production and is underpinned by the themes of collaboration, digital literacy, creativity, employability, research and professional practice.

The focus of the programme is on

• The practical and critical exploration of drama and its place in the contemporary world;
• The effects and benefits of bringing into contact academic, professional and community discourses through partnerships and outward facing
• Collaboration with local theatres, theatre companies, arts venues, and educational and cultural institutions in Bath, Bristol and beyond;
• Working with industry professionals, writers, actors, directors and theatre practitioners from the fields of experimental, educational, professional and community-based theatre and performance;
• The effects and benefits of collaboration between drama and other academic disciplines.

The programme structure locates practice within a framework of ideas, histories and critical concepts and allows you to strategically acquire knowledge, skills and understanding through active participation in processes of research, performance, reflection and evaluation. We offer you strands of study in ensemble performance and performance analysis that include modules in performance skills and performance making. We also offer optional modules in areas such as performance and media, writing for performance, Shakespeare, acting and directing, and theatre for social change.

For those of you who wish to specialise in-depth in a particular area of study, we offer the option of two bespoke pathways: Writing for Performance, and Musical Theatre. The Drama degree thus allows you to choose between a programme with a clear and specialised trajectory, or a programme that provides you with a more open and varied study experience.

English Literature

This programme provides a broad-based education in English Literature that offers you a wide curriculum across historical periods, literary genres, and across disciplines. Under the general rubric of introducing you to ‘English Literature in the World’, the curriculum is defined by interdisciplinarity, internationality, and a literary engagement with worldly issues such environmental crisis and digital technologies. Studying English at Bath Spa you will encounter not only familiar, ‘classic’ writers and texts – Shakespeare, Austen, Joyce – but also the less familiar, such as postcolonial writing, European literatures in translation and modern experimental poetry as well as ‘popular’ genres such as the Gothic and crime fiction.

The variety of modules offered reflects the capaciousness and openness of the discipline, which allows you to choose modules that will develop your own interests and passions whilst encouraging you to find and explore the connections between the different texts, periods, theories and approaches that you will encounter. This interdisciplinary breadth as well as disciplinary depth of the curriculum encourages you to see English Literature as an encompassing rather than an exclusive discipline, and in turn prepare you for a more expansive and inclusive view of the world around you

These interdisciplinary, transnational and digital foci draw on staff expertise in key collaborative areas of research within the College of Liberal Arts. Our established specialisms in Environmental Humanities, Medical Humanities, Material Cultures and Book History directly inform our offering across all three levels.

You can study English Literature in a variety of ways

• Study English Literature as a Single Honours award
• Combine English Literature with another subject as part of a Joint or Major / Minor award

Whichever you choose you will find the English Literature faculty to be enthusiastic, passionate teachers, with a strong commitment to your personal development as a learner, researcher and writer through detailed feedback at every stage of your studies.