English Literature and History

English literature and history is an interdisciplinary pairing that places literary texts in their historical contexts and uses literary sources to illuminate historical understanding. English literature examines how writers have used language, narrative and form to represent, interpret and challenge their worlds, and what those representations reveal about the culture in which they were produced. History provides the analytical tools to understand how events, forces and structures have shaped human experience over time.

Studying them together means that you are always asking both what a text means aesthetically and what it means historically, and the two questions enrich each other.

At the University of Westminster you will study English literature and history on a part-time basis, exploring a wealth of literary texts while thinking deeply about the circumstances of their production and reception. You will learn about a range of events, themes and ideas in history and consider the literary and cultural responses to them, developing the ability to read both primary historical sources and literary texts with the interpretive sophistication that each demands. The programme is genuinely interdisciplinary, treating the boundary between literature and history as productive rather than fixed, and the part-time mode allows you to pursue this intellectually rich combination alongside other commitments.

A year abroad is built into the programme, providing the opportunity to engage with different literary and historical traditions in an international academic context.

Graduates work in education, publishing, journalism, the heritage sector, museums and galleries, the civil service, the creative industries and a wide range of roles where strong reading, writing and analytical skills are valued. Many graduates go on to postgraduate study in English literature, history, cultural studies, publishing or education, and the interdisciplinary formation of the degree is a strong foundation for research-level engagement with either discipline. The ability to read complex material carefully and communicate interpretations clearly is among the most versatile of graduate attributes.