English Literature/Philosophy
English literature and philosophy is a pairing that has deep historical roots: the questions philosophers have asked about knowledge, ethics, beauty, and the nature of language have always been in dialogue with the questions writers and readers bring to literary texts. Philosophy sharpens your capacity for rigorous argumentation and conceptual analysis. Literature trains you to read with care and sensitivity, to attend to the particularity of language, and to think about human experience in ways that resist reduction to abstract formula.
Together they develop a mode of intellectual engagement that is both precise and imaginative.
At the University of Glasgow, this four-year full-time programme explores all aspects of literature in English from the early modern period to the present, drawing on the department's strengths in American, Irish, and postcolonial literatures, critical theory, creative writing, and the relationship between literature and other arts, media, and science. The philosophy strand covers logic, ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, and the two disciplines illuminate each other throughout the course. The programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to study in another country and to bring a comparative perspective to your engagement with both literary and philosophical traditions.
A typical tariff of 168 points reflects the intellectual demands of the combined programme at one of the UK's leading research universities. Graduates of English literature and philosophy go on to a wide range of careers, including law, journalism, publishing, education, the civil service, policy, the arts, and further academic study. The combination is particularly valued in careers that require the ability to construct careful arguments, to engage with complex texts, and to communicate ideas with clarity and precision.
Postgraduate study in either discipline, or in fields such as cultural studies, ethics, or philosophy of literature, is a natural next step.