COURSE CURRICULUM

The BA in Art History and English Literature with a Placement Year at UEA is an interdisciplinary degree that explores the powerful relationship between visual culture and literary expression across time, place, and context. The course begins with a Foundation Year designed to build essential academic skills and introduce students to key concepts in the humanities, such as ideology, representation, and historical analysis. From Year 1, students engage directly with artworks and texts, developing critical tools for visual and literary analysis. Core art history modules such as Learning on Site at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and Portraiture and Identity encourage close study of objects and their cultural significance, while English literature modules like Reading Literature in History and Writing Across Borders trace the development of English as a global language shaped by colonialism, migration, and resistance. In Year 2, students begin to shape their academic path through optional modules across both disciplines, allowing for deeper study of specific periods, themes, or creative practices. A compulsory module, Art in the Contemporary World, challenges students to examine how art functions within contemporary society, engaging with museums, identity politics, and the everyday. The third year is spent on a work placement, offering valuable professional experience and a chance to apply academic knowledge in real-world contexts. Students gain practical insights into sectors such as heritage, publishing, and the creative industries. In the final year, students return to complete advanced optional modules and a 9,000-word dissertation based on their own research interests. With opportunities to study subjects like memory, decolonization, gender, and visual storytelling, this degree equips students with a rich, interdisciplinary understanding of how art and literature both reflect and shape the world around us—while building skills in research, communication, and critical thinking essential for a wide range of careers.