English Literature and Philosophy

Our joint honours course allows you to pursue your own areas of interest within English Literature and Philosophy whilst also providing you with a solid foundation in the discipline and a range of personal and professional skills which will serve as a springboard for your future career development. The programme is carefully designed to enable you to gradually develop your knowledge and skills and to become autonomous, effective and independent learners.

English Literature offers you the opportunity to study British and world literatures through a model of progressive specialisation that teaches advanced literary critical skills in the context of periodised, thematised, formal and theoretical modules. In Philosophy, our modules explore how the work of historical philosophers impacts upon debates that are central to contemporary philosophy.

We are Top 10 in the UK: English Literature and Philosophy is ranked 9th in the Guardian Philosophy subject league ranking 2025.